Peter Günther (cyclist)

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Peter Günther (1909)
Günther behind Heinrich Otto

Peter Günther (born August 29, 1882 in Betzdorf an der Sieg; † October 7, 1918 in Düsseldorf ) was a German racing cyclist .

biography

Peter Günther grew up in Betzdorf and was a trained mechanic. When he got a job at Allright , he moved to Cologne . The company was founded by the former cyclist Georg Sorge . With the promotion Günther 1901 began his racing career, first as an amateur - Sprinter . At the Cologne championship in August 1902, he beat his local rival Willy Schmitter , with whom he also rode in tandem races.

From 1903 Günther started as a professional in the then lucrative standing races . His pacemaker was Heinrich Otto, who worked as a master at the Allright factory and built him a leading motorcycle. Already on June 7th of this year there was a fall during a race in front of a home crowd on the Radrennbahn in Cologne-Riehl , in which Günther was critically injured. Although Günther recovered after several months, he often drove races with pain and needed a specially built saddle. Since then he has considered the number seven to be the unlucky number and he even avoided exercising on the seventh day of the month. He only overcame this superstition with his victory on July 7, 1907 at the Cologne Gold Cup. In the course of his further career he fell several times, at least twice very seriously. He also started a race in Cologne on October 7, 1913, in which the racing driver Richard Scheuermann and his pacemaker Gus Lawson were killed, but this time he was uninjured.

Günther's initial friendship with Schmitter gave way to a rivalry; the Cologne cycling fans split into a "Schmitter" and a "Günther party". The pacemakers of the two drivers, who additionally fueled this opposition, tried at the “Grand Prix of the Rhine” in 1904 to push each other away. The driver and pacemaker fell, but everyone involved was unharmed. The “Schmitter Party”, which was in the majority, then blamed Heinrich Otto, and Günther lost some sympathy in Cologne. Willy Schmitter had a fatal accident in a race in Leipzig in 1905.

Three times - in 1905, 1911 and 1912 - Günther became German champions together with Otto, in 1911 (unofficial) world champions and in 1914 European champions. 59 victories between 1906 and 1910 made him the third most successful German driver in terms of prize money. In 1907 he married his wife Wanda (1885–1963). The marriage remained childless. In May 1910, he opened the “Café Günther” at Bischofsgartenstrasse 8 in Cologne (where the “Hotel Mondial” is today).

During the First World War , Peter Günther was called up to a motor vehicle battalion, but after a while he was on leave to work in arms production at the Cito works in Cologne . This enabled him to continue racing.

On October 6, 1918, Günther fell on the Düsseldorf Radrennbahn and died a day later at the age of 36. The magazine Rad-Welt wrote "[...] the old master of the Rhenish long-term drivers" had "followed his compatriot Schmitter into that empire from which no mortal returns".

After Günther's death, his pacemaker Heinrich Otto moved to Berlin and ran a restaurant there. He died seven years after Peter Günther.

Commemoration

Grave monument for Peter Günther in the south cemetery in Cologne

In November 1919, a gravestone in the form of a sarcophagus, which was created by the sculptor Franz Brantzky , was unveiled above Peter Günther's grave in Cologne's southern cemetery . The rush for the unveiling was so great that many people had to walk back to the city center on foot, even though additional trams had been used. The celebrations concluded with a requiem in the Church of St. Aposteln , also in honor of Schmitter. Günther's widow Wanda outlived her husband by almost 50 years.

In Cologne-Müngersdorf the Peter-Günther-Weg at the Radstadion Köln reminds of him, in his birthplace Betzdorf a street. In addition, the cycling clubs RRC "Günther 1921" eV Köln-Longerich and the RSC 1984 eV "Peter Günther" Betzdorf bear his name.

literature

  • Fredy Budzinski: Taschen-Radwelt , Berlin 1921.
  • Peter Lindlein: Peter Günther - racing cyclist. A world champion from Betzdorf , Betzdorf Digital Library 2006 (digitized version ; PDF; 1.5 MB).

Web links

Commons : Peter Günther  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f Renate Franz : Peter Günther. In: rheinische-geschichte.lvr.de. April 11, 2011, accessed June 26, 2016 .
  2. ^ Verlag der Radwelt (ed.): Sport album of the Rad world . Strauss-Verlag, Berlin 1920, p. 84 .
  3. ↑ Cycling. Official body of the BDR . Bielefeld. No. 51/1959. P. 8
personal data
SURNAME Günther, Peter
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German racing cyclist
DATE OF BIRTH August 29, 1882
PLACE OF BIRTH Betzdorf
DATE OF DEATH October 7, 1918
Place of death Dusseldorf