Peter Steffes

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Peter Steffes (1931)

Peter Steffes (born May 5, 1907 in Herbesthal , † around 1992 in Cologne ) was a German racing cyclist .

In 1926 Peter Steffes and the RC Adler Cologne team , consisting of himself as well as Paul Oszmella , Mathias Engel , Viktor Rausch and Jean Schorn Jr., became German champions in the team pursuit . In 1927 he took third place in the amateur sprint at the UCI track world championships in 1927 in Cologne . He became a professional in 1930, won the German sprint championship title in 1930 and 1931 and stood on the podium in each of the following years until 1936.

After the end of his active cycling career, Steffes also worked as a manager. By selling smuggled goods and Jewish property from France together with Werner Miethe from Berlin , he is said to have achieved prosperity during the war and through black market trading after the war. Finally he founded a vending machine company in Cologne and enjoyed racing horses as a hobby.

In 1989 Steffes and his wife Trude were interviewed for the film "In search of Albert Richter ". Richter, like Steffes a track cyclist from Cologne, had become the amateur sprint world champion in 1932. In 1940 he died under unexplained circumstances in the Lörrach prison ; he was allegedly killed by the Gestapo . Richter had smuggled foreign currency out of Cologne for a Jewish friend and was caught doing it. During investigations in 1966, Steffes was named as one of several people who were suspected of betraying judges to the Gestapo. The reason for this betrayal was assumed that Steffes would have liked to look after Richter, who, however, still allowed himself to be managed by the Jew Ernst Berliner , who had emigrated abroad , and an arrest of Richter at the border could have served as leverage. In this interview, in which Trude Steffes referred to Berliner as a "bastard", the Steffes couple were the only ones among Richter's circle of friends who insisted on the allegation made by the Nazi sports leadership that Richter had committed suicide in prison . Richter was a "good, decent, naive boy" who "lost his nerve". Trude Steffes: “Unfortunately we heard that he had been released and needn't have had any worries. That was confirmed to us at the time. ”Richter's family, Ernst Berliner and other friends, however, always vehemently excluded suicide as a cause of death.

Trivia

Steffes was the donor of the honorary award for the winners of the traditional Silver Eagle of Cologne track race , a two-man team event for amateurs.

Individual evidence

  1. Renate Franz : The forgotten world champion , Bielefeld 2007, p. 140f. ISBN 978-3936973341
  2. ^ Franz: The forgotten world champion , p. 141
  3. ^ Association of German cyclists (ed.): Radsport . No. 50/1967 . Deutscher Sportverlag Kurt Stoof, Cologne 1967, p. 3 .

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