Reichsfahrt
In the early days of the automobile spread, Reichsfahrten were taken to mean annual motor vehicle journeys along prescribed routes within the German Reich . The Reichsfahrten carried out between 1921 and 1933 by the General German Automobile Club (ADAC) . Motorcycles also took part in the multi-day events.
The Reichsfahrten enjoyed a high level of attention among the population and in press coverage. On the one hand, they served to advertise the young German car and motor industry - especially abroad. On the other hand, Reichsfahrten - in addition to the "Trip around Lake Constance", the "Brockenfahrt", the "Gabelbachprüfung", the "International Klausen Race Switzerland", the "Reichsfahrten" organized by the German national right-wing organization Stahlhelm and the numerous "Berg- "And" Alpenfahrten "- the first tests for series automobiles and were thus a basis for purchasing decisions of wealthy customers. A distinction was made between reliability drives, where it was a question of whether a vehicle could withstand the load, and utility and economy drives , where oil and gasoline consumption as well as tire and brake wear played a role in particular. In this sense, Reichsfahrten were not car races either, but rather resembled rallies , everyday or stress tests.
In neighboring Austria, these competitions were called Alpenfahrten and took place before the Reichsfahrten, namely from 1910.
The Reichsfahrt 1924
The car was part of the street scene in the mid-1920s and was viewed by many as a "commodity", "which [...] requires at least a decade of service life at full performance". The Reichsfahrten provided evidence of this robustness. The first published in autumn 1924 the magazine Der Herrenfahrer (“Das Blatt vom Auto und other Genuss des Lebens”) dedicates its leading article to the Reichsfahrt 1924 “The sharpest ordeal of all previous German motor vehicle competitions” and called it “the conclusion and crown of the sporty automobile year”. In contrast to the Alpine journey and the “higher stress on the machine” there, what counted in the Reichsfahrt was “the length of the route and the sharpness of the speed”.
Typically, the drivers covered 500 km a day. Depending on the class, different average speeds were stipulated, for example for "small motorcycles and small cars up to 5 helm horses [meaning horsepower] an average speed of 40, for large motorcycles and 6-10 helm-powered cars an average speed of 50 kilometers an hour". Maintaining this speed over the four days meant accelerating on the "holey" country roads to a "hellish speed of 100–130 kilometers per hour on every reasonably usable straight" because of the "countless town crossings".
The author of the article (with the pseudonym “Autolycus”) repeatedly points out the competitiveness of the German automobile manufacturers and a specialty: “Our small, German engines ran wonderfully”, while “The foreign country [...] only strong in this performance Cars with large engines and correspondingly high consumption ”.
The "light motorcycles" were allowed to use shortcuts at the ADAC Reichsfahrten and therefore covered 500 km less than cars and large motorcycles in this competition. Of 36 light motorcycles, 22 reached the destination - for the author, proof that the era of large motorcycles is drawing to a close. “With heavy motorcycles [...] the tare is in a sense too big. In general, a speed of more than 80 kilometers cannot be reached, and a moped can do this. ”Of the 29 heavy motorcycles that started in Eisenach, 19 reached the destination in Hanover, of the 42 that started 34, including three“ Amor ” (with vehicles equipped with French Peugeot engines, only the bodyworked in German) ”, three Opels with 4 HP, five Hansa , one Stoewer , two Presto , one“ 10/40 HP Mercedes ”, three N.A.G. and one Horch .
Most of the drivers were professionals. All the more noticed “a private driver, mountain assessor C. Dellmann” from Kurl , who was the first to arrive at the destination in the strongest car class with his “10/40 PS NAG sports car”. “This success of one of our best gentlemen's drivers is all the more highly valued as an amateur succeeded in driving an ordinary production vehicle that had tens of thousands of kilometers under the tires, all the fierce competition from professional drivers, who of course with brand new cars had come to strike from the field. "
Chronology of the ADAC Reichsfahrten
| meeting | title | route |
|---|---|---|
| 03-07 October 1921 | Berlin - Heidelberg | |
| 03-07 October 1922 | East German tour | Leipzig - Berlin |
| July 19-22, 1923 | South German tour | Meiningen - Stuttgart |
| September 10-13, 1924 | Baltic-North Sea trip | Nuremberg - Hanover (probably originally planned for August 28–31, 1924) |
| September 04-08, 1925 | Frankfurt a. M. - Munich route: Frankfurt-Augsburg, Augsburg Zell am See, Zell am See, Bad Ischl, Munich |
|
| September 23–5, 1927 | Berlin - Adenau | |
| June 18–24, 1928 | Imperial and Alpine Tour | Wernigerode - Heidelberg route: Wernigerode – Görlitz – Plauen – Ischl – Meran – Lucerne – Heidelberg |
| May 9-14, 1932 | 8. Reichsfahrt | Bad Pyrmont - Bad Kissingen |
| May 02-06, 1933 | 9. Reichsfahrt | Eisenach - Heidelberg |
Individual evidence
- ^ ADAC archive, Munich
- ↑ A plaque from the “Stahlhelmbund 2. Reichsfahrt 1930. Der Stahlhelm am Rhein” indicates that there must have been at least two competitions called “Reichsfahrt” not organized by the ADAC.
- ^ "Der Herrenfahrer" was published by the Almanach Kunstverlag, Berlin. The report on the Reichsfahrt is on pages I – VII
- ↑ Presto advertises full-page in the first edition of Herrenfahrer and refers to the three-time victory in the Reichsfahrten 1922–1924: “Presto the reliable car for mountains a. Level"