Richard von Frankenberg

Richard von Frankenberg (second from right) with Jean Behra , Fritz Huschke von Hanstein and Edgar Barth

Richard von Frankenberg competed in many sports car races on a Porsche 550

Richard Alexander Ruthard Edi Wolf Eberhard von Frankenberg and Ludwigsdorff (* 4. March 1922 in Darmstadt ; † 13. November 1973 in Beilstein ) was a German racing driver of the 1950s to Porsche - sports cars . He also achieved great fame as a motorsport journalist and television presenter. He published about National Socialism under pseudonyms.

family

He came from the old Silesian noble family von Frankenberg and was the son of the writer Alex-Victor von Frankenberg and Ludwigsdorff (1892–1957) and Irene-Konstanze von Brauchitsch (1897–1966). He spent his childhood in Kirchberg / Jagst. The family then lived in Tübingen . In 1933 his father was banned from working as a “Jewish mixed race” and was even supposed to be liquidated in the spring of 1945. However, the Tübingen university professor Eduard Kern helped him to flee. On the night of the pogrom in 1938 , Richard von Frankenberg risked photographing the burning synagogue in Tübingen after mingling with the Nazi people.

At the age of 16 Richard von Frankenberg successfully participated in motorcycle reliability rides and at the age of 17 he became Germany's youngest licensed motorcycle rider. After graduating from high school in 1939, von Frankenberg studied mechanical engineering at the Technical University of Munich and Stuttgart , interrupted by the Reich Labor Service . In 1942 he was drafted into the Wehrmacht. During the Ardennes offensive in 1944 he probably succeeded in deserting the British troops. In England, because of his anti-Nazi attitude, he was employed in the German-language service of the BBC.

Frankenberg's first marriage was Edith Neumann (1919–1998). The marriage, from the son Donald (* 1951) and daughter Stephanie (* 1953), was divorced in 1960. In 1960 he married Margarita Spohn (1939–1961) in his second marriage. In 1962 he married Helga Brandenburg (* 1935). From this marriage comes their son Cypselus (* 1965). The marriage ended in divorce in 1969. In 1971 he married Brigitte Müller (* 1942).

Life

In the post-war period, his motorsport career began on a 500 cc BMW . From 1951 he was successful in rallying and circuit racing with a Porsche . From 1953 to 1960 he was part of the Porsche works team .

In 1951 he took part in world record drives in a Porsche 356 in Montlhéry in France . Class wins at the Mille Miglia in 1954 and 1955 followed. With Porsche he achieved class wins at Le Mans in 1953 , 1955 and 1956 and also won the index ranking in 1955. In the same year he became German racing car champion in the Porsche Spyder . On December 11, 1955, Federal President Theodor Heuss awarded him the Silver Laurel Leaf .

Frankenberg became famous in 1956 when he was catapulted out of the steep bank curve of the Berlin AVUS in his Porsche Spyder at 180 km / h and survived.

Von Frankenberg accompanied his active career as a journalist and book author. In 1952 he founded the Porsche customer magazine "Christophorus", of which he was editor-in-chief until his death. He was a long-time sports editor for “Auto, Motor und Sport” and published over 30 books on motorsport and the history of the automobile.

With the biography he wrote about Ferdinand Porsche , published under the pseudonym Herbert A. Quint in 1952, Frankenberg sparked the so-called priority dispute over the Volkswagen concept. According to the description contained in the book, the concept could only be attributed to Porsche, but in the course of a trial at the Mannheim District Court with a judgment in July 1955, it turned out that essential elements had already been considered by Béla Barényi in the mid-1920s and early 1930s. Frankenberg was the defendant in the process and was unsuccessful.

From the mid-1960s, he also worked as a television presenter.

In 1959 he was president of the "German Sports Driver Circle" (DSK). In 1970 he founded the “German Auto Museum Schloss Langenburg ” together with Kraft Fürst zu Hohenlohe .

Under the pseudonym Alexander Borelius Richard von Frankenberg published two historical-philosophical treatises on National Socialism with Rowohlt in 1946 and 1947. For the "turning points of the war" of 1950, a military history representation of the Second World War, he chose the pseudonym Herbert A. Quint. Under the same name he published the first German-language Hitler biography after the Second World War in 1952 (together with Walter Görlitz). In 1973 Richard von Frankenberg died through no fault of his own in a traffic accident on the autobahn near Stuttgart.

Honors

• Paul Frère Prize , Belgium (1973)
• Silver bay leaf 1955

statistics

Le Mans results

year	team	vehicle	Teammate	placement	Failure reason
1953	Porsche KG	Porsche 550 Coupe	Paul Brother	15th place and class win
1954	Porsche KG	Porsche 550 1500 Spyder	Glöckler helmet	failure	Engine failure
1955	Porsche KG	Porsche 550 1500 Spyder	Helmut Polensky	4th place and class win
1956	Porsche KG	Porsche 550 RS Coupé	Wolfgang von Trips	5th place and class win
1957	Porsche KG	Porsche RS 718	Hans Herrmann	failure	ignition
1958	Porsche KG	Porsche 718 RSK	Claude Storez	failure	accident

Individual results in the sports car world championship

season	team	race car	1	2	3	4th	5	6th	7th
1953	Porsche	Porsche 550 Porsche 356	SEB	MIM	LEM	SPA	ONLY	RTT	CAP
					15th		DNF
1954	Porsche	Porsche 356	BUA	SEB	MIM	LEM	RTT	CAP
					29	DNF
1955	Porsche	Porsche 356 Porsche 550	BUA	SEB	MIM	LEM	RTT	TAR
					21st	4th	16
1956	Porsche William Buff	Porsche 550	BUA	SEB	MIM	ONLY	KRI
						6th	8th
1957	Porsche	Porsche 550	BUA	SEB	MIM	ONLY	LEM	KRI	CAR
						7th	DNF
1958	Porsche	Porsche 550	BUA	SEB	TAR	ONLY	LEM	RTT
						6th	DNF

literature

• Donald von Frankenberg : Richard von Frankenberg. Full throttle through life. Delius Klasing, Bielefeld 2009, ISBN 978-3-7688-2655-6 .
• Hans Dieter Haller: Richard von Frankenberg (1922 to 1973). In: Hans Dieter Haller: Pegasus in the country. Writer in Hohenlohe (= publications on local history and local history in Württembergisch Franconia. Vol. 25). Baier, Crailsheim 2006, ISBN 3-929233-62-2 , pp. 194-201.
• Genealogical handbook of noble houses. Volume 17: Noble houses A (= Genealogical Manual of the Nobility. Vol. 81, ISSN  0435-2408 ). Starke, Limburg an der Lahn 1983.
• Harry Niemann: Béla Barényi, Nestor of Passive Safety. A biographical and automotive technical documentation of the safety development in the automotive industry. Mercedes-Benz AG, Stuttgart-Untertürkheim 1994, p. 89: Priority dispute .
• Harry Niemann: Béla Barényi. Safety technology made by Mercedes-Benz. Motorbuch-Verlag, Stuttgart 2002, ISBN 3-613-02274-5 .

Web links

Commons : Richard von Frankenberg  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Richard von Frankenberg in the catalog of the German National Library
• Literature list in the online catalog of the Berlin State Library
• Short biography (French) with photo ( Memento from June 21, 2006 in the Internet Archive )
• Website "Deutsches Auto-Museum Schloss Langenburg" with photo ( memento from March 9, 2005 in the Internet Archive )
• Family tree Irene von Brauchitsch on A large family - your family tree on the Internet

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Bernd Grün: The rector as a guide? The University of Freiburg i. Br. From 1933 to 1945 (= Freiburg contributions to the history of science and universities. NF vol. 4). Alber, Freiburg (Breisgau) 2010, ISBN 978-3-495-49607-7 , pp. 268–346, here p. 633 (also: Freiburg (Breisgau), Universität, Dissertation, 2006).
2. ↑ Information given to the Bundestag by the Federal Government on September 29, 1973, printed matter 7/1040, Annex 3, pages 54 ff., Here page 68