Sigrud Knubben

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Sigrud Knubben (* 1939 in Essen ; † July 14, 1962 on the Gotthard massif in Switzerland ) was a German motorboat racer . In 1957, at the age of 19, she became the first woman to win the German championship in motor boating, which had been dominated by men . In the following five years she was the only woman to take part in national and international motorboat races with great success and set several world records in 1960 and 1961 .

Life and athletic career

Sigrud Knubben was the daughter of the motorsport enthusiast automobile dealer Josef "Johnny" Knubben from Essen, who became European champion in the field of outboard sports boats in 1950, 1956 and 1958 . She worked as an authorized signatory in her father's automobile business .

At the age of 17, Sigrud Knubben began to accompany her father in the racing boat and soon achieved success in sport on his own. At the German Championship of Motor Boats ("Grand Prix of the ADAC ") on the Rhine near Düsseldorf , she won in 1957 at the age of 19 with the outboard sports boats in the SJ and JU classes. At the European Championships in 1958 on the Baldeneysee in Essen, she stood by her father in the boat as a “lubricant” when he won his third European title with her. In 1960 Sigrid Knubben was again German champion in two classes for outboard sports boats. In 1960 and 1961, Knubben set a number of world records in sport and racing boats and won numerous international prizes.

At competitions in Italy on Lake Sabaudia in 1961, Sigrud Knubben was the first woman in the world to set three boat world records: in class CU with 81 km / h, in class J with 91 km / h and in class BS at 95 km / h. At that time, Sigrud Knubben was, alongside Wolfgang Klein and Dieter Hellwig, a member of an extremely successful team led by the German industrialist Rolf Friedrich Goetze from Burscheid , who himself designed the high-performance engines for his world record boats.

The media interest in Sigrud Knubben was great at the time. "Sigi" Knubben's sporting successes were regularly reported in the daily press, in sports magazines, on television and in the cinema newsreels . In the reports she was portrayed with admiration because of her daring, her courage and her technical ability as an exceptional West German woman and “fast girl”. In 1957, the ADAC member magazine Motorwelt described Sigrud Knubben as “the type of modern sports girl with a lot of heart, charm and courage”. In asterisk no. 34, the former children's supplement of the weekly magazine Stern , published on August 22, 1959 article about Sigrud Knubben, and she was in large format shown with their boat on the title page.

In the television film of the WDR Flussgeschichten - der Rhein , which was broadcast for the first time in 2015 , a three-minute original excerpt from the television program Here and Today can be seen with an interview of the young sportswoman from 1961.

Sigrud Knubben was only 23 years old. She was killed on July 14, 1962 in the crash of a German touring plane on the flight from Cologne to Nice on the Gotthard massif between Disentis and Andermatt, together with her team boss RF Goetze and four other people.

To commemorate her, a challenge cup was announced in the CU class in 1963, which was won in the first year by the Dutchman Joop Linnenbank .

Sporting successes (selection)

  • 1957 German champion in the SJ class
  • 1957 German champion in the JU class
  • 1960 German champion in the SC class
  • 1960 German champion in the CU class
  • 1961 Victory at the Grand Prix in Namur in the class up to 500 cm³
  • 1961 world record class CU
  • 1961 world record class J
  • 1961 world record class BS

Honors

  • 1963 Challenge Cup for the CU class (in memory of them)

Movies

  • New German newsreel from October 4, 1957
  • River stories: The Rhine - From Koblenz to Cologne (swimmers, raftsmen, speedboat drivers), film by Thomas Förster, WDR 2015

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ European champions in motorboat sports on sport-komplett.de
  2. ↑ a b c d World record holder among the victims , article by ER, Hamburger Abendblatt , July 17, 1962
  3. ↑ a b German champions in motorboat sports on sport-komplett.de
  4. ^ Film report in the Neue Deutsche Wochenschau from October 4, 1957, Filmothek des Bundesarchivs , article about S. Knubben from approx. 09:15 to 10:15
  5. ^ Report in the magazine ADAC Motorwelt, No. 8 from August 1, 1958, page 407
  6. ^ Report in the magazine ADAC Motorwelt, No. 7 from July 1, 1961, page 552
  7. ↑ Uta Schwarz: Wochenschau, West German identity and gender in the fifties , Campus Verlag, 2002, ISBN 9783593368733 , page 271
  8. ^ Report in the magazine ADAC Motorwelt, No. 11 from November 1, 1957, page 629
  9. ↑ Supplement “ Sternchen ” to issue No. 34 of August 22, 1959 on sammlerforen.net, p. 15
  10. ↑ Video "Flussgeschichten - Der Rhein" , WDR Cologne , 2015, ARDmediathek , article about S. Knubben from about 00:27 to 00:30 (available until May 25, 2016)
  11. Jump up in the Gotthard massif , Hamburger Abendblatt, July 16, 1962
  12. ↑ Report about the crash on aviation-safety.net
  13. ^ Report in the magazine ADAC Motorwelt, No. 9 of September 1, 1963, page 927
  14. ↑ a b c d List of German champions on motorbootwelt.de
  15. ↑ Small sports reports , Hamburger Abendblatt of August 22, 1961
personal data
SURNAME Knubben, Sigrud
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Knubben, Sigrid; Knubben, Sigurd; Knubben, Sigi
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German motorboat racer, multiple German champion and world record holder
DATE OF BIRTH 1939
PLACE OF BIRTH eat
DATE OF DEATH July 14, 1962
Place of death Gotthard massif , Switzerland