Walter Hamelehle

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Walter Hamelehle (also Hammelehle ; born October 21, 1912 in Stuttgart ; † August 11, 1946 ) was a German motorcycle racer .

Life

Born in Stuttgart in 1912 Walter Hamelehle learned after his education the profession of Bauklempners and worked in the body works by Mercedes-Benz in Sindelfingen , where he also lived. He had developed a passion for motorcycles at an early age, which is why he saved up the money for his own racing machine.

1934 he played on his 350 cc - Norton his first race as identification driver and fell while lying second from falling through. A little later, Hamelehle achieved his first victory in the ID driver class in the Solitude race on the Solitude in Stuttgart . In the following years he drew attention to himself on his Norton with victories and consistently good placements directly behind the works drivers . In 1936, Hamelehle was the German runner-up in the 350 class as a private driver behind NSU factory driver Heiner Fleischmann .

That is why he was accepted into the DKW factory team by August Prüssing in 1937 , in which he subsequently started with the likes of Ewald Kluge , Walfried Winkler , Siegfried Wünsche , Bernhard Petruschke and Heiner Fleischmann. The changeover from the English four-stroke to the Zschopau two-stroke was not without problems for Walter Hamelehle. Because the DKW had a significantly lower engine braking effect and was significantly heavier than the air-cooled Norton due to the liquid cooling , which meant that Hamelehle had to change his driving style.

He completed numerous races for DKW. At the beginning of August 1938 he fell at the German Grand Prix at the Sachsenring after a strong performance and suffered a foot injury that forced him to end the season prematurely. A year later, Walter Hamelehle won the German Grand Prix of the 1939 European motorcycle championship in class E (up to 350 cm³) ahead of Velocette pilots Ernie Thomas and Franz-Josef Binder . As all racing activities were discontinued a few weeks later due to the outbreak of World War II , this was the last German Grand Prix victory of the pre-war era.

After the outbreak of war, Walter Hamelehle opened a petrol station with a car repair shop in his adopted home of Metzingen . In August 1946, at the age of 33, he died of cancer .

statistics

title

Race wins

(colored background = European championship run )

year class machine run route
1939 350 cc DKW Grand Prix of Germany Sachsenring

References

literature

  • Steffen Ottinger: DKW motorcycle sport 1920–1939 . From the first victories of the Zschopau two-stroke model at track races to the European championship successes. 1st edition. HB-Werbung und Verlag GmbH & Co. KG, Chemnitz 2009, ISBN 978-3-00-028611-7 , p. 70, 81-82, 96-112, 116 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Hansjörg Meister: Short biographies. www.feldbergrennen.de, accessed on July 4, 2011 .
personal data
SURNAME Hamelehle, Walter
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German motorcycle racer
DATE OF BIRTH October 21, 1912
PLACE OF BIRTH Stuttgart
DATE OF DEATH August 11, 1946