page_title: Bernd Rosemeyer
section_title: Career
hierarchical_section_title: Bernd Rosemeyer / Career
caption_attribution_description: For documentary purposes the German Federal Archive often retained the original image captions, which may be erroneous, biased, obsolete or politically extreme. Rudolf Caracciola, Bernd Rosemeyer "Der große Preis von Ungarn" in Budapest. Caracciola und Rosemeyer in der Kurve Hs.o.Nr. [Budapest.- Rennfahrer Rudolf Caracciola im Mercedes-Benz W125 "Silberpfeil" und Bernd Rosemeyer im Auto Union Typ D auf der Rennstrecke] Abgebildete Personen: Rosemeyer, Bernd: Automobilrennfahrer, verheiratet mit Elli Beinhorn, Deutschland Caracciola, Rudolf: Automobilrennfahrer, Deutschland Information added by Wikimedia users.English: Rudolf Caracciola (in front) Bernd Rosemeyer racing at the 1936 Hungarian Grand Prix.
context_page_description: Bernd Rosemeyer was a German racing driver and a member of the SS. He held the rank of a Hauptsturmführer.
context_section_description: His father owned an auto & moto garage and repair shop Rosemeyer & Co sur Bahnhofstraße, where young Rosemeyer worked on motorcycles and cars. Having started by racing motorbikes, Rosemeyer became a member of the Auto Union racing team with hardly any experience in racing cars. This was later considered a benefit as he was not yet used to the handling of traditional layout race cars. The Ferdinand Porsche-designed mid-engined Silver Arrows of Auto Union were fast, but hard to drive, and only he, Tazio Nuvolari and to a lesser extent Hans Stuck truly mastered the 500 bhp (370 kW) machines. Rosemeyer was also a very skilled mechanic, so, like Hermann Lang of Mercedes, he was able to give good technical feedback to Dr. Porsche and development engineer Eberan von Eberhorst to further develop the Auto Union cars and set his cars up for races to make them quicker and easier to drive.
  In only his second ever Grand Prix, at the daunting Nürburgring, Rosemeyer took the lead from the great Rudolf Caracciola and was almost in sight of the finish line when he missed a gear and was overtaken. However, in subsequent years he made up for this mistake by winning three consecutive races at the Nürburgring, one famously in thick fog. Later in 1935 he won his first Grand Prix at the Brno Masaryk Circuit in Czechoslovakia.
  Whilst on the podium in 1935 at the Czechoslovakian Grand Prix he was introduced to the famous aviatrix Elly Beinhorn. Their celebrity relationship was too good an opportunity to miss for the Nazi Party. Rosemeyer and Beinhorn were exalted and instrumentalized by the Nazi Party to the ideal German celebrity couple of that time.
  Several sensational Grand Prix motor racing victories in 1936 and 1937 (also in the Vanderbilt Cup in the USA) made him popular not only in Germany. He won the European driving championship in 1936. Of the twelve Grand Prix contested in 1937 between Mercedes and Auto Union, Rosemeyer won four of Auto Union's five victories against Mercedes's formidable new W125. Rosemeyer's superlative performances that year cemented him alongside Rudolf Caracciola and Tazio Nuvolari as three of the greatest drivers of 1930s Grand Prix racing.
  His marriage to Beinhorn added even more celebrity hype. It also made it possible for him to learn to fly a private plane. Before a testing session, he once used a now-defunct airfield next to the Flugplatz section of the Nürburgring as a landing strip, and rolled his plane to the pits via the race track - in the opposite direction.
  His son Bernd, Jr. was born in November 1937, only ten weeks before his death.
  Rosemeyer considered 13 to be his lucky number. He was married on 13 July 1936. 13 days later he won the German Grand Prix at the Nürburgring. His last Nürburgring victory came on 13 June 1937. His last race victory came at his 13th start of the 1937 season at Donington Park.
caption: Budapest, Hungary 1936: Rudolf Carraciola in front of Bernd Rosemeyer
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