fbpx

Swastika

15. Sep 2021 
by Pierre Van Vliet
3417 views

In February 1939, Rudi Caracciola was bettering all the land speed records on the highway between Dessau and Bitterfeld, reaching 398,230 km/h on the launched kilometer and 399,561 km/h on the mile, aboard a Mercedes W154 equipped of a V12 engine with 468 hp and a specially designed body … featuring … the nazi emblem ! For the prestige of the regime, the best drivers were asked to risk their lives.

The Third Reich indeed was financing the famous Silver Arrows of Mercedes and the Auto Union race cars in the late 30’s. An Auto Union was also specially built for these very high speeds, and the brillant Bernd Rosemeyer (picture below) was killed in January 1938, while chasing these records, in this exercise vain and suicidal, on the highway Francfort-Darmstadt, still under construction.

Source: DR

Leave a comment