Adolf Rosenberger

Adolf Rosenberger ( born April 8, 1900 in Pforzheim, the son of businessman Simon Rosenberg, † December 6, 1967 when Alan Arthur Robert in Los Angeles, California ) was a German racing driver and businessman.

Race

In the 1920s, Rosenberger ran as privateers with legendary cars like the Benz drop racing car, the Mercedes -Benz SSK, as well as the Mercedes compressor and counted with 23 years of Europe's most successful racers. He won as the Stuttgart Solitude race, the Kassel Herkules hillclimb race three times 1925-1927, and one of the toughest mountain race of those years, the Klausen race. On 11 July 1926, was the Grand Prix of Germany at the Berlin AVUS to a tragic accident when Rosenberger at an overtaking lost control of his vehicle and crashed into the Rundenzähltafel and a timekeeper cottage. While Rosenberger and his passenger injured survive the accident, two students died in the timekeeper house and sign painter at the round table.

Involvement with Porsche

Rosenberger was as a friend of Ferdinand Porsche in 1931 as a partner and commercial director, co-founder of the newly opened design office of Dr. Ing hc F. Porsche GmbH. Its shares were 10 or 15 percent. It is believed that Rosenberger's experience with the equipped with central engine Benz Tropfenwagen had significant influence on the development of the constructed according to the same principle of Auto-Union racing car. Rosenberger had possibly hoped himself to be the driver of started as a Porsche Project No. 22 construction, since the company hikers and the newly formed Auto Union project funded only after the National Socialist government had announced in March 1933 subsidies for involvement in racing. Rosenberger made ​​sure that despite the initial lack of orders and Porsches penchant for expensive constructions, the office survived the initial time financially. He gave the company a shareholder loan amounting to RM 80,000. On 30 January 1933 Rosenberger retired at the urging of Ferry Porsche because of insufficient earnings from again. Hans von Veyder - Malberg took over his GmbH shares and the position of Managing Director.

Arrest and emigration

The National Socialist seizure of power had far more serious consequences for Rosenberger. As a Jew, he was arrested on September 5, 1935 because of " race defilement " and admitted on 23 September from the Pforzheimer detention center on the tube road directly to the concentration camp Kislau. Four days later he was released - Ferdinand Porsche and his son Ferry would later claim that this had happened to their intervention. Rosenberger also known as Robert himself contradicted later this representation. 1936 emigrated Rosenberger in the U.S., there changed his name to Robert Alan Arthur and built himself a new life in California on. After the war, Rosenberger demanded from Porsche a severance payment of $ 200,000 for the removal of its shares at the nominal value and the shareholder loan. They agreed to a settlement of 50,000 marks plus a car. Rosenberger, and Robert died in 1967. His ashes and his wife were buried in the Jewish cemetery in New York.

Other important Jewish racing designers of his time were Josef Ganz, Siegfried Marcus and Edmund Rumpler.