A pair of Ladas go wheel to wheel. Still image from LiveLeak video.
For those raised in the West during the Cold War, the Deutsche Demokratische Republic (“DDR,” the official name for East Germany) was often seen as an impoverished and even more oppressed extension of the Soviet Union. Visitors to cities in the DDR (such as East Berlin, perhaps the most tourist-accessible) often came away with bleak images of empty streets and decrepit buildings, some still bearing the scars from Second World War bullets and bombs. Only the occasional Trabant, Warburg or Lada prowled the near-empty streets, but the East German flag (complete with hammer, compass and wreath of rye) flew in nearly every visible window. East Germans, we were told, could hardly afford cars (new or used), and waiting lists for a new Trabant could run as long as 18 years (which made prices for immediately-available used Trabants higher than new models). Framed like this, it was easy to believe that the same freedoms that motorsport enthusiasts enjoyed in the West were entirely absent in the East. While that may have been true for the average East German citizen or family, there were still those who found a way to go racing behind the German version of the Iron Curtain; in fact, it’s fair to say that the former Soviet satellite country had an active motorsport culture in the post-war, pre-unification era.
A residential street in East Berlin, 1981. Note that the flags far outnumber the cars. Photo by author.
That’s not to say that race cars assembled in East Germany were hammered together from home-modified parts in a garage or shed; in fact, from 1978 to 1990, there were no less than 10 makes and models of Touring Cars campaigned in the DDR, and some 14 makes and models of Formula cars spread across series like Formula Skoda, Formula Junior, Formula East, Formula 3 and Formula 4. East Germany even had its own version of Carroll Shelby in the form of Heinz Melkus; like Shelby, Melkus was a former racer turned car constructor, and held the distinction of building the only state-approved sports car in East Germany. Unlike Shelby’s horsepower-rich Cobras, however, Melkus’ RS1000 gullwing coupe was saddled with a 100hp two-stoke engine stuffed in a modified Wartburg 353 chassis. Still, thanks to the car’s light weight, that was enough to produce a top speed of 112 MPH, far beyond the reach of more ordinary East German automobiles.
A Melkus RS1000. Still image from LiveLeak video.
Melkus constructed a little more than 100 RS1000 models throughout the 1970s, and the cars were eligible for competition in a dedicated DDR Touring Car class. Even before the RS1000 was conceived, however, Melkus earned its name as a constructor of formula cars, and its success can be traced in part to Heinz Melkus’s own talents behind the wheel; over the span of some 200 Formula 3 starts, Melkus amassed a total of 80 victories. As open-wheel racing in East Germany evolved over the decades, constructors from Czechoslovakia and the USSR entered the mix, ensuring that competition among drivers in the well-attended (but untelevised, at least in the West) events rivaled that of their counterparts across Europe.
Touring car racing was also a popular form of motorsport, though East German automakers Trabant and Wartburg made up just a small fraction of the cars filling the classes. Other entrants included various Skoda models (built in Czechoslovakia), Ladas (from the USSR), ZCZ / Zastava (also from Yugoslavia). GAZ Volga 24s and Moskvich 412s were campaigned in national championships within the Soviet Union, though it isn’t clear how often such models were raced in East Germany.
Membership in a regional motorsport club was essential to competing in any East German series, and all regional clubs were governed by the Allgemeiner Deutscher Motorsport Verband (ADMV), or German Motorsport Association. Founded in East Berlin in 1957, the ADMV was tasked with overseeing all forms of motorsport in East Germany, including automobile racing, motorcycle racing and even powerboat racing. Some regional clubs (like MC Sachsenring Zwickau) covered both automobile and motorcycle racing, while others (MC Hohenstein-Ernstthal) were dedicated to racing on two wheels only. The net result was that racing in the East was just as regulated and controlled as racing in the West, even if the vehicles campaigned lacked the horsepower and handling of their Western equivalents.
Though racing circuits in East Germany may have lacked the fame of circuits like West Germany’s Nürburgring or France’s Circuit de la Sarthe, there was no shortage of venues to race at. Of tracks in the former DDR, the Sachsenring is likely the best-known, and (like the Nürburgring Nordschleife) can trace its motorsport heritage all the way back to 1927. The Schleizer Dreieck dates back even further, to 1923, and was one of several “three-corner” (Dreieck) tracks in the former East Germany (the others being Frohburger Dreieck and Zschorlauer Dreieck). Hillclimb events were popular, too, run at places like Naumburg, Kyffhäuser, Heuberg, Schwartenburg, Steierberg, Iberg, Adlersburg and Wolfsburg.
The Sachsenring even played host to the East German Grand Prix, a motorcycle race open to competitors from both the East and the West. Getting into East Germany from the West was an eye-opening experience, as documents and vehicles were carefully checked by border patrol guards armed with automatic weapons and oversize German Shepard patrol dogs. Mike Hailwood and Jim Redman told tales of being awarded prize money in East Germany that couldn’t leave the country, necessitating the purchase of things like machine tools that could later be exported to the West and (in theory, anyway) sold at a profit to recover a portion of the winnings. When the gathered crowd sung the West German national anthem (“Deutschlandlied”) following West German rider Dieter Braun’s victory in 1971, steps were taken by the DDR to limit the number of Western riders participating in the event. For that reason, the event was dropped from the Motorcycle Grand Prix World Championship calendar in 1972.
Names like Hartmut Thassler, Ulli Melkus and Hans-Dieter Kessler are known to few motorsport fans in the West, but these (and other) drivers were heroes to those in the East. Thassler, the 1975 East German Formula car champion, had retired from racing by the time the wall fell, but later took up flying as a hobby (something virtually inconceivable in the days of Communist rule). Ulli Melkus, the son of constructor and racer Heinz Melkus, was a superstar driver who’d proven himself racing everything from motorcycles to Formula Easter cars, the East German Equivalent of Formula One. Melkus was the DDR champion in the series in 1976, 1980, 1983, 1984 and 1985, and was awarded the prestigious “Master of Sports” title by the DDR in 1984. It’s likely that he would have gone on to success in the West, too, but his life was cut short in a road accident while returning from the Nürburging in 1990.
Those who question whether the East German drivers had the same level of talent as their West German equivalents should remember the name Hans-Dieter Kessler. The East German star proved adept at racing motocross, touring cars, formula cars and rally cars, and was one of the first drivers invited to compete in the West following the fall of the Berlin Wall. On tracks like the Nürburgring Nordschleife and Hockenheim, Kessler proved every bit as fast as his Western rivals, when given comparable cars to drive.
While the Berlin Wall fell on November 9, 1989, true reunification of East and West Germany would stretch far beyond the “official” date of October 1990. Today, motorsports are prevalent throughout Germany, and tracks once considered “off limits” to Westerners are again hosting international motorsport events. Sadly, not much has been written on the racing heritage of the former East Germany, but what little evidence remains points to one thing: Regardless of political ideology, motorsports provides us with a universal language.
A tip of the hat goes to Justin Shepard of Trabant Forums for his assistance in compiling this article.
