Book Review: Hitler’s Motor Racing Battles -The Silver Arrows under the Swastika
This is a fascinating and very well written account of the politics behind the extraordinary Auto Union and Mercedes ” Silver Arrows ” grand prix cars of the 1930s.
Eberhard Reuss is a German motor sport journalist and he certainly does not spare the rod when dealing with all the unpleasant characters involved in this ghastly period of history. Many of the accounts of the Silver Arrows tend to lightly brush over the Nazi connections, along the lines of ” we went motor racing and boy were we successful and now you mention it there were some strange men with funny uniforms in pit lane but they weren’t with us “. Reuss is quite the opposite.
Very few of the personailities involved escapes lightly from his analysis. Some of the key personalities who emerged into high level motor sport positions in the post war period and who have suffered amnesia about their Nazi affiliations get the Reuss “outing ” treatment.
Overall it is fascinating albeit chilling reading and compared with some of the people involved in that era messrs Ecclestone and Mosley seem positively warm and cuddly.
Hitler’s Motor Racing Battles -The Silver Arrows under the Swastika, by Eberhard Reuss, is available from Amazon.com for US$36.46
