by John Heitmann in The Automobile and American Life 2015 and by Tony Kaye 1 January 2022
Adolf Rosenberger was born in about 1901 in the city of Pforzheim, which is about 20 miles from Stuttgart in southwest Germany.
During the 1920s he raced as a wealthy private entrant with considerable success, particularly in hill climbs. According to Hans Etzrodt’s ‘Hill Climb Winners’ website, Rosenberger made fastest time of day at Pforzheim (1925), Herkules-Kassel (1925, 1926 and 1927), Baden-Baden (1925), Eibsee Berstrasse (1926), Hohe Wurzel (1926 and 1927), Schauinsland (1927), Klausenpass (1927) and Semmering (1927).
Prior to 1927 all but one of these wins were achieved in Mercedes, the exception being the 1925 Herkules hill climb in which he drove a Benz Tropfenwagen, a car which became a major influence on the rest of his life. At Semmering in 1927 he was at the wheel of a recently introduced Mercedes-Benz ‘S’ type.
His competition activities were by no means limited to hill climbs, he also took part in races.
The first Rund um Solitude race meeting took place in 1925. In a 5-lap, 112 km race for sportscars up to 8 (tax) hp Rosenberger not only won in a 2-litre Benz Tropfenwagen, he also recorded the fastest lap. There were seven other cars in his class, mostly Duerkopps and Bugattis.
Rosenberger entered his 1,5 litre Mercedes in the 1925 Taunus Cup race in the Homburg district where the 1904 Gordon Bennett race and the 1907 Kaiserspreis had been held. Despite the presence of three works Mercedes, he made the fastest lap of the 270-mile race. Nonetheless, the winner was August Momberger in a 1.3 litre supercharged NSU.
There were two races at the Solitude circuit in 1926, one for racing cars over 20 laps and one for sportscars over 15 laps (334 km). Rosenberger took part in the latter in a field of 21 cars in the 1501-2000 cc class. He drove a supercharged Mercedes, but it was not to be his day, as he retired on lap 6 with engine problems.
The inaugural German Grand Prix was held in 1926 at Avus. Rudolf Caracciola and Adolf Rosenberger drove 2-litre ‘Monza’ Mercedes, though neither was an official works entry. The nearly three-hour race was marked by torrential rain and numerous accidents. At the start Rosenberger took the lead, but the tank of ether that he used to facilitate starting began to leak during the race and as he lent out of the cockpit for fresh air, the car slid on the wet road surface and crashed at over 90 mph into a roadside scoring hut. Rosenberger, who had still been in the lead at the time, was not injured, but a timer and two young students in the hut were killed and eleven other people were injured, among them Rosenberger’s mechanic. No more races were held at Avus until 1931.
July 17 1927 was a momentous day for German motor racing, it marked the first German Grand Prix to be held at the recently-opened Nurburgring. It was a race for sports cars and seven of the new Mercedes S 6.8 litre supercharged cars took part including Rosenberger’s which, at the raising of the flag, darted from the second row of the grid to take the lead. However, on lap 9 of the 18-lap race his engine failed and he was forced to retire.
In September 1929 Rosenberger ventured south of the Alps for a race in Italy. The Gran Premio di Monza consisted of three heats and a final, with each race consisting of 22 laps. He started in the third heat against three other cars, but engine maladies in his Grand Prix Mercedes forced him to retire on the fourth lap. August Momberger won the race in a Mercedes SS. The retirement in a heat meant that he was ineligible to take part in the final even if the fault had been rectified.
Adolf Rosenberger undoubtedly took part in many other hill climbs and races, which have not been unearthed by our research.
In late 1930 Ferdinand Porsche established the Porsche Design Company which eventually led to the development of the Volkswagen and the Auto Union Grand Prix cars. There were three partners, Porsche himself, his son-in-law Anton Piëch and Adolf Rosenberger, who was to be the business manager. The initial capitalization of the company was 30,000 RM, with Ferdinand Porsche contributing 24,000RM, Anton Piech 3,000RM and Adolf Rosenberger 3,000RM.
Rosenberger had a significant influence on the project which would become the Auto Union racing car, not only in setting up the project, but also in its innovative design with the engine behind the river. He had driven the 1923 "Benz Tropfenwagen", which was arguably the first successful rear-engined racer, and that experience made him a keen proponent of the layout. He was directly involved in the company’s design of the Auto Union.
In November 1932 a calculation sheet came into being, handwritten by Karl Rabe, based on facts discussed by Dr. Porsche, Josef Kales, Adolf Rosenberger and Rabe. The sheet quite accurately set out the basic technical data for the future Auto-Union racing car; A V-16 engine, with cylinders set at an included angle of 45 degrees; maximum rpm at first 4,500 (to be increased later to 6,000), maximum speed of 182 mph, bore 68, stroke 75 mm, cubic capacity 4,358 cc and 7:1 compression ratio. It seems reasonable to assume that Rosenberger anticipated that when it was completed, he would be at the wheel of the new car.
With the rise of the Nazis to power, Rosenberger must have seen the likely consequences. Being Jewish, he resigned from his position at Porsche in January 1933 and handed over his job to Baron Veyder-Malberg, a wealthy Austrian. During the Nazi era, the role in automobile history of many Jews, including Adolf Rosenberger, Josef Ganz, Siegfried Marcus and Edmund Rumpler, was deleted. As a Jew he had no legal recourse, so on his departure he was not refunded his 3,000 RM investment in the Porsche company, which was
| worth 100,000 RM by 1935. He felt that his partners in the company had completely let him down. It has been said that Anton Piëch was a staunch Nazi, and had nothing against using Rosenberger's money, which helped to secure the survival of the company during that period. |
To escape the Jewish purge he left Germany for Switzerland, but made the mistake of returning in September 1935. He was placed in concentration camp KZ at Schloss Kislau near Karlsruhe for a racial crime, namely a relationship with an Aryan woman. He was released four days later after paying a 53 RM fine. It was said that Ferry Porsche and Anton Piech had facilitated his release, but Rosenberger later maintained that it was not them, but Veyder-Malberg.
With his release came the proviso that he had to leave Germany immediately. He went to England as he had some commercial interests there and he knew a doctor who lived in London. After beatings in prison he needed treatment for very bad eczema on his hands and arms. He also went to Paris and in both countries he represented Porsche GmbH. Finally, he departed from Le Havre on the liner ‘Ile de France’ arriving in New York on 11th January 1938.
In America he was initially unemployed, but in late 1943 he became an American citizen with a change of name to Alan Arthur Robert. In 1946 Rosenberger tried to return to Germany, but he found all his family’s possessions destroyed or taken away and that his father had died in 1942. He lodged a number of lawsuits against Porsche KG and the state for compensation that went on for twelve years. His suit against Porsche was for 200,000 German Marks, but the Compensation Chamber of the regional court of Stuttgart suggested a settlement, which eventually both sides agreed upon in September 1950. Rosenberger was to receive 50,000 Marks and either a VW Beetle or a Porsche sportscar. Strangely, he chose the Beetle.
He had moved to the West Coast and lived in Los Angeles and led a fairly simple life, though one source states that he was active in motorsports and the automobile business. In 1950 he married Anne Metzger, a former secretary of Porsche`s office in Stuttgart who, together with her first husband, had herself emigrated in 1939.
Adolf Rosenberger, alias Alan Robert, died in Los Angeles in 1967 or ‘68.
In 1982 his widow donated his personal assets to his hometown of Pforzheim where they are preserved in the town archive. They include his trophy from his victory in the 1927 Klaussen hill climb.
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