Heinz Melkus was born in 1928, in Dresden, and from an early age developed a passion for cars. Heinz was to become a racing driver of considerable skill and an ingenious designer/constructor of a range of very competitive and innovative machinery that included sports and racing cars.
Sadly, world politics, ideologies and country boundaries at the time denied him the opportunity of strutting his stuff on a wider stage but behind the “iron curtain” he became a racing legend and his story is a wonderful example of overcoming adversity with the limited resources he had available.
Heinz Melkus was born in 1928, in Dresden, and from an early age developed a passion for cars. Heinz was to become a racing driver of considerable skill and an ingenious designer/constructor of a range of very competitive and innovative machinery that included sports and racing cars.
Sadly, world politics, ideologies and country boundaries at the time denied him the opportunity of strutting his stuff on a wider stage but behind the “iron curtain” he became a racing legend and his story is a wonderful example of overcoming adversity with the limited resources he had available.
The system of socialism in the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) meant that while “private efforts” were perhaps not totally forbidden, they were certainly not welcome nor encouraged. The ideology demanded that everybody was part of a “Kollektiv” that not only gave you your job but had to care for a complete service to you, and this reached from political education to sporting activities.
After the end of World War II, the 20-year-old Saxon found work as a lorry driver and set up a small transport business in his native city, much of which had been devastated and reduced to rubble and ruin from the Allied bombings. He also attended the Dresden Technical College and studied applied sciences, training that would suit his future exploits and spur his technical and innovative mind.
At this time, he became interested in motor racing after attending events at the autobahnspinne, a road course in Dresden-Hellerau.
There was an active motor sport culture in the GDR post-war, and huge crowds flocked to watch events at circuits behind the iron curtain such as the classic Sachsenring, near Hohenstein-Ernssthal, where it was reported that 480,000 spectators attended the 1949 East German round of the world motorcycle championship; the Halle-Saale-Schleife track along the Saale river; and tracks at Leipzig; Bautsen and Rostock. Attendances of 120,000 were reported at some of these events—proof that motorsport transcends all barriers.
Despite the huge crowds that frequented the racing, when one looks at old photographs one notices a distinct lack of circuit advertising or promotional logos during the Cold War period.
Rennkollektiv
In 1950, the East German government set up the Rennkollektiv, an official racing team. This organization was under the control and supervision of the German Board for the Examination of Goods and Materials, known as DAMW, that was responsible for the direction of industrial production and material supply in the eastern bloc state.
In short, it appears that the purpose of the Rennkollektiv included demonstrating to the wider world the excellence of GDR technology while serving as a platform to develop cars, under racing conditions, that would be efficient and cheap.
It was against this background that the man from Dresden was to become one of the most popular, if not the most popular, racing personalities in the GDR during his long and passionate involvement with motor sport.
In 1951, Heinz participated in his first motor events driving an innovative 1100-cc powered “special” constructed from parts of a discarded VW 166 amphibious war machine and aptly named “Schwimmwagen” chassis.
The contrivance was outclassed, and so Melkus decided to upgrade, but unless one was favored by the “ruling elite” indulgence in a pasttime such as motor racing was not encouraged and suitable machinery was in short supply, especially for an “independent.” Nevertheless, somehow Heinz got possession of a well known old racecar called the ARO-Veritas.
Veritas was the brainchild of Ernst Loof, who had been involved with racing and styling at BMW pre-war. When racing resumed in Germany after WWII there was a scarcity of machinery and Loof apparently bought up all BMW 328s that he could find and started building his racers from parts.
The ubiquitous BMW 328 engine was freely available in both East and West Germany and was the power source for the majority of racing specials that contested the mixed F2/sportscar racing.
Historians believe that the ARO may have started its racing life as a conventional BMW 315 pre-war, and had been converted into a sports car special for competition purposes by, or for, Arthur Rosenhammer. Rosenhammer, well known for his tough uncompromising driving style, was one of the leading motor sport personalities in the GDR, and had raced with some success pre-war in a BMW. He was the first post-war driver from East Germany to take part in a race in West Germany; finishing 2nd in the 1.5-liter sports car class in his BMW at the Schottenring.
During this era there was intense rivalry between the East and West German competitors.
The ARO had been fitted with a streamlined, pontoon body at the Veritas workshops in West Germany and a two-liter engine was fitted in place of the old 1500 in a quest for more power.
When Rosenhammer later joined the Rennkollektiv—the official national racing team of the GDR—the ARO was passed on, or otherwise acquired by Theo Fitzau. At the time, Fitzau ran his own soap manufacturing factory and he renamed the car “DRS-Veritas,” DRS standing for Der Rasende Seifensieder (The speeding soap boiler).
Apparently, Fitzau was also selected to drive for the Rennkollektiv, but after “having some problems” with the government Fitzau, who had ambitions of driving for the official Mercedes team, defected to West Germany, but had to leave the car behind. (Fitzau, in fact, took part in the 1953 German Grand Prix at Nürburgring in a six-cylinder BMW-powered AFM, but after qualifying 21st of the 34 cars he retired after only three laps.)
Cold War
At this time of the Cold War much propaganda was exploited by the Western press and politicians about those who committed the crime of Republikflucht (defecting from the GDR), but the East Germans were able to respond with a prominent political refugee of their own. This being none other than “Der Pechvogel” (the unlucky bird), the pre-war Mercedes star driver Manfred von Brauchitsch, who defected to the GDR after political “persecution” in the West and/or not being able to find a drive in West Germany after his fall out with Mercedes-Benz. It is also possible that von Brauschitsch, in poor financial straits, had some involvement in establishing the Rennkollektiv.
It appears that Melkus was certainly not regarded too much as a dissident at that time and after acquiring the ex-Rosenhammr, ex-Fitzau Veritas, he re-named it the ARO-Veritas and proceeded to race it in the combined formula Two and sportscar events that were the class of racing in vogue.
Melkus found reliability and success hard to come by with the aged special, and although he managed a credible 4th place at Leipzig in 1952 and a 3rd in the Karl-Marx-Stadt street races in 1953, the aging ARO was no match for the cars of the Rennkollektiv who had drivers of the calibre of Edgar Barth and “visitors” such as Hans Stuck.
Always an innovator the resourceful mechanic installed a two-cylinder boxer engine, apparently from a war surplus aircraft of French origin, and campaigned the car in this form until the 1955 season. But with his scarce resources he had little success competing against the factory cars from EMW/AWE/AFM and those of the Rennkollektiv.
Formula Three
In the early 1950s, a German Formula Three Championship had been instituted and was at first dominated by Scampolo-DKWs, but as time progressed grids became well supported by a number of specials using BMW engines, as well as a few Coopers. Melkus worked out that single-seater racing in the form of this cheap, post-war 500-cc Formula Three offered him a better chance of success.
By this time Heinz had established a driving school in Dresden that became one of the largest in the city and it was not long before he had set up a factory in an adjacent building to construct his cars. There are those who consider it remarkable that Melkus was able to run a sort of private enterprise throughout the existence of the GDR.
His first “in house design” was a JAP 500-powered machine that he constructed himself and started to campaign in the 1955 season against large fields, mainly consisting of the more powerful and dominating Cooper-Nortons and many BMW “specials.” It would appear that racecar was heavily influenced by the Cooper Mk VIII, but he used a De Dion setup at the rear and made it up from whatever scarce spare parts he could lay his hands on. How he was able to lay his hands on the JAP engine was anybody’s guess.
At the time the East German politicians welcomed visitors from the West to demonstrate their propagation of a united and neutral Germany in what they called “connected sporting comradeship” and the leading 500 exponents of the time competed in their events.
So, despite their political differences, drivers from the West and East competed against each other in F3 on both sides of the iron curtain, and in 1954 a young Englishman called Stirling Moss won at the Nürburgring in a Francis Beart Cooper-Norton.
The new “Melkus” started the 1955 season successfully with a 2nd place at Dessau and a week later a win on the Halle-Saale Schleife, but thereafter was unable to match the pace, nor reliability, of the new Cooper-Nortons of the West German stars Kurt Ahrens and Kurt Kuhnke. Nevertheless, 4th in the East German championship was a promising start.
Mild sponsorship
Interestingly, Heinz may have had some support in the form of mild sponsorship, despite the policy of the regime, for his 500 became known as the Melkus-Post-JAP. “Post” meaning postal or mail in German, and a number of East German specials (or Eigenbaus) appear to have been named after organizations.
In mid-1957, he piloted his self-built car to his first outright significant win at the Bautzen Autobahnrennen but as the season wore on, like his fellow countrymen, although he gave a good account of himself he struggled when the West Germans, Ahrens, Kuhnke and Theo Helfrich, or the Dutchman Lex Beels, turned up in their up-to-date Cooper-Nortons.
The single-cylinder 500 JAP was no match for the double-knocker Manx Nortons in European racing anyway, and where Melkus was able to obtain even his long serving JAP engine is another mystery.
And so it was in the cut and thrust of 500 racing that he honed his driving skills and began to make a name for himself. By the 1958 season, he had become a formidable competitor able to hold his own with the top drivers and won the East German Formula Three Championship.
As Formula Three morphed to the 1000-cc limit he started to develop and race cars of his own design powered by Wartburg engines, and in his sleek, low-slung Melkus-Wartburgs he was to chalk up several wins and win East German Formula Junior Championships. He continued to upgrade and improve his racing cars, season by season, while also constructing customer cars to swell the grids. Besides being involved with the manufacture of racecars, he was competing successfully himself.
During the 1960s, he became the leading racecar manufacturer of the GDR, constructing Formula Junior and Formula Three machinery and continually developing and modernizing his designs. His efforts and driving skills were to enable him to win the East German Formula Three crowns for 1967, 1968 and 1972.
Berlin Wall
Before the establishment of the Berlin Wall in 1961 prevented drivers from the German Democratic Republic competing against European challengers, Melkus and other GDR drivers, in cars that he constructed, competed in German events against cars from Cooper, Lotus, Lola and Stanguellini driven by the likes of Jim Clark, Trevor Taylor, John Love, Peter Arundell, Tony Maggs and Jo Siffert giving good accounts of themselves in these Formula Junior races.
Information and records for racing behind the iron curtain are difficult to come by, but there was success for the marque in the USSR. In 1964, a Melkus-Wartburg propelled Georgy Surguchev to the champion driver title in the USSR Formula One Championship. (In Russia “Formula One” appears to have been merely a name for the championship and fields comprised formula libre type cars.)
The Friendship of Socialist Countries Cup Series was contested by teams from countries such as East Germany, Poland, Czechoslavakia, USSR and Hungary from 1963 to 1990, with rounds taking place in these states.
Melkus won the drivers championship in 1965, after his Melkus defeated the much vaunted Polish RAKs in the first round in Poland. He would captain the GDR team to the Nations win in 1966, and also recorded victories on Soviet soil. The latter represented a fine achievement against the might of the cars from the massive TARK factory.
Not content with open-wheel exploits, in 1969, Heinz Melkus set about building a road-going sports racer designated the RS 1000 and became the GDR’s only manufacturer of sports cars. This turned out to be a most attractive, gull-winged GT Coupe with a body made of fiberglass and powered by a mid-mounted, three-cylinder, two-stroke Wartburg engine. It is understood that only 101 of these beautiful handcrafted cars were produced between 1969 and 1979. Many of them ended up having their own “individuality” because due to the shortage of components, whatever parts were available were used and so the cars had to be built slightly differently.
Apart from his many GDR-championship titles Melkus won the “The Cup for Peace and Friendship,” the championship of the Eastern European states, three times.
In 1977, Heinz Melkus hung up his helmet after a long and successful career, and his family has continued in the racing tradition. His son, Ulli, was also an outstanding driver and was crowned GDR champion five times and won the “Peace and Friendship Cup” five times. In 1984, Ulli was awarded the highest sporting decoration in the GDR—“Master of Sport.”
Heinz passed away in 2005, and it is estimated that he won 80 of the 200 races that he took part in. One wonders what his achievements might have been had politics accorded this dynamic engineer more latitude?
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