Werner Haas: 70 years ago, the first German motorbike world champion died

After Germany had been excluded from the Motorcycle World Championship – which was introduced in 1949 – for the first three years following the Second World War, Werner Haas secured the first German Grand Prix victory in history in 1952. He also won the first German Motorcycle World Championship title in 1953. A star was born, though one who was lost to us forever just four years later, on 13 November 1956 – 70 years ago yesterday.

Werner Haas was born on 30 March 1927 in Augsburg. After completing his apprenticeship as a metalworker, he set up a workshop with his best friend during the Second World War. It was no ordinary workshop, as it was located in his friend’s mother’s living room. Shortly before the end of the war, he was called up; fortunately, from his perspective, the horror was over eight weeks later.

After the madness of the war, he worked as a lorry driver. As well as mountaineering and skiing, he had always been passionate about motorbike racing, which was gradually getting back on its feet. In 1947, he competed in his first motorbike race in Mindelheim on a machine he’d assembled from parts of an old NSU 501 OSL. Right from the start, he clocked the fastest time of the day. In another race in Memmingen, he suffered a serious crash and only came round from a coma in hospital. His mother was not to know anything about any of this, which is why he made up an adventurous story.

He did not, however, give up racing. Instead, he converted an NSU SS 500 into a racing machine and competed as an amateur rider in 1949. He also took part in off-road motorcycling during that time, where his talent shone through.

In 1952, Haas moved up to the licensed riders’ category and competed on a homemade Puch. From then on, his career took off. By the middle of the season, NSU had already signed him as a ‘stopgap works rider’. It was a vote of confidence that he was soon to justify.

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That year, Germany was eligible to compete in the FIM Motorcycle World Championship for the first time and was even awarded its first World Championship round. This was the German Grand Prix, held from 18 to 20 July 1952 at Solitude near Stuttgart. The 125cc class race was set to be Werner Haas’s first World Championship race. He had originally entered with his self-built Puch, but after Wilhelm Hofmann and the Italian Roberto Colombo – both part of the large NSU contingent – were unable to start following crashes in practice on Friday, the up-and-coming Werner Haas was approached and ultimately promoted to the works racing team at short notice.

To the surprise and delight of the NSU officials, as well as some 400,000 fans gathered at the idyllically situated circuit on race Sunday alone, Werner Haas won this race narrowly ahead of the previous year’s world champion, Carlo Ubbiali, and well ahead of the eventual 1952 champion, the Briton Cecil Sandford. He thus went down in history as the first German winner of a Motorcycle World Championship round. Although Rudi Felgenheier won the 250cc race on a DKW on the same day, Werner Haas had simply been a little quicker to secure his victory.

With this result alone, he finished sixth in the World Championship during NSU’s ‘taster year’. At the season finale in Monza, the 250cc race ended in a ‘dead heat’, as the Italian Enrico Lorenzetti and Werner Haas were neck and neck and crossed the finish line simultaneously. Following a photo finish, Lorenzetti went down in the history books as the winner and Werner Haas as the runner-up. The fastest lap time recorded for both riders was also identical, down to the tenth of a second.

In 1953, NSU brought the fastest racing motorbikes to the Grands Prix in the 125 and 250 cc classes, and also fielded Werner Haas, who was the best rider of his time. After finishing second at the Isle of Man TT in the 125cc class – known there as the Ultra-Lightweight Class – he went on to win at Assen. Following another second place at the sole World Championship round in Schotten, Central Hesse, he also won the World Championship rounds at the Ulster Grand Prix near Belfast and the Nations in Monza. Not least because of the rule on discarding results, he was thus confirmed as world champion ahead of schedule. This also made him the first German motorcycle world champion in history.

But that was not all, for in the quarter-litre class too, Haas raced from victory to victory – or, alternatively, from podium finish to podium finish. He began the season on the Isle of Man with a second-place finish in the Lightweight race there. He then went on to win at Assen and at the Schottenring. In the Northern Irish province of Ulster, he finished second again and, following a disappointing sixth place in Bern, he sealed the double world championship for himself and NSU with another second-place finish at the Nations race in Monza.

The following year, in 1954, NSU fielded the Austrian Rupert Hollaus for the 125cc World Championship title and Werner Haas to defend his title in the 250cc category. Both were successful. Whilst Hollaus won the first four of six 125cc races to become world champion, Werner Haas even won the first five of seven Grands Prix, thereby also securing the title ahead of schedule. He celebrated his other 250cc GP victories at Reims, on the Isle of Man, in Ulster, at Assen and at Solitude.

Rupert Hollaus did not get much out of his World Championship title, however, as he was fatally injured in a crash during practice on Saturday, 11 September 1954, at the penultimate World Championship round of the year in Monza. NSU subsequently withdrew from road racing at the end of the year.

Werner Haas had considered continuing his career with another make. However, he dismissed the idea, having achieved more than many others with three championship titles and eleven Grand Prix victories. He also became German Champion in both of the smaller capacity classes in 1953 and 1954.

He did, however, continue to compete in off-road races, and professionally he devoted himself to running his petrol station and racing drivers’ pub. Yet his life, too, was to end far too soon and tragically, for on 13 November 1956, at the age of just 29, he lost his life in a crash involving a light aircraft near Neuburg an der Donau.