d, w. d w's crime fighters are back with africa. most successful radio drama series continues for them all episodes are available online. and of course you can share and discuss on d, w, africa's facebook page and other social media platforms, crime fighters, tune in now. ah an inconspicuous forest trail, south of frankfort, next to one of germany's famous outer bonds. it was the end of the road for a legendary german racing driver in the summer. and

a crazy bid to break the land speed record. i hear the the events of over 80 years ago remain shrouded in mystery. i've been big ah, i don't throw the math in. oh, what exactly happened on that fateful day? ah my in and what is it that drives people to risk their lives to break speed records? ah,

who was band hosemeier who was killed in january 1938. when he crashed, while racing down the perfectly straight out of on it over 400 kilometers per hour . civic out in eastern germany home to museum. that was once the racing car factory of outgo. when you own germany's 1st state own car maker and a predecessor of today's audi, the 1930 saw an epic dual between 2 genes of the german racing seen as the relatively young out when you own saw to overtake the dominant mercedes benz t. a high profile rivalry that intensified when band hose m, i had joined the outer union team. the young hot shot was to take on mercedes driver and european champion, rudolph cut out jolla the auto renew,

and bosses had high hopes for was a maya who was a boon for both motor racing and the nazi regime, eager to capitalize in the rivalry for propaganda purposes the dashing young dare devil fitted the bill perfectly up figuring have become vision, ortho, my own parents, yolanda expected . my anybody. i forgot your last mileage oh my of them. oh my god, god with them. i would agree with feel again rosamille alone, the guy that got my family, my son, the one with with

we're interested in to meet a man who's written a number of books on the early german motor racing era. including the 1900 thirty's . when the country's b carmakers fought out their rivalry on germany's new outer bonds, a network of modern highways, a pet project of the nazi regime, paid a cash bag is an automotive historian. the regime he explains, was eager to show that germany could build not only the fastest cars, but also the best roads to maximize publicity. the authorities held race is called record weeks on the new high speed motor ways. it was banned or was a my as big moment and october or i caught her, her nose was even an irish for awesome. i broke a series of records that had belonged to kara jolla in october 1937. when earning them to also union. it's our doing time, la shy. i'm a failed because of

a design out of sync with the laws of nature's an icon causally. and vic ferronte and not always, at least as far when i'm ended by the end of the week of the national racing commission and promised that i'm not soon be allowed to make for the record attempts merging. next inciteful idle was over fallen doll as will blame for the are doing also union have to respond because of the delicate relationship between the time they're in the public. your time law aren't in the ethan's dish, tied dealers to go and watch if it when a decision was that if they drive off, then we need to drive as well as b r k m is no there was an ominous wind blowing when it was o m i is turned to start on january 28th. 1938. on his 1st run, he clocked $400.00. 29 kilometers per hour. a personal best, but still not fast enough to rest the record back from mercedes adjustments were made while the wind grew stronger. despite warnings was m, i allegedly insisted on

a 2nd run. it was 1147 and then disaster at the 9.2 kilometer mark those m i lost control of his type c car, dubbed tom lenient wagner. stream. lighter flipping several times, over a distance of 900 meters, the wreck came to a stop on an embankment. hosemeier was killed instantly. conspiracy theories quickly spread. auto executives were alleged to have disregarded the strong winds and sent hosemeier to premature death. out to noon did not appear interested in a thorough investigation. the wreckage of the car was disposed of before it could be properly examined. without evidence. the only viable explanation was that a gust of wind had blown rosy, meyer off the road. but is that the true explanation?

why do people put their lives on the line in high speed jewels over a couple of kilometers in the name of progress on some dubious patriotic quest? or is it personal ambition and ego band hosemeier and his tragic death in 1938 an event that left the moderation world in shock. one of its top drivers was dead. the nazi authority stage, his burial and berlin, like a steep funeral. it turned into a political rally, family, friends, fans, and rivals paid their last respects, while the notorious s. s. held a guard of honor for the fallen hero. but what was the actual cause of the accident? the question that was eclipse, the mid, the pomp of the funeral procession. nazi etiology could not allow a hero of the germination to have died due to technical deficiencies, let alone a mortal driver's error. the cause was never investigated.

cabinets home to the original outer own own headquarters and a branch of the official saxony state archives. we want to look at historical documents with this is where the file on band hose am i as death is captain bar range of original documents, formal testimony, affidavits and eye witness accounts. including this letter from certain auto gaia to the head of the out who known motor racing team. his eye witness report recalls how the out on your own car veered onto the grass bank and turn sideways details similar to those observed by time keeper carlo lead man, who also referred to an explosion when questioned one

document is of special interest, a weather report from the nearby zeppelin airport between $11.12 on the day of the crash it registered strong winds and gusts of up to 11 meters per 2nd. interestingly, only the mercedes team had asked for forecast ahead of the record attempts out who known didn't win. the car maker later sent a letter to its dealerships, however, insisting it had not recklessly put the driver under unreasonable pressure. man that the wind speed had in no way appeared dangerous and attempt to shun responsibility. there are no photos or film footage of it was a meyers final and fatal run itself. it's rumored, some material was destroyed, but one private recording survived captured by our 2 inch sla who worked in

frankfort photo processing lab. on the day of the race, he was on a foot bridge crossing over the autobahn where he was filming, and air show taking place. at the same time, at one point m, sheila happened to briefly train his camera on the road below o z m i a can be seen after his 1st run. he just clocked 429 kilometers per hour and was about to set off in the other direction on the 2nd in fatal record attempt at 1st glance with all eyes on the road, the film seems inconspicuous. but a closer look, reveals other movement on the right of the picture. trees, visibly swaying, and evidently strong. almost storm, like winds was the 2nd run a suicide mission. we next meet motor sports

expert martine shorda. investigating was a, my, us crash has become a labor of love for the former bookseller. over the years he's collected a wealth of documentation, much of it from private archives. and there's one question that never goes away. who was to blame for the driver's death? # one thing excluded is convinced of is that it cannot have been the wind alone is robin dish is, are caught us even of them. fremont in was windy. you can see in the film footage a hurry of on air 15 kilometers per hour from st. which wind blow the car off the road? make financial i thing like this can be due to 2 causes and yet why or the combination of to resume of once? why will by analyzing the photos from that infamous day schluter came across

some curious inconsistencies among them out owen jones, motor sports division, had made changes between the 1st and 2nd runs the air intake duct at the front of the car, for example, was made smaller. the company, the nozzle is convicted one, the entire noise was replaced, and behind this little inlet, there was one tube supplying the engine with oxygen with torn on the more tor mitzo washed off to her face and another. she had connected to the cocked it or iron against cockpit 3 were here. lionel's in ren oem, thus cockpit middle off to was on the tube was necessary to prevent hosemeier from suffocating its speed. and another photo is of interest. a section of the body on the road. the picture was taken by a reporter from italy and shows part of the under body and some odd looking triangular openings. they were evidently air vows.

they could be operated from the cockpit. involved to in these and also when did and when his love, he had this outlet for the streaming and at the front when they told him that if it got too intense and at the speed it was like a storm. then he could step on this lever, what kinds of all 3 done his or so, or my number or not? i think he did that, which disrupted the lower error dynamic, because the air was suddenly being redirected underneath. the von, when did lucian press ish. step bill than him, the car takes off the off with everything you're stir, memo my understood all li airflow is disrupted at those speeds at junk is $52.00 plain. see talk about it. took off at just $120.00 with all that weight really kiss

them after the war. it became clear that speeds of over 600 kilometers per hour on land were not possible with combustion engines. records of that kind would require rocket propulsion and the kind of expanse is available on this lunar like landscape why bonnie bill in the state of utah in the united states with the remnants of a primeval lake, turned into seemingly infinite salt flax by a combination of wind and water for almost a century. now, the ultimate test track and an el dorado for speed freaks.

this would be the stage for a new generation of record seekers, chief among them art our fonts and craig breedlove. the 2 americans were obsessed with being the fastest men in history and would stop at nothing to set a new record of which i've now been held by a succession of british drivers. the dawn of the 1960. so our funds and breedlove opened a new chapter in the competition for the ultimate automotive glory. sam holly lives in ontario, canada. he spent years studying the history of the salt flats era of speed records, and the fearless men feigned as junkyard geniuses. wholly his written a number of books on the era. ah, around 96061 that the united states air force was getting rid of a whole bunch of i'm fighter jets from the korean war. and all this stuff was going

into the junk market. and so anchor in los angeles were craig b love lived, lived like literally hundreds of j. 47 jet engines were being sold as scrap. so he was able to buy one for almost nothing, $500.00. he got that his 1st jet engine, if he got like an allison engine, it would have cost several $1000.00. so he was trying to save money by getting a jet o packing up to 70000 horsepower. those engines were fitted in 19 fifties air force jones, such as the famous star fire that reached speeds of over 2200 kilometers per hour. exactly what kind of power that could translate into with when vehicles was difficult to decipher, given the lack of testing or funds knew absolutely nothing about jet engines. but somehow he, he found one from a junk dealer and he found a manual about how to,

how these things worked. and he actually took this thing apart with no education, no background whatsoever. just kind of an innate intelligence that he had. and he put it back together and he figured out how it worked. so, i mean, that is a stunning story than literally these guys were doing it in their back yards. they had a, a steel post that was buried in the ground. and they were just literally chain the car to that post and they would run that engine. and i mean they, they totally black, the ground dead. i mean all the grass it, everything was, was blasted off of and i are not tobar 19. steve for craig freelance broke his own record not once, but twice. the 2nd attempt almost costing him his life. mm

hm. and just under 850 kilometers per hour, i came on the car, the brake power shoed snapped off. mm. you are step on the brakes. at that speed, they would just burn them up. the car, sir, crossed the end of the preset track, taking out to telephone poles before crashing into a salt lake. breedlove could have drowned in the desert lake, but managed to escape through the roof top hatch miracle mm ah, over the decades. one thing that remains the same was that while the heroes of the road were put on a pedestal, they were at the same time, pons of both political and economic imperatives. by the 1960s record attempts shifted up another gear, as commercial competition took the front seat, sensing an opportunity to boost their image. the tire and fuel industries pumped up,

the hype and huge sums of sponsorship money into the inventive constructor, teams. for over 3 decades, the museum of technology in time has been home to a vehicle that is perhaps the ultimate embodiment of this unbridled competition and its excesses. the blue flame, the product of an error. when record sitting vehicles no longer really resemble cars, it's more of a rocket on wheels, 3 tons, propelled by 50000 horsepower. the driver was more of a pilot sitting on a mixture of liquid natural gas and hydrogen peroxide. it was rumored to be powerful enough to go to the moon. ready ah, re gab lake runs her own little museum here in long beach, california. dedicated to the legacy of that landmark runner. sitting in the blue flame that day in october, 1970 was her husband gary. the 1st person to crack the 1000 kilometers per hour.

mark in a land vehicle. it was a record that would stand for 13 years. ah, before coming to fame, gary gab alec was a little known drag racer who lived life in the fast lane of photo genic hell raiser, who looked good at the wheel of a bullet car and also cut a fine figure for nasa marketing men. he'd been a test subject for the apollo program space suit and life support systems. in 1969, they gave gary the choice of either staying with the apollo program or continuing on with his adventures in racing. and at that time he already been signed to drive the blue flame. and so he gave up apollo for racing on the ground. mm

aah talks about what it was like. and he goes through the count down from me now 19, you know, all the way down and how it felt when he's pushed back in the seed and experiencing the meaning. the g force, craig greed loves record, stood at 966 kilometers per hour. on october 23rd, 1970 gary gabbled, prepared to set off across the salt flax of bonneville, utah. to break that 5 year old mock, but also to hit the 1000 kilometers per hour figure. he and his team had invested 6 years in the development of the 11 metre, long cigar shaped vehicle for a spectacle that would last just 22 seconds before the fuel would run out. the man and the had is the killer one of the rocky cars creators. the

former engineer now over 80 years old lives in daphne, alabama. with in the mid 19 sixty's, he tells us the u. s. natural gas industry was also keen to enter the arena. the big selling point was to get the american public, a sensational showcase of gas as more than just a fuel for old fashion heaters. it was a cleaner and more efficient alternative to gasoline and kerosene are record for the ages would win over new customers and push up profits. keller and his little engineering company took up the challenge. basically our job was to try to do so over city, the land speed record. it was up to them to take advantage of the new record attempt was a massive risk. wind tunnel tests had the blue flame topping 1200 kilometers per

hour in the process breaking the sound barrier. but nobody could say if the running real conditions would go as planned. for the worst case scenario, the organizers had taken out life insurance for goblet worth over $100000.00. 73210 . for your among the rid of 300. 350. 4 on $450.00. 556650? yeah, we did a, that's exactly how this idea was rather you boast,

blue flame was timed at 622 miles or just over a 1000 kilometers per hour. a speed eventually bettered by a british team in 1983 and again in 1997. the 2nd time with the 1st ever supersonic land vehicle and a mark that stands to this day. but despite having only held the record for 13 years, blue flames moment of fame will for some always be the most memorable. ah gary goblin never got the chance to regain record. he was killed in a motorcycle accident in 1984. ah. the never ending quest for speed has its euros and its victims among them band hosemeier. the exact reasons for the fatal outcome of that run will likely remain

a matter of speculation. was it just the way that sweat him off the road in january? 1938? probably not. there were a range of other potential factors involved. insufficient development work and technical expertise, and time pressure. all things that were kept quiet for quite a while. dime there might if one the race for the record, but it was the out only own driver who grad the headlines and would feature. and most of the history books, the record set by dimer was ultimately reduced to a footnote as for ban hose, a maya, was he really the fearless driver and dare devil who threw caution to the wind on that fateful day? impervious to any fear. many observers have blamed the driver for his own death

at the has the regional archives and dom shot, we found photos previously not seen by the public. one is a shot of hose, m i a minutes before that final journey. with the look of a man who has a sense of foreboding ah ah ah ah

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ah this is d w. news live from berlin? a deadline defied russia says ukrainian defenders of mario poll refused to lay down their weapons in exchange for their lives. as the cities of harkey than the capital key of face, new attacks from russian bobs also on the program. pope francis says the world is seeing an easter of war giving his easter address, the leader of the catholic church said ukraine has been dragged into a cruel and senseless conflict. and a dream to view in the buddhist.