Born : December 27 1900
Deceased : February 9 1978
Biography Hans Stuck
Hans Stuck was born in Warsaw, Poland to a family of Swiss ancestry. The family moved to Germany and Hans Stuck served in the artillery at the Western front during WWI. After the war, he studied engineering and agriculture. After his studies, Hans Stuck married and lived on a farm near Münich. At the age of 22, Hans Stuck started car racing while bringing milk early in the morning from his farm to the city. This led him to hill-climbing, and he won his first race in Baden-Baden in 1923.
Hans Stuck first raced as a privateer with Austro-Daimler. From 1927 Austro-Daimler hired him as a factory driver. In 1931 Hans Stuck made his debut in a circuit race, the German GP, in a Mercedes-Benz SSK. That was the last car that Ferdinand Porsche designed for Mercedes-Benz before he left to found his own company.
In 1933, his acquaintance with Adolf Hitler (whom he had met by chance on a hunting trip in 1925) led to his involvement with Ferdinand Porsche and Auto Union in Hitler’s plans for German auto racing. With his experience from racing up mountain passes in the Alps in the 1920s, he was virtually unbeatable when he got the new Auto Union car, which was designed by Ferdinand Porsche. His career with Auto Union was quite successful. In 1934, Hans Stuck won the German, Swiss and Czechoslovakian Grand Prix races and finished 2nd in Italy and at the Eifelrennen. Next to that Hans Stuck participated in several hillclimbs, and crowned himself to Europan Mountain Champion. In 1935 Hans Stuck won the European Mountain Championship again, next to a victory at the Italian GP.
Starting from 1936, Stuck’s form was on the downfall. Numerous accidents and injuries slowed down his progress. Hans sporadically managed to grab a podium finish but those results were below his reputation.Due to the injuries he missed several hillclimbs. That year the title of the European Mountain Championship went to his team-mate Bernd Rosemeyer. In 1938 Hans Stuck left Auto Union, but was rehired after several drivers were injured in accidents. He proved himself by winning a third European Mountain Championship. That title was Hans Stuck’s last major pre-war success.
After World War II, Germans were banned from racing until 1950. However, Hans Stuck obtained Austrian citizenship and immediately continued racing. He started racing in the Alex von Falkenhausen Formula 2 team, although not very succesful. At the age of 60, Hans Stuck won the German Hillclimb Championship in a BMW 700 RS. At that point Hans Stuck decided to stop racing on a high note.
As an instructor on the Nürburgring, he taught his son Hans-Joachim Stuck the secrets of this challenging circuit that he knew by heart. A job he did with great succes, seen the race career of Hans-Joachim Stuck
