Albert Richter

Albert Richter (14 October 1912 – 2 January 1940) was a German cyclist who won the world sprint championship.

He was taken from a train by the Gestapo and never seen alive again.

Albert Richter, known to friends as Teddy, grew up in Sömmeringstraße 72, Ehrenfeld, Cologne.

He was one of three brothers born in Cologne to a talented musician.

Charles learned the saxophone, Josef the clarinet and Albert the violin.

Albert worked with his father and Charles in a family business making plaster figurines, although some sources say he was a plasterer, but he was frequently out of work in the Depression.

He used his spare time to train on the velodrome in Cologne, in secret because his father disapproved.

He rode his first races, on the road and on the track, at 16.

His father found out when Albert broke his collar bone.

His rides, however, attracted the attention of Ernst Berliner, a former cycling champion who ran a furniture business in the city and who had become a reputed cycling coach.

Berliner was Jewish and had had his business ransacked several times by Brown Shirts.

In 1932, after winning the Grand Prix de Paris, Richter hoped to be picked for the Olympic Games in Los Angeles.

But he was disappointed.

The German federation could not afford his fare.

Richter went to Rome and won the world sprint amateur championship on September 3.

He was greeted enthusiastically in Cologne.

He turned professional and Berliner sent him to Paris, the centre of European track cycling.

Agnès Granjon said in her short biography:

"There were races all through the year on the four vélodromes in Paris. Richter quickly learned French in particular by watching films, and adapted quickly to his new life. After uncertain beginnings, the young German triumphed at the Vélodrome d'hiver by winning a competition for foreign sprinters. His fluid style, dynamic and powerful, won him the admiration of all. Adopted in a few months by the Parisian public, Albert Richter became very popular in France and gathered a new nickname: the German eight-cylinder."

Richter lived in Paris and spent more time abroad than in Germany.

He was open about his opposition to the rise of Hitler and his National Socialism.

Sepp Dinkelkamp, a Swiss sprinter, said:"'I say with confidence that Albert was an anti-Nazi. If he had followed the Nazis, it would certainly have been a lot easier for him, and to his advantage. But Albert chose another way.'"

Richter became part of a travelling circus of sprinters that included Jef Scherens and Louis Gérardin.

Richter refused to wear a German jersey with a swastika when he raced, preferring the older style with the traditional German eagle.

Scherens won the world championship every year from 1932 to 1937.

He was on the podium of every championship he rode from 1933 to 1939 (e.g., UCI Track Cycling World Championships – Men's Sprint), although never with the gold medal.

Richter came third in 1933 behind him and Lucien Michard.

In the two following years Scherens, Richter and Gérardin finished in that order.

In 1936, Richter and Gérardin changed places.

In 1937 and 1938 he again came in third.

Two riders whom Richter consistently beat – Werner Miethe and Peter Steffes – were to play a role in his death.

Lon Pullen said:

"Miethe was already engaged in espionage work on behalf of the Reich, and he and Steffes were also later involved in marketing valuables taken from French Jews who had become victims of the Nazi pogrom. In September 1937, Richter's manager, Berliner, threatened by Steffes with exposure to the Gestapo for alleged smuggling of marks outside Germany, fled with his family to Holland... Even Richter could see that his survival would only be possible if he left the country."

For a while, he stayed.

He occasionally gave Nazi salutes but he refused to spy during his foreign journeys.

He won the bronze medal in the 1939 world championship – the races were not completed because news came partway that Germany had invaded Poland – and then decided to avoid being called into the army, particularly because it would mean shooting at the French.

Instead, he would escape to Switzerland once he had ridden the Berlin Grand Prix in the Deutschlandhalle on 9 December.

Richter had many friends in Switzerland, the family of cyclists called Suter (see Heiri Suter), and a family that owned a hotel in Engelberg.

He called Berliner, who urged him not to return to Germany.

He also told Berliner that a Jewish business man from Cologne named Schweizer, who had already left Germany, had asked him to smuggle money for him when he went.