Austrian Karl Gall crashes his works BMW at Ballaugh Bridge on the Snaefell Mountain Course during practice for the Isle of Man TT.
Gall crashed on the first lap of evening practice while trying to overtake the works Norton rider Freddie Frith on the approach to Ballaugh Bridge. He would be taken by ambulance to Ramsey Cottage Hospital with severe head injuries.
Karl Gall would die on June 13, 1939 due to his injuries and the effects of pneumonia while in the hospital.
After considering to withdraw from the Isle of Man TT Races, the BMW management decided that Georg Meier would ride in the Senior TT. Meier, aboard a supercharged 500cc BMW, led from start to finish winning at an average speed of 89.38 mph. In the Junior TT Heiner Fleischmann on his works DKW 350cc would place third, the Lightweight TT would have Germany's Ewald Kluge podium in second also on a works DKW. All these German's made some of the local people on edge, and understandably so. Three months later, on September 3, England would go to war.
The following is an excerpt from the book "The Nazi TT" by Roger Willis-
"All German motorcycle racers had to belong to this organisation and its purpose was to train dispatch riders and drivers from the German army with the aim of to motorising the German military. Most of the transport at the time was still horse drawn carts and they needed more drivers. It was all about training the army and the races were a propaganda element. They made the organisation attractive to belong to because all the racers were in it.
This meant that all international motorcycle sporting events which the Germans participated in were run as propaganda operations and it culminated here at the TT in 1939. It’s amazing to think that only 3 months before the beginning of the war the Isle of Man was hosting a group of German Nazis. Everybody knew we were going to war so the atmosphere must have been incredibly strange, made even stranger when the German’s won. At the time the TT was regarded as the premier motorcycle event in the world so to win was a big feather in Hitler’s cap.
Some of those riders had been to the Island before and one of them, a leading Nazi activist, had won the Light Weight TT in 1938. His name was Ewald Kluge and he went to prison after the war because of his Nazi connections. He was in jail until 1949.
The only sign of the Nazi associations at the TT was the swastika insignia on the leathers of the riders."
At Ballaugh Bridge there is a road-side memorial that commemorates the motorcycle racing career of Karl Gall.
Today in motorcycle history proudly supports the National Association for Bikers with a Disability (NABD). www.nabd.org.uk
The following is an excerpt from the book "The Nazi TT" by Roger Willis-
"All German motorcycle racers had to belong to this organisation and its purpose was to train dispatch riders and drivers from the German army with the aim of to motorising the German military. Most of the transport at the time was still horse drawn carts and they needed more drivers. It was all about training the army and the races were a propaganda element. They made the organisation attractive to belong to because all the racers were in it.
This meant that all international motorcycle sporting events which the Germans participated in were run as propaganda operations and it culminated here at the TT in 1939. It’s amazing to think that only 3 months before the beginning of the war the Isle of Man was hosting a group of German Nazis. Everybody knew we were going to war so the atmosphere must have been incredibly strange, made even stranger when the German’s won. At the time the TT was regarded as the premier motorcycle event in the world so to win was a big feather in Hitler’s cap.
Some of those riders had been to the Island before and one of them, a leading Nazi activist, had won the Light Weight TT in 1938. His name was Ewald Kluge and he went to prison after the war because of his Nazi connections. He was in jail until 1949.
The only sign of the Nazi associations at the TT was the swastika insignia on the leathers of the riders."
At Ballaugh Bridge there is a road-side memorial that commemorates the motorcycle racing career of Karl Gall.
Today in motorcycle history proudly supports the National Association for Bikers with a Disability (NABD). www.nabd.org.uk
