Porsche’s “Racing Baron”—Huschke von Hanstein

The manner in which a young agriculture trainee became devoted to motor racing, to endurance runs with a motorcycle, and then in a car, was fairly logical. His transformation occurred around 1930, when he was 19. His parents were, of course, opposed. The Prussian educational style of those days didn’t countenance well-to-do families with spending money. Huschke’s first vehicle, a used 250 Triumph two-wheeler, had to be financed in part by his girlfriend.

Huschke von Hanstein liked nothing better than to be depicted in racing gear. He was, after all, a racer from 1937 to 1963.

Although Baron Fritz Sittig Enno Werner von Hanstein could trace his ancestry to the 11^th century, he was not one to stand on principle. He soon acquired the nickname “Huschke”, which hinted at his “hustling” demeanor. As a man of action, he later legally adopted the given name “Fritz-Huschke.” His father Carlo was a Junker and an officer in the Prussian Army, riding with the Wandsbeker Blue Hussars. His mother Anni was the daughter of the head of Germany’s largest seed producer, Dippe in Quedlinburg, the town in which the family settled after the war.