A forgotten Friday Lady: the mysterious life of Frau Wickenhäuser

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Doesn't today’s Friday Lady have a lovely smile? Her name is Frau Hilda Wickenhäuser and she’s seen here behind the wheel of an NSU racer, which she reputedly campaigned in a number of events in the mid-to-late 1920s. This photograph is dated approximately 1927 and is said to have been taken in Berlin. We couldn’t pin down the identity of this impressive motor. Maybe you can tell us?

What we did find is that Herr Adolf Wickenhäuser of Munich was NSU’s concessionaire for southern Germany and was a keen racer himself. Was he her husband or her father? Quoting from one translated source: “Car competitions also highlighted a female driver: this time it was Hilda Wickenhäuser, coincidentally coming from a family of motorcycle dealers, from whom she inherited her passion for engines.”

Another translated source tells us: “There are photographs from 1924 of two-seater sports cars of the NSU 8/24 PS type. This model was used with great success by drivers such as Adolf Wickenhäuser and his wife Hilda, who was also a motorsport enthusiast.” Ah, his wife! Yet another article describes her as Germany's first female racing driver. We don’t know about that, but we are surprised that there is so little information about this woman, who certainly seemed to be one of the pioneers of ladies' motor racing in Germany. Feel free to provide some further facts and figures to give this forgotten female some of the credit which, we suspect, she very much deserves.

Words: Jeroen Booij
Picture: Dutch National Archives
 

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