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.

Background Albert Richter, known to friends as Teddy, 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.

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.

Richter lived in Paris

For a while, he stayed. He occasionally gave Nazi salutes but he refused to spy during his foreign journeys. 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.

Richter had been a popular champion. He had been seen being dragged from the train. The Germans insisted he had died skiing Berliner survived the war and emigrated to the United States. In 2018 the International Cycling Film Festival introduced the film award Souvenir Albert Richter for the best road cycling film of the festival.

Albert Richter was inducted to the Germany's Sports Hall of Fame in 2008.

Palmarès Grand Prix de Paris 1932, 1934, 1938 World amateur sprint champion 1932 (on a Selbach) Germany sprint champion 1933, 1934, 1935, 1936, 1937, 1938, 1939 UCI Grand Prix, 1934 Grand Prix de la République, 1934 Grand Prix de Berlin 1939 Silver medal UCI Track Cycling World Championships – Men's Sprint 1934, 1935 Bronze medal UCI Track Cycling World Championships – Men's Sprint 1933, 1936, 1937, 1938