Albert Richter (photo), born on October 14, 1912 in Cologne, achieved international fame as world track cycling champion in the 1930s. He was an exceptional talent. "Monsieur Albert", as he was known in Paris, planned to go to France to escape the "German madness".
He was arrested and murdered by the Gestapo in Lörrach on his way to Switzerland in 1939/40 because he had taken an unequivocal stand against this unjust regime by continuing to seek advice from his coach and manager Ernst Berliner, who had to emigrate to the Netherlands because he was Jewish. He never gave the Hitler salute and made no secret of his dislike of the regime.
Albert Richter was and is a great role model for us all.
To this day, Albert Richter has not been rehabilitated as a victim of National Socialism, although it is more than obvious that he was shot by the Nazis.
On December 31, Albert Richter was arrested just as he was about to take the train to Switzerland on his bicycle. The Gestapo, probably acting on a denunciation, discovered 12,700 marks sewn into his tires, which Richter had transported for a Jewish friend who had fled abroad. Two Dutch cyclists traveling on the same train observed the scene and later testified that they confirmed the denunciation theory, as the Gestapo did not touch the tires of their bicycles as they had done with Richter's bike. That same evening, he was taken to the prison in Lörrach, a small town in the southwest of Baden-Württemberg, near the Black Forest. When his brother asked about him on January 3, 1940, he was told that Albert had committed suicide by hanging himself in his cell. In the mortuary, he noticed holes in his brother's jacket, which were clear signs that he had been shot. A few days later, the official Reich press published a different version of events, which spoke of a skiing accident. According to the testimony of the two Dutchmen, the Nazi authorities stated that Albert Richter had been shot while trying to escape and then reverted to the original thesis that he had committed suicide by hanging.
To this day, the circumstances of his death remain unclear. However, it can be assumed that he was betrayed to the Gestapo by one or more German cyclists and that he was tortured like other enemies of the Third Reich before being shot in the prisons of Lörrach. Albert Richter was buried in the Ehrenfeld cemetery and the Nazis rejoiced at his passing, even proclaiming that "his name has been erased from our ranks, from our memory forever".
In the post-war period, Ernst Berliner, who survived the Holocaust and emigrated to the USA, traveled to Cologne several times to demand an investigation into the circumstances of the death of the man he considered to be his son. Unfortunately without success.
"Albert Richter's deliberate gesture of not showing the Hitler salute, despite being surrounded by numerous officials, is an equally powerful symbol that deserves to be known to all.
While today, all over Europe, pseudo-football fans clearly show neo-Nazi gestures in stadiums without any real reaction from the players, the example of Albert Richter shows that a sportsman always has the power to express his opinion and reject such monstrosities.
Albert Richter was a great champion, but he was also and above all a courageous man who, to the best of his knowledge and belief, refused to support the worst dictatorship of the 20th century.
"We must never forget Albert Richter, he is the pride of our sport!"