The layout for the circuit in the Grunewald district of Berlin was simple – two straights joined by a slightly banked corner at Charlottenburg and a hairpin six miles south at Nikolasse. Average lap speeds at AVUS were boosted to over 170 mph when the awesome 43-degree banked North Curve (or “Wall of Death”) was built in 1937. At the end of the war the southern end of the original circuit ran into the Soviet zone, so a new South curve was built cutting the circuit in half. The German GP was held twice at AVUS, with Rudolf Caracciola’s private Mercedes winning the inaugural event in 1926 and Tony Brooks succeeding in 1959. Both were also tragic affairs however. Adolf Rosenberger crashed into a scoring hut in 1926, killing the three occupants, and Jean Behra died in a sports car race supporting the 1959 race. The North Curve was dismantled in 1967, but a further shortened AVUS continued to hold national events until it finally closed in May 1998.
