Just a year before WWII, a 28 year old German driver named Bernd Rosemeyer crashed while driving over 260 miles per hour on a public road, killing him instantly. Just a few years earlier, Rosemeyer had been a humble mechanic, working at his dad’s garage. But now, he was part of a Hitler-funded racing program-- a violent effort to make Nazis the fastest drivers in the world. Today on Past Gas, the dark origins of Mercedes’ and Audi’s racing programs. How did these teams get started? What was their link to the Nazis? And why were some of the drivers not even Germans?

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