The former World Cross Country champion Paul Erfurt Frederick died at the age of 72 after a life crisis and a long illness last Thursday.
Erfurt. He was so happy about his successor. "The boy is dead right," said Paul Friedrichs, as the Thuringian motocross world champion Ken Roczen was received (17) last November in Mattstedt. Frederick, who 43 years earlier also raced to the title, was the guest of honor and handed Roczen some 500 fans in a lot of applause, the GDR flag with which he once ran over the finish line. It was Frederick's last public appearance - the Thursday before the Thuringian motorsport legend died at the age of 72 after a long illness.
He had gained a lot of posts about Roczen - and at a meeting with our newspaper earlier this year spread out in his beautiful house on tie-Knie in Erfurt on the table. The fingers of the pensioner, the once world champion certainly included the leaders of the cross-machine trembled, but with the paper in his hands. A hint. "It is not good to me," admitted a then Frederick.
Liver tumor, chronic back pain infarction risk. Since a brain hemorrhage in June this year, he was a nursing case.
Elusive for someone who knew him from before. A native of Mecklenburg, the talent developed under the conditions of the police professional sports clubs MC Dynamo Erfurt to the dominating motocross and enduro athletes of his time. 1966, 1967 and 1968, he won the world title. A hat-trick of anyone succeeded before. There was a hint of freedom in the air and reminded U.S. actor James Dean, if the qualified tractor mechanic swept past on the heavy two-stroke CZ. If he, the 23-times GDR champion - who also had supporters in the West - again the other strong Thuringian as Heinz Hoppe, Joachim Helmhold or damage Helmut Berg to the courts referred to them or conquered international trophies.
Frederick had to smile when he learned that Roczen could now in the U.S. per year converted enter up to one million euros. "This time it was not crass. But each world title I got a Skoda Octavia. That was something."
In addition, he was allowed to keep his two machines after each season and "silver. Us it was not bad," said Frederick, who umschulte later a master of forestry, loved hunting and thereafter, the area representative for the iconic brand MZ in Erfurt.
A break came in the mid 90s. Frederick took a car dealership in Arnstadt, but felt cheated by the manufacturing company, lost the equivalent of 200,000 euros. He then took hold in the cross sports, the operation now his son David, the multiple state champion. But along the way he met people who invited him for a drink, again and again.
Wife Angela and son David (31) complained at the meeting also, their "Paule" lacked "a real big job." But he had the invaluable expertise to aufzupeppeln as old CZ-machine again. There were no offers.
Friday, 11 clock is, in Erfurt, the funeral.
