Heidi Hetzer

Heidi Hetzer (20 June 1937 – 21 April 2019) was a German entrepreneur and rally driver. In obituaries, she was referred to as an "intrepid globetrotter."
Life.
Hetzer was born as the daughter of the entrepreneur Siegfried Hetzer, who had founded a Victoria (motorcycle) dealership in Berlin in 1919 and had been operating an Opel car dealership since 1933. From 1954 she learned the profession of automotive mechanics in the family business. After an attempt to become self-employed at age 21, she worked again in her father's business. At the age of 31, Hetzer took over the company based in Berlin-Charlottenburg in 1969 after the death of her three-year-older sister and her father, which made her one of the largest car dealerships in Berlin and managed until 2012. Since neither her daughter nor son wanted to continue the business, she sold the company.
As one of the few successful female entrepreneurs in her industry and as a racing driver, but also through her social commitment, Hetzer was one of the best known personalities in Berlin's economy. The high media presence through newspaper reports, interviews and talk show appearances also made Berlin beyond the point that she was widely in the spotlight.
Hetzer had a daughter and a son and lived in Charlottenburg. On 21 April 2019 she was found dead in her apartment at the age of 81 years. Heidi Hetzer was buried in the churchyard of Dorfkirche Gatow (grave site B-1-2) in her hometown.
Motorsport.
In 1953, Hetzer first participated in a rally around Müggelberge on a Lambretta scooter, but was disqualified because of "foreign help".
Among other things, she participated in the following competitions:
In the Carrera Panamericana in Mexico and the Tour d'Europe in 1989, she finished third in each case. In the latter she also won the team ranking with her women's team. An intended participation in the Dakar Rally in 2008 was not possible due to the cancellation of the rally. Their participation plans, which were postponed to the following year, were not implemented. In addition, she regularly took part in regional classic car rallies like the Prinz-Heinrich-Fahrt in Eckernförde.
World tour.
On 27 July 2014, she embarked on a voyage around the world in Berlin, following in the footsteps of Clärenore Stinnes with a Hudson Greater Eight from 1930. Passenger was initially the travel photographer Jordane Schönfelder, but retired immediately after the start. The Berliner Patrik Heinrichs replaced him as a passenger from Istanbul, but in turn rose from the project on 18 September 2014 in Tashkent.
The trip took them from Eastern Europe to Tehran, then from China to Australia. On 4 April 2015 she arrived in New Zealand. After transferring to the Americas she drove through Canada and reached the border with the United States at Emerson at the end of August 2015. She drove on through the US and South America and reached after the Atlantic transfer in August 2016 in South Africa. After a tour of several countries in southern Africa, she returned to Europe with a cargo ship from South Africa, about 2 ½ years after the start. On March 12, 2017, she finished her trip to Berlin and was greeted in front of the Brandenburg Gate by friends, fans and the Berlin State Secretary Sawsan Chebli.
Honors.
For her social engagement, for example for Ein Herz für Kinder, she was honored in 2007 by the Technical University Berlin with the name of an orchid from the genus Phalaenopsis.
In the summer of 2004, Hetzer was in Berlin and was a bearer of the Olympic torch on its way to the games in Athens.
Scandal about racist utterance.
In the ZDF on March 13, 2017, Hetzer spoke racially about black people. The subject of her trip around the world, during which she was repeatedly robbed by dark-skinned South Africans:
On March 14, 2017, she apologized in an interview with B.Z.: "That was a mistake. I apologize for this statement. How can I make amends? ". Her statement refers to a surveillance video in which four dark-skinned South Africans stole their navigation system from the locked vintage car. Furthermore, in Cape Town the golden Berlin bear had been ripped off her neck by a black man and her car was completely vacated in St. Lucia. The presenter of the morning magazine, Jana Pareigis, also commented on Facebook on the incident and condemned the statements as false, racially stereotyped and hurtful. However, she hopes that the interview will at least lead to racist prejudice being discussed.