AIACR European Championship

The championship was discontinued because of the outbreak of World War II in 1939, and no champion was officially declared for the last season.

The championship was run by the Association Internationale des Automobile Clubs Reconnus (AIACR), the forerunner to the FIA who are today's world governing body of motorsport.

[2] Already in 1933, new chancellor Adolf Hitler had announced that he would provide 450,000 reichsmarks to German companies to build Grand Prix cars.

Other entries came from manufacturers including Alfa Romeo, whose team were being run by Scuderia Ferrari, Maserati, and Bugatti.

[5] Hermann Lang was declared European champion by Korpsführer Adolf Hühnlein of the NSKK, who was also president of Germany's highest racing organisation, Oberste Nationale Sportbehörde für die Deutsche Kraftfahrt.

[4] Hühnlein suggested that Lang had finished the season on 23 points,[4] but this conflicts with the official scoring system, under which Hermann Paul Müller would have been the champion.

Hermann Lang demonstrating a Mercedes-Benz W125 at the Nürburgring in 1977. Lang drove a W125 to victory on its 1937 début.
Hermann Lang , despite finishing second on points in 1939 in the Mercedes-Benz W154 (shown here in 1986), was declared champion by the Nazis .