I am the adopted son of Hans Tanner's uncle Hans, who called himself John Tanner in America. My dad was the eldest of three Tanner brothers: Hans (John), Albert, and Walter. Albert, Hans' father, was born in 1900 in the industrial city of Schaffhausen. His hometown became nearby Neuhausen, the location of the famed Rheinfall, in Schaffhausen Canton, Switzerland.
Albert and his wife Hulda had two sons, Hans and Max. Both of the boys received a British grade school education, because Albert and Hulda had emigrated to England, where they lived through the end of World War II before returning to Neuhausen. Albert and Hulda and Max lived out their lives in Neuhausen. Max was a life-long Swissair maintenance technician, based in Zurich.
I met Hans once, in 1954. I visited Neuhausen several times, and my wife Ruth and daughter Mathilda (my late mother's namesake) and I are close to Max's widow Marie-Claire (originally from France, she and Max met while vacationing in Nice, France) and her son Robert and daughter Pamela (they are, like my sisters, blood-related to Hans).
Hans emigrated to America where he married, had a daughter and divorced.
Hans settled in the Los Angeles area. Following his association with auto racing (he wrote books about Ferrari, Maseratti, and Ford race cars, about great races, and about great drivers), he became editor of "Car and Driver" and of another of the publisher's magazines, "Guns and Ammo".
He became a collector of and authority on antique weapons. He began to date a divorcee who had a young son. He also became ill with a type of blood cancer like leukemia, but which ravages red blood cells instead of the white cells. I don't know whether the illness or the drugs and treatment for it made him mad at the end of his life, but he shot and killed his girlfriend and then himself.
I have one amusing story about Hans, told to me by my Uncle Albert. Apparently in the mid-1950s, Hans and driver Phil Hill were in a hurry to get from Italy where there had just been a race to Paris, where they had hot dates lined up. They stopped in Neuhausen to pick up some of Hans's clothes. Then they raced on to Paris, at breakneck speed. I remarked to Uncle Albert that they probably did well on the European back roads, driving a Ferrari. He told me that they were driving a Buick. I can just imagine that!
Hans was a very private person, and the family has few photos of him. There may have been some in his collections, but all of his effects were sold at auction to pay a civil judgment to his victim's son. (That was proper.) His daughter found me through this Web site in May 2007 and sent me the portrait above. Also, a writer who got his first job under Hans and also worked for him at two publishing companies saw this site and contacted me, sending a personal remembrance.
