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Sunday 16 March 2014

Chauffeur

Early motor cars run on a steam-operated principle, so the drivers have to heat up (French chauffer) the vehicles before they start. “Chauffeur” was the name given for these warmer-uppers.

Only the very wealthy could afford the first automobiles, and they generally employed chauffeurs rather than driving themselves. A 1906 article in The New York Times reported that "...the chauffeur problem to-day is one of the most serious that the automobilist has to deal with.", and complained that "...young men of no particular ability, who have been earning from $10 to $12 a week, are suddenly elevated to salaried positions paying from $25 to $50..." and recommended the re-training of existing coach drivers.

Adolf Hitler's first personal chauffeur, Emil Maurice, was Jewish. He was also one of the founding members of the SS. After uncovering of his Jewish heritage, Hitler declared that he was an 'honorary Aryan' and prevented him from being expelled from the SS by Himmler.

Erich Kempka was a member of the SS in Nazi Germany who served as Adolf Hitler's primary chauffeur from 1934 to April 1945. Kempka left the bunker with a group of others after Hitler's suicide. They got rid of their uniforms and disguised themselves in civilian clothes. Soviet soldiers found the group, and insisted they join them and drink vodka in celebration of victory.

Driving Miss Daisy, Alfred Uhry's 1997 play about a black men who becomes the chauffeur for a testy 72-year-old white Jewish woman in Atlanta, won a Pulitzer prize and a movie Oscar. The storyline is based on Uhry's grandmother and the chauffeur who drove her for 25 years.

In the United States ice hockey player Vladimir Konstantinov was badly injured when his recently hired chauffeur, Richard Gnida, already serving a license suspension for drunken driving, lost control of their limousine and hit a tree. The accident ended his career just six days after the Red Wings 1997 Stanley Cup victory.

In Saudi Arabia women are allowed to fly aircraft, though they must be chauffeured to the airport because it’s illegal for them to drive a car.

A female chauffeur is called a chauffeuse.

Sources WikipediaDictionary of Phrase and Fable by Nigel Rees

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