Karl Jochen Rindt was born in April 1942 in Mainz, Germany, where his father, Karl Ludwig Rindt, owned a spice mill. His mother, Ilse Martinowitz, was an exceptionally pretty and fun-loving girl from Graz, the capital of the Austrian state of Styria. So why this silly argument about his origins? After Karl Jochen’s parents were killed in a bombing raid in Hamburg in 1943, he was raised by his grandparents in Graz until he passed his school-leaving exams. His grandfather, a highly respected lawyer with a thriving law firm, employed a clever “trick” to secure the mill in Mainz for his grandson as sole heir: twice a year he would travel to Mainz with little Karl Jochen, who then reached into the milled spices with his hands and said “yes yes” – thus fulfilling the minimum activity as heir, and leaving his aunt empty-handed.
When Rindt needed money to finance his costly career as a racing driver, he quickly sold the family business including the premises and invested the money in a Brabham Formula 2 car and transporter. From then on, he only hung around at the racetrack or at parties “chasing skirts”. The desperate grandfather turned to Jochen’s half-brother Uwe (from Ilse’s first marriage) in tears because he could no longer cope with the “little brat”. He died before his grandson’s meteoric rise into the racing world class.