At home in front of a German crowd Mercedes-Benz wanted to do well and so fielded four of the new W196 chassis for Juan Manuel Fangio, Karl Kling, Hans Herrmann and prewar star Hermann Lang. The cars were substantially modified with the aerodynamic bodywork being removed. With Farina out of action because of injury Ferrari hired Piero Taruffi to race alongside José Froilán González and Mike Hawthorn. Stirling Moss was taken under the wing of the Maserati factory team alongside Onofre Marimón, Luigi Villoresi and Roberto Mières.

Fangio set the fastest time in practice with Hawthorn and Moss lining up alongside him on the front row of the grid but it was to be a sad session as Marimón crashed on the fast downhill section before the bridge at Adenau and was killed.

As expected there was a vast crowd on race day but González was not going to allow Mercedes-Benz all the glory and took the lead at the start. Moss disappeared early with mechanical trouble while Kling drove through the field from the back of the grid and was soon fourth behind González, Fangio and Lang. Fangio duly took the lead and after Lang spun off Kling moved to second and then overtook Fangio, ignoring signals from his pit. Ferrari in the meantime decided to call González in and handed his car over to Hawthorn. Kling went out with a broken rear suspension having had his moment of glory and so Fangio won the race with Hawthorn second, while third place went to Maurice Trintignant in his Ferrari.