Laucke was born on 9 November 1914 in Greenock, South Australia. He was the youngest of six children born to Anna Louise (née Jungfer) and Friedrich Laucke. His mother was a Barossa German born in Neukirch and his father had immigrated to Australia from Germany in 1895.
Laucke was named after the German warship SMS Condor. His father was the founder of Laucke Flour Mills and was naturalised as a British subject in March 1914, allowing him to escape internment as an enemy alien during World War I. Laucke's mother died of cancer when he was two years old. He attended local state schools, Greenock Primary School and Nuriootpa Higher Primary School, before completing his secondary education as a boarder at Immanuel College, Adelaide. He also undertook chemistry classes at the Adelaide School of Mines.
After graduating Laucke joined the family business, becoming Director and General Manager of what was now a large milling and stock feed enterprise in 1947.
State politics
Laucke was elected to the South Australian House of Assembly in the 1956 election, representing the Electoral district of Barossa as part of Sir Thomas Playford's Liberal and Country League government. He was re-elected in 1959 and 1962, and from 1962 to 1965 served as Government Whip and was regarded by colleagues as a potential future leader of the Liberal and Country League. However Laucke lost his seat to Labor candidate Molly Byrne in the 1965 election which swept the Liberal and Country League from office after 32years in government—an election campaign in which Barossa, where northern Adelaide urban sprawl was overflowing into an otherwise rural and conservative electorate, was particularly targeted by Labor.
After retiring from the Federal Parliament, Laucke acted as Lieutenant Governor of South Australia from July 1982 to April 1992, during which time he performed the role of Governor for more than 300days, while Governor Sir Donald Dunstan was either ill, out of the state or visiting remote areas.
Personal life
Laucke married Rose Hambour in 1943, with whom he had two children. He died on 30 July 1993 at his home in Greenock, South Australia. He was granted a state funeral.
In 1974, Laucke was one of the founding members of the Barons of Barossa, an organisation formed to promote the Barossa Valley and its winemaking and grape growing industries, to preserve its heritage, traditions and standards, and to carry out philanthropic works.
On 30 December 1978, Laucke was made a Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George "for Services to the Parliament of Australia."
