Edmund Rumpler

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Rumpler (r.) With a passenger and Hellmuth Hirth (center ) on a flight to Germany in 1911
Gravestone in Stahnsdorf
Rumpler drop car
Streamlined truck

Edmund Elias Rumpler (born January 4, 1872 in Vienna ; † September 7, 1940 in Neu Tollow , Wismar district ) was an Austrian aircraft and automobile designer with Prussian citizenship (since 1913). His most famous designs were the Rumpler Taube , the Rumpler C-Types and the Teardrop Car .

Life

Training and employment

Edmund Rumpler studied mechanical engineering at the Vienna University of Technology from 1890 to 1895 and worked at railway car, steam engine and automobile factories until he joined the Allgemeine Motor-Wagen-Gesellschaft Berlin in 1898 as a designer . In 1900 he moved to Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft and in 1902 as chief engineer at Adlerwerke in Frankfurt am Main, where he invented the first swing axle in 1903 . In 1903 he became head of the design office at Adlerwerke, where he developed the first automobile engines designed by the company itself.

Aircraft designer

In 1906, Rumpler founded a technical office in Berlin, Gitschiner Straße 5, to which on November 10th, 1908 he added the company Edmund Rumpler, Luftfahrzeugbau , a department for aircraft construction. (The first German aircraft factory had been founded by August Euler one month earlier in October 1908. ) Due to the good order situation, this company was converted into Rumpler-Luftfahrzeugbau GmbH in 1909 and into Rumpler-Werke GmbH in 1914 .

The first aircraft produced in large numbers was the Etrich Taube , built under license by Ignaz Etrich , which had its maiden flight on October 10, 1910 in Johannisthal . During the First World War , the company expanded and produced over 3000 aircraft - over 1000 of the Rumpler C.VII long-range reconnaissance aircraft alone .

Automobile designer

Since the construction of powered aircraft was forbidden in Germany after the First World War due to the Versailles Treaty , the aircraft manufacturer Rumpler incorporated his experience into an absorption refrigeration machine and automobile projects. He developed the Tropfenwagen , with streamlined arranged, seen from above drop-shaped body and a pendulum-swing axle rear drive block (engine in front, gear behind the rear axle). In 1921 he presented the vehicle at the German Motor Show in Berlin. It was an economic failure. Only about 100 vehicles were made. In 1926 Rumpler sold its production facilities to Udet Flugzeugbau .

In 1930 Rumpler founded the "Rumpler-Lindner Vorntriebs-Gesellschaft mbH" in Ammendorf (then in the province of Saxony ) and in Berlin . The company was located in Berlin-SW 68, Kochstrasse 53 ( Kreuzberg ) and Berlin 39, Reinickendorfer Strasse 113 ( Wedding ). In 1930, in Edmund Rumpler's patent office, the design department and “Autogena-Blech-Industrie-GmbH-Schweißtechnik” designed a front-wheel drive truck with front and rear swing axles.

Rumpler had built the most famous streamlined truck in commercial vehicle construction as two individual pieces in 1930, which found their way into the history of the commercial vehicle industry as futuristic streamlined three-axle trucks with "front drive" . Rumpler had the name Front drive use, because the name " front wheel drive " a patent-name at the time of DKW was.

The first truck type RuV 29 had a Maybach six-cylinder engine with 90 hp. The second Rumpler truck type RuV 31 had a 150 hp twelve-cylinder V-engine and could travel at 100 km / h. Both trucks had a double cardan joint that transferred the power to the large front wheels. The rear double wheels were equipped with a balance beam design. Continental had specially developed special tires that were suitable for vehicles over 100 km / h. The body builder Gottfried Lindner in Ammendorf had made the truck box van in collaboration with the Ambi-Budd press shop in Johannisthal and the Berlin body manufacturer Luchterhand & Freytag in Berlin-Tempelhof . Both vehicles were used as fast newspaper express trucks at Ullstein Verlag . In 1943 the Rumpler trucks were destroyed by a bomb attack.

Rumpler had been the editor of the specialist magazine “Der Motorwagen” since 1900.

During the National Socialist rule he had to give up his job because of his Jewish origins. His grave is on the south-west cemetery Stahnsdorf in the Reformation block, garden block III, hereditary burial 28. It is dedicated to the city of Berlin as an honorary grave .

Commemoration

There are streets in several German cities that bear the name of Edmund Rumpler and thus recall the achievements of the aircraft and automobile designer. In Augsburg , a new street built in 1972 near the former branch (Bayerische Rumpler-Werke AG) was named Rumplerstraße .

Works

  • Edmund Rumpler: Die Flugmaschine - Critical discussion of executed flying machines with special consideration of the historical development . Berlin Aviation Association, Berlin 1909.
  • Edmund Rumpler: The 1000 HP aircraft engine. Dissertation at the Technical University of Berlin, 1920.
  • Edmund Rumpler: Front-wheel drive for trucks and buses. (= Henschel booklets. Feb. 1931, special motor vehicle number.) Henschel & Sohn AG, Kassel 1931.

literature

Web links

Commons : Rumpler vehicles  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ 10 years of German flight technology . P. 22.
  2. ↑ 10 years of German flight technology . P. 25 ff.
  3. ↑ 10 years of German flight technology . P. 26 ff.
  4. ↑ Günther Grünsteudel , Günter Hägele, Rudolf Frankenberger (ed.): Augsburger Stadtlexikon. 2nd Edition. Perlach, Augsburg 1998, ISBN 3-922769-28-4 .
personal data
SURNAME Rumpler, Edmund
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Rumpler, Edmund Elias (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian aircraft and automobile designer with German citizenship (since 1913)
DATE OF BIRTH January 4, 1872
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna
DATE OF DEATH September 7, 1940
Place of death New Tollow , Wismar district