Erich Lochner

Max and Erich Lochner

Erich Lochner (born June 25, 1879 in Aachen , † July 8, 1947 in Munich ) was a German automobile racing driver, sports pilot and aircraft designer.

Live and act

The son of the Aachen cloth manufacturer Emil Lochner and his wife Leonie, b. Haniel (1846–1911), who was the daughter of the manor owner Max Haniel and Friederike, geb. Cockerill (1816-1854), daughter of the steel entrepreneur James Cockerill , showed interest in technical things and their construction as a young boy. After graduating from high school, he therefore decided to study engineering. He also shared a passion for flying with his brother Max Lochner . Both made numerous trips with the free balloon together .

At a young age, Erich Lochner was at times considered the family's enfant terrible . He is said to have reported to his future flight instructor August Euler that as a bachelor he invited the entire ballet ensemble of the Aachen City Theater to his factory and let the ladies dance exclusively for him. As a result of a Christmas tree fire, the fire brigade discovered the illustrious company, which significantly damaged Erich's reputation.

After completing his studies, Erich Lochner first appeared as a successful automobile racing driver. As such, he won a plaque in the 2nd Prinz-Heinrich-Fahrt in 1909 , the 3rd prize in class V at the kilometer race of the Frankfurt Automobile Club and the 3rd prize in the race of the Prinz-Heinrich-Fahrt car over one kilometer during the Automobile week in Ostend .

In the same year, Lochner, animated by Louis Blériot's crossing of the canal , switched to sport aviation. Erich Lochner, who had already dealt with the design of aircraft together with his brother a year earlier, now traveled to Berlin, Darmstadt, Frankfurt and France, where he sat in with the most famous designers and aviation experts in the various workshops. Back in Aachen took Lochner in November 1909 contact with the at that time at the RWTH Aachen make Hugo Junkers and its employees Hans Reissner and tried it by setting up an experimental workshop in Aachen Lochner Park, now the West Park to convince. This park had served as a zoological garden and amusement park and was closed in 1905 for economic reasons. However, this plan failed because of his widowed mother's resolute veto.

Lochner then moved to Darmstadt, where he registered as a student pilot with August Euler. On July 5, 1910, he was the 15th graduate to obtain the new pilot's license. Lochner then stayed with Euler and undertook further test flights on his machines. A first planned participation in an official flight week in August 1910 failed due to formal errors, but then decided to participate in the first German overland flight from Frankfurt am Main to Mannheim in the same month. As part of the test flights required for this, Lochner set a German record for cross-country flights on August 12, 1910, after he had made the route from Frankfurt am Main to Rüsselsheim in around 90 minutes. In the actual competition, despite multiple breakdowns and emergency landings with an Euler machine, he won 2nd prize behind Emile Jeannin .

Following these competitions, Lochner, who had never completely broken off contacts with his hometown, returned to Aachen, where he was elected to the sports commission of the aircraft department of the German Airship Association and immediately took part in the first consultations for a long-distance flight from Aachen planned in 1911 to Berlin took part. Lochner brought an Euler biplane with him to Aachen, with which he undertook his further flight attempts on the Aachen parade ground in the Brander Heide . Numerous spectators, including Hugo Junkers, often lined the airfield in order to be able to admire the still relatively unknown and spectacular performances.

Lochner's efforts in aviation, the scientific and technical research in the field of aircraft construction at the Technical University, public interest and the necessary coordination of the planned long-haul flight to Berlin led to the founding of the Aachener Verein für Luftschifffahrt on March 12, 1911. Four scientific associations, the Aachen district association in the Association of German Engineers , the Society for Earth and Weather Studies , the Natural Science Association of Aachen and the Electrotechnical Association as well as 76 private individuals, including Lochner, Professors Junkers, Reissner, Hertwig , Frentzen , Wallichs , Polis , Rötscher , the incumbent Lord Mayor Veltmann, representatives of the authorities, city councilors, officers and even eight wives, including ladies Lochner, Polis, Rötscher, Reissner and Delius, were among the signatories of the founding deed. More than 170 members joined the association and Erich Lochner was elected to the first association board. In addition, Lochner joined the local committee for the German sightseeing flight.

In the period that followed, Lochner became increasingly involved in the construction of aircraft. Since her veto no longer stood in the way after his mother's death in 1911, he set up a veritable assembly hall in the former Lochnerpark and initially designed his own monoplane in April 1911 . A few months later, he converted a Bleriot monoplane he had acquired according to his own findings and needs. His first racing double decker appeared in the autumn of the same year. It is conceivable that the racing double-decker that Lochner's student Richard Weyl had flown at the Aachener Flugtage in 1912 was also a Bleriot XI monoplane converted by Lochner. Lochner was so preoccupied with this work that he gave up his active sport flying. In the same year, Lochner separated from his family and moved into a house he had built in Geiselgasteig near Munich, and a year later also ended his membership in the Aachen Association for Airship Travel.

Shortly after the outbreak of World War I in August 1914, Erich Lochner volunteered for the war effort, but was initially not recruited because of a heart condition. After Lochner's assurance that he would take part in the war at his own risk and without any claims for compensation, he was finally taken over by the army. He made several privately owned sports cars available to the army and served first in the 2nd Army , then in the 7th and 5th Army and finally in the 10th Army , where he was occasionally used as an aviator. In view of his relatively old age for aviation and the resulting possibly restricted airworthiness, he was later withdrawn from the front and then worked as a technical officer in Berlin-Adlershof . Here he coordinated the repair work on damaged aircraft and flew repaired machines back in. The constant flying and the constant work overload led to a sudden hearing loss and loss of balance, with the result that Lochner crashed several times during test flights in early 1917. Because of this, he had to say goodbye to military service in early 1917 for health reasons in the rank of first lieutenant and retired to his house in Munich.

Finally, in 1922, Erich Lochner also resigned from Club Aachener Casino , which he had joined in 1911.

Erich Lochner was first married to Leonie Deden (1884–1938), a daughter of the Laurensberg landowner and honorary mayor Arnold Deden. After his divorce in 1916, he married Luise Hacker that same year and, in 1920, Berta Maria Weidenmüller was third. He had four sons in total. Erich Lochner died in Munich in 1947.

Literature and Sources

• Rüdiger Haude: Border flights. Political symbolism of aviation before the First World War. The example of Aachen , Böhlau Verlag GmbH & Cie., Cologne, Weimar, Vienna, 2007; ISBN 978-3-412-20059-6
• Thomas Lochner: The story of the Aachen cloth manufacturer Johann Friedrich Lochner and his family , Schnell-Verlag, Warendorf 2013, pp. 116–121

Web links

Commons : Lochner family (Aachen)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Erich Lochner in the group picture of the August Euler Aviation Museum