Fritz from Opel

Fritz von Opel (right) in front of his Opel-II boat during a motorboat race on Lake Templin, June 1928

Friedrich Hermann Adam "Fritz" Opel (from 1917 of Opel ; * 4. May 1899 in Rüsselsheim , † 8. April 1971 in Samedan , Switzerland ) was a German industrialist , rocket pioneer and racers from the family Opel . His nickname was "Rocket Fritz".

Life

He was a grandson of Adam Opel and son of Wilhelm von Opel . His sister was Elinor von Opel , a cousin Georg von Opel . When Fritz Opel's father Wilhelm was raised to hereditary nobility in 1917, his descendants were also ennobled and entitled to use the title of nobility.

Fritz von Opel studied at the TH Darmstadt and was initially test manager at Adam Opel AG . In 1929 he married his first wife Margot Löwenstein, after the divorce in 1947, Emita Herrán Olozaga, daughter of the diplomat Rafael Bernando Herrán Echeverri and his wife Lucia Olozaga. From this marriage two children were born, Frederick von Opel , called Rikky (* 1947), and Marie Christine von Opel , called Putzi (1951-2006).

Together with Max Valier and Friedrich Wilhelm Sander he built a racing car with a powder rocket drive ( Opel-Sander-Rakwagen 1 ) and reached a speed of 138 km / h with this vehicle on April 11, 1928 , with the Opel-Sander-Rakwagen 2 on April 23 , 1928 May of the same year then 235 km / h. On June 23, the unmanned RAK 3 set the speed record for rail vehicles on a dead straight railway line , the "Hasenbahn" near Burgwedel , to 254 km / h.

Opel mausoleum in Rüsselsheim am Main

Fritz von Opel had already financed the first manned rocket flight on June 11, 1928 with a Lippisch duck , which had been provided with solid rocket rockets . Building on this, Opel undertook another manned rocket flight on September 30, 1929 at the Rebstock airfield in Frankfurt . The aircraft designer Julius Hatry developed a high- wing aircraft with a double tail unit . This is the first aircraft in the world specially built for rocket propulsion . The Opel-Sander RAK.1 rocket aircraft reached a height of 20 to 30 meters and covered almost two kilometers in 80 seconds. However, there was a crash landing , which Fritz von Opel survived unscathed. As a result, there were no more rocket attempts.

Opel also wrote poetry. In 1968 he published a volume of poetry between shadows and light in Limes-Verlag . Dolores Mertens also set his poems to music for a record.

Fritz von Opel is buried in the Opel mausoleum in Rüsselsheim am Main .

Honors

1962: Honorary Senator of the TH Darmstadt

literature

Opel, Fritz Adam Hermann from. Hessian biography (as of May 4, 2010). In: Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS). Hessian State Office for Historical Cultural Studies (HLGL), accessed on February 6, 2013 .
Hans Christoph Graf von Seherr-Thoß: Opel, Fritz Adam Hermann von. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 19, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1999, ISBN 3-428-00200-8 , p. 542 ( digitized version ). (there only genealogical information, the actual article text for all family members is in the online NDB under Opel, Friedrich Karl Adam Georg von )

Web links

Commons : Fritz von Opel - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Opel, Fritz (von) in the Frankfurt personal dictionary

Individual evidence

↑ see Hessisches Staatsarchiv Marburg (HStAMR), Best. 906 No. 425, p. 331 ( digitized version ).

personal data
SURNAME	Opel, Fritz von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Opel, Friedrich Adam Hermann von; Missile Fritz
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Industrialist, rocket pioneer, motor sportsman
DATE OF BIRTH	May 4, 1899
PLACE OF BIRTH	Ruesselsheim
DATE OF DEATH	April 8, 1971
Place of death	Samedan , St. Moritz

[1] see Hessisches Staatsarchiv Marburg (HStAMR), Best. 906 No. 425, p. 331 ( digitized version ).