Klaus Thormaehlen

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Klaus Ferdinand Thormaehlen (born April 23, 1892 in Hanau ; † July 4, 1981 in Bad Kreuznach ) was a German engineer , winemaker and the inventor of the mulching sickle .

Life

Klaus Thormaehlen was born as the youngest son of the teacher for architecture at the art academy Emil Thormählen and the arts and crafts school teacher Else Thormaehlen born. Altenkirch born. He was the younger brother of Ludwig Thormaehlen , who later belonged to the Stefan-George circle . In 1913, Klaus Thormaehlen passed his Abitur at the Friedrich-Wilhelm-Gymnasium in Cologne. From 1913 to 1914 he studied mechanical engineering in Zurich, 1914 philosophy in Berlin and from 1914 to 1915 political science in Bonn. In 1915 he was conscripted for duty in a grenade detonator factory in Mannheim. In 1916 he completed military training as a telecommunications technician and did military service on the Western Front as a telecommunications operator. He was retired because of a knee injury. From 1917 he completed his studies at the Technical University of Darmstadt and graduated in 1922 with a degree in mechanical engineering and electrical engineering. From 1922 to 1924 he worked as an engineer at Brown, Boveri & Cie. in Mannheim. From 1924 to 1928 he was operations manager of the “Cunowerk” power plant of the Mark AG Hagen municipal electricity company in Herdecke . During this activity he became familiar with the subject of pulverized coal combustion. He received three patents for this, which are registered under the following publication numbers:

  • DE 443358: pulverized coal combustion with a drying and ignition chamber in front of the combustion chamber
  • DE 452576: Purification device for pulverized coal furnaces
  • DE 541517: Comminution device for granular material, in which its parts are thrown against one another by streams of a gaseous pressure medium directed against one another

From 1929 to 1937 he was power plant manager in the Gneisenau colliery of Harpener Bergbau AG in Derne . From 1937 to 1944 he was operations manager of the Gneisenau colliery and later also of the Scharnhorst colliery . Soviet prisoners of war were used as slave labor in these factories . From 1947 Klaus Thormaehlen the farmed vineyard and the winery of his grandfather Carl Altenkirch in Bad Kreuznach. Klaus Thormaehlen was married twice and had seven children.

Invention of the mulching sickle

As a winemaker in the 1950s, he was faced with the problem of removing weeds from the areas between the vines. This tedious work was done by hand in a stooped position. To remedy this, he invented the mulching sickle in 1961, for which he received the utility model in 1962 under the publication number DE 1851396U . The mulching sickle is a motor-driven device that can be used to remove weeds in inaccessible places while standing in an upright position, with the motor carried on your back. Today, modern brushcutters or brushcutters are common in viticulture.

Johannes Theodor Thormaehlen Foundation

The foundation founded in 1998 by his son Johannes-Theodor Thormaehlen collects, documents, receives and publishes the testimonies of the intellectual, artistic and manual work of the members of the Thormaehlen family.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Patent DE443358 : Coal dust firing with a drying and ignition chamber in front of the combustion chamber. Published on April 27, 1927 , inventor: Klaus Thormaehlen. ‌
  2. ↑ Patent DE452576 : Purification device for coal dust firing . Published on November 17, 1927 , inventor: Klaus Thormaehlen. ‌
  3. ↑ Patent DE541517 : Crushing device for granular material, in which its parts are thrown against each other by opposing streams of a gaseous pressure medium. Published on January 13, 1932 , inventor: Klaus Thormaehlen. ‌
  4. ↑ See affidavit of 7 works councils of the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau collieries of the Harpener Bergbau-AG dated November 4, 1946 on the treatment of the foreign workers and prisoners of war deployed in these mines (Stiftung Westfälisches Wirtschaftsarchiv Dortmund, signature S1 NI-6026). In: Holger Menne, Michael Farrenkopf (arr.): Forced labor in the Ruhr mining industry during the Second World War. Special inventory of the sources in North Rhine-Westphalian archives (publications from the German Mining Museum Bochum, No. 123) Bochum 2004, esp. Pp. 18, 154–156, 170 u. ö.
  5. ↑ Utility model DE1851396U : Mulch-Mäh-Sichel. Published on May 10, 1962 , inventor: Klaus Thormaehlen. ‌
personal data
SURNAME Thormaehlen, Klaus
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Thormaehlen, Klaus Ferdinand
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German engineer, inventor and winemaker
DATE OF BIRTH April 23, 1892
PLACE OF BIRTH Hanau
DATE OF DEATH 4th July 1981
Place of death Bad Kreuznach