Adolf Rohrbach

Rohrbach's tombstone in the south-west cemetery in Stahnsdorf by Arno Breker

Adolf Rohrbach (born March 28, 1889 in Gotha , † July 6, 1939 in Kampen on Sylt ; full name: Adolf Karl Otto Rohrbach ) was a German mechanical engineer , aircraft designer and entrepreneur .

Life

The son of the Gotha school director and amateur astronomer Carl Rohrbach was particularly interested in technology. After studying mechanical engineering at the Technical University of Darmstadt and receiving a doctorate in engineering. He developed from a fitter at the Blohm & Voss shipyard in Hamburg to Claude Dornier's employee at Luftschiffbau Zeppelin GmbH in Friedrichshafen and later to chief designer at the Zeppelin airship yard (and aircraft factory) in Staaken . Here he constructed large aircraft for the air war against Great Britain.

Romar flying boat, 1928

After the First World War , he took over the management of the plant in 1919 and continued to build large aircraft in all-metal construction, including the Zeppelin E 4/20 . In 1921 Rohrbach received his doctorate at the TH Berlin-Charlottenburg and in 1922 founded Rohrbach Metallflugzeugbau GmbH, where he designed the Rocco seaplane , which was produced by the subsidiary Rohrbach Meta Airplane Co. A / S in Kastrup near Copenhagen . From 1924 in Berlin, the three-engine Roland airliner was built in 1926 , which was then taken over by Lufthansa . This aircraft type was also used as the first aircraft by the Spanish Iberia . The Romar flying boat took off in 1928 . For economic reasons, Rohrbach sold the company to DeSchiMAG , which merged it with Weser-Flugzeugbau GmbH in 1934 . Adolf Rohrbach took over the position of technical director there and was u. a. involved in the development of the We 271 amphibious aircraft . During a vacation stay on Sylt, he died of a heart attack on July 6, 1939 in Kampen in the “Haus Meeresblick”.

family

Adolf Rohrbach was married to the German photographer Charlotte Rohrbach (1902–1981). He was buried in the south-west cemetery in Stahnsdorf .

literature

• Hans Joachim Ebert:  Rohrbach, Adolf. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 22, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-428-11203-2 , p. 4 f. ( Digitized version ).
• Engelbert Zaschka : rotary wing aircraft. Gyroscopes and helicopters. CJE Volckmann Nachf. E. Wette, Berlin-Charlottenburg 1936. ( OCLC 20483709 )
• Karl-Dieter Seifert: German air traffic. 1926-1945. On the way to world traffic. Bernard & Graefe Verlag, Bonn 1999, ISBN 3-7637-6118-7 .
• Wolfgang Müller: The flying ocean cruiser . Publishing house M&M, Martenshagen 2017, ISBN 978-3-939155-79-9 .

Web links

• Literature by and about Adolf Rohrbach in the catalog of the German National Library
• Newspaper article about Adolf Rohrbach in the 20th century press kit of the ZBW - Leibniz Information Center for Economics .
• Short biography on the state education server Baden-Württemberg
• List of US Patents
• GJ Staalman: Dr. Adolf Rohrbach Chronicles. ADOLF KARL ROHRBACH 1889–1939 German airplane designer, entrepreneur. 2014, accessed on October 20, 2017 .