Alfred Friedrich (pilot)
Alfred Friedrich (born March 18, 1891 in Schöneberg ; † October 13, 1968 in Bad Kissingen ) was an aviation pioneer and owner of the aircraft repair plant in Strausberg, east of Berlin.
Life
His flight instructor was Gustav Witte . On January 11, 1912, he received his flight license (pilot's license No. 149). December 1912 he set a record of over five hours in a Rumpler pigeon.
After Pyotr Nesterow performed a looping in August 1913 , Friedrich invented the corkscrew , a controlled spin, in September .
In September 1913 he started a five-country flight in the Etrich Taube with Hermann Elias as navigator .
From April 1, 1914, he was chief pilot at Rumpler-Flugzeugwerke in Berlin-Johannisthal (?) In June he caused a stir with his flights Berlin-Sofia, where he wanted to demonstrate German flight material, and Sofia-Bucharest, which was the first overflight of the Balkan Mountains depicted with a passenger.
When the First World War broke out at the end of July there was still no air force and he initially joined the imperial air force as a contract employee ; only later did he receive a military rank. Initially, he flew in Feldfliegerabteilung 14 and was used as a reconnaissance aircraft in September 1914 at the Tannenberg Battle in East Prussia. For his front flights he received both Iron Crosses and was promoted to lieutenant in the reserve.
On August 1, 1915, he became head of the Döberitz Aviation School , where u. a. the fighter pilots Oswald Boelcke and Manfred von Richthofen went through his school.
On January 1, 1916, he was given leave to train pilots in the Bulgarian army. From the summer of 1916 until the end of the war, he was a works pilot and one-flyer at the Berlin Albatros factory.
After the war he founded an engineering company. He was primarily interested in light aircraft construction, which experienced an upswing thanks to the development of sports and training aircraft. Hanns Klemm and the Englishman Geoffrey de Havilland with his DH60 Moth contributed in particular . This made Friedrich popular in Germany with his demonstration flights and from 1926 he was head of the German branch of the de Havilland Aircraft Company in Berlin-Tempelhof. He was in close contact with Carl Clemens Bücker in Rangsdorf.
The Alte Adler association was founded in September 1927, and he managed it with Walter Mackenthun until the beginning of the Second World War.
In 1934, after Hitler came to power, he founded his aircraft repair plant for light aircraft in Strausberg , primarily for Heinkel and Klemm. In the Berlin area, there was a great need for repairs to school and sport aircraft. Commercial director was his brother Hermann, technical director Mr. Spindler. At the end of Hegermühlenstrasse, he acquired the closed electricity and waterworks for the repair shop. For the factory airfield , he acquired a 500 m long field in the north of Strausberg, where he built the final assembly hall. The damaged aircraft arrived on the Strausberger Railway , were dismantled and reassembled under the supervision of the Reich Aviation Ministry, the fuselage and wings were transported separately by truck to the final assembly hall and flown in. In April 1941 he hired " Schlosser-Max " as a single flyer who completed 700 flights here over the next three years.
The Reich Aviation Ministry tried in vain to win him over for a position in the Air Force, which was still kept secret in 1933/34.
Originally they continued with 250 employees monthly. around 30 machines in repair. In the first years of the war, with around 80 conscripts and prisoners of war, the number rose to 45.
The Jagdgeschwader 400 , which was equipped with Me 163 from the summer of 1944 , frequently caused ruptures during landings. As a result of missing and inaccurate spare parts, the squadron was disbanded when the supply collapsed. In February 1945 only Bücker Bestmann machines were repaired in Strausberg . When the Red Army had advanced to the Oder, Friedrich received the order to move the workforce to Gustav Besser KG in Ruppertsgrün .
In 1946/47 its final assembly hall was dismantled.
From 1951 to 1960 he revived the old eagles together with Ernst Canter
His wife was the German sculptor Lore Friedrich-Gronau (1908–2002).
literature
- Helmut Bukowski, Rolf Apel: Strausberg Märkische Heimat for aviators and aircraft construction
- Gustav Fochler-Hauke : Der Fischer Weltalmanach 1969, Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main, 1969, p. 368.
- Hanuš Salz, Harald Waitzbauer: In flight over Salzburg: Igo Etrich and the beginning of aviation in Salzburg, in: Vol. No. 104. '"> Series" Special publications ", Office of the Salzburg Provincial Government, Salzburg, 1993, p. 60.
Individual evidence
- ↑ List of 817 German pilots before the outbreak of war in 1914 , as seen on July 31, 2008
Web links
- Alfred Friedrich - aviation pioneer and owner of the aircraft repair plant in Strausberg (1/4)
- Alfred Friedrich - aviation pioneer and owner of the aircraft repair plant in Strausberg (2/4)
- 38214 XJB SANKE CARD No. 395 ALFRED FRIEDRICH. ( Memento from June 18, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Friedrich, Alfred |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German aviation pioneer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | March 18, 1891 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Berlin-Schöneberg |
| DATE OF DEATH | October 13, 1968 |
| Place of death | Bad Kissingen |