Alfred Bustards

Commemorative plaque to Alfred Trappen at the house where he was born in Hörde

Alfred Trappen (born June 19, 1828 in Hörde (today Dortmund ), † May 28, 1908 in Honnef ) was a German mechanical engineer. For more than four decades he headed the machine factory Kamp & Co., the forerunner of Demag .

Live and act

Trappen's place of work:
The mechanical workshops in Wetter

Alfred Trappen was born on June 19, 1828 in Hörde, the fourth of eight children of the soap manufacturer August Trappen (1802–1867) and his wife Elise Kamp (1797–1866). Shortly before he was born, his parents moved to the city and founded a factory with their fortune, with which they, however, suffered business failures. They therefore left Hörde in 1835 and moved to Elberfeld . There Alfred Trappen attended the secondary school and then the trade school.

At the age of 17, Trappen began an apprenticeship in 1845 at the Kamp & Co. machine factory owned by his cousin Heinrich Kamp in Wetter Castle . After six years of apprenticeship, Trappen was given the technical management of the factory together with another engineer in 1851. Three years later he married Laura von Somnitz (1827–1904); the couple had nine children, including Walter Trappen , general director of the Škoda works in Pilsen .

From 1867 Trappen was the sole technical director of the machine works in Wetter. Numerous constructions were created under his leadership. While the machine factory was initially set up in an extremely versatile manner - as was customary for the time - Trappen concentrated on the iron and steel industry under the construction of the railroad and the increasing importance of the iron industry.

Trappen achieved international renown through compactors and steam hammers designed by him . In 1874 he made his first trip to Russia to open up further sales areas and built a complete puddle plant there . In 1881 he played a key role in setting up the Thomas steelworks at Hermannshütte in Hörde, for which he developed a new casting car. In 1890 he had to give up management due to increasing hearing loss, but he remained on the supervisory board of the machine factory until 1904 .

He spent his old age in Honnef, where he died on May 28, 1908 at the age of 79.

literature

• Walter Gronemann: Bustards, Alfred . In: Hans Bohrmann (Ed.): Biographies of important Dortmunders . People in, from and for Dortmund. tape 1 . Ruhfus, Dortmund 1994, p. 150 f .
• Conrad Matschoss : Alfred Trappen . In: Journal of the Association of German Engineers . tape 52 . Association of German Engineers, Berlin 1908, p. 1242 f .
• Rainer Stahlschmidt: Alfred Trappen (1828–1908) . In: Wolfhard Weber (Ed.): Engineers in the Ruhr Area (=  Rheinisch-Westfälische Wirtschaftsbiographien ). tape 17 . Aschendorff, Münster 1999, ISBN 3-402-06753-6 , p. 5-25 .