Arthur Delfosse

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

August Arthur Delfosse, born Artur Ernst Delfosse (born April 17, 1883 in Cologne ; † September 5, 1956 there ) was a German aviation and automobile pioneer .

Life

The parents, August Joseph Delfosse and Elisabeth Anna geb. Pregardien, from Arthur Delfosse, came to Cologne from Belgium , where his father ran a steam brick factory in the Riehl district and made a fortune with it. The son attended secondary school in Cologne , the mechanical engineering school and finally the polytechnic in Paris. Delfosse built his first motorcycle at the age of 15 . In 1902 he made his first attempts at gliding with a self-built airplane on the Mülheimer Heide in Cologne. In 1910 and 1911 he advertised in the magazine “Flugsport” : “Monoplane, guaranteed to fly. Frame made of seamless tubular steel, autogenously welded or made of wood with engine type 1 for 7,500 marks ”.

In 1909 Delfosse built a monoplane , which he demonstrated at the Cologne Flight Week and the Brussels Motor Show . He then founded the first aircraft engine factory in Germany in Riehl. In 1919 the Cologne industrial works were founded and the Helios AG site in Ehrenfeld was purchased for the production of electric motors and machine tools . The Helios small car was later built there under the company Helios Automobilbau . After the factories were closed, Delfosse, who rode Kunstrad in his youth with his brother and was an avid cycling fan, had the machine hall converted into the Rhineland Hall for events in 1929 , where six-day races were held until 1934 . In 1921 he took over the "Eisen-Industrie AG" in Essen and four years later the machine park of the "NAC" in Berlin.

In 1923 Arthur Delfosse was made an honorary senator of the TH Braunschweig . On the occasion of his 70th birthday in 1953, he donated a four-seater sports aircraft to the Cologne Air Sports Club (KKfL). He became an honorary member of the KKfL, and the aircraft was named after him. In 1953 he received the Federal Cross of Merit .

His older brother Louis Delfosse (1882–1914) was the first Cologne aviator to perish in the First World War . According to him, in the Cologne district Ossendorf the former, near Butzweilerhof Airport , the Delfossestraße named. His son Curt Delfosse (1912–1998) ran a shipyard in the Düsseldorf harbor, where, in addition to VW-powered boats, he also built small racing cars and bodies for himself and customers. In the early 1950s he emigrated to Argentina and later to California, where he continued to build racing cars, among other things.

Arthur Delfosse was married to Karoline Steinberg since 1934. He died at the age of 73 in his apartment in Cologne-Lindenthal .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Death certificate no. 3314 from September 6, 1956, registry office Cologne I. In: LAV NRW R civil status register. Retrieved June 18, 2018 .
  2. ↑ a b Joachim Brokmeier: Cologne-Riehl: A look into history . Erfurt 2013, p. 18 .
  3. ^ Heribert Suntrop: History of Cologne Aviation. koelner-luftfahrt.de, accessed on December 18, 2014 .
  4. ↑ Alexander Kierdorf / Mirko Schmücker / Immo Mikloweit: Cologne Helios 2004–2006. rheinische-industriekultur.de, accessed on December 18, 2014 .
  5. ^ Heribert Suntrop: The Chronicle of Cologne Aviation. Luftfahrtarchiv-koeln.de, accessed on December 18, 2014 .
personal data
SURNAME Delfosse, Arthur
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Delfosse, August Arthur (full name); Delfosse, Artur Ernst (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German aviation and automobile pioneer
DATE OF BIRTH April 17, 1883
PLACE OF BIRTH Cologne
DATE OF DEATH 5th September 1956
Place of death Cologne