Bruno Büchner

Bruno Büchner

Bruno Büchner (born June 28, 1871 in Alt-Gersdorf ; † November 30, 1943 in Munderfing ) was a German cyclist and car racing driver and aviation pioneer . In 1914 he was the first pilot to take a mail flight in German South West Africa . He later ran the former Pension Moritz in Obersalzberg under a new name , where Adolf Hitler found shelter in the summer of 1925 and worked on the manuscript of Mein Kampf .

Youth and education

Bruno Büchner grew up as the son of an accountant in Ebersbach . After attending secondary school in Zittau , he attended the Technicum in Mittweida and did an internship at the sewing machine and bicycle factory Dürkopp & Co. in Bielefeld . After completing his studies, he got a job with the bicycle manufacturer Johann Puch in Graz , who founded the Puch works in 1899 .

Cycling career

Büchner as a racing cyclist (approx. 1895)

Büchner began cycling in the “Grazer Training School” founded by Alexander Gayer , in which riders from abroad also trained; the most famous student was the future Danish world champion Thorvald Ellegaard . In 1893, Büchner took part in the 582-kilometer long distance bike ride from Vienna to Berlin and finished in tenth place after 36 hours and 37 minutes. Mainly, however, Büchner drove races on the track , and initially still on the pennywheel . In 1895 he won the championship of Bohemia and the year after the high bike championship of Austria in Graz. He then switched to the Niederrad and won the Romanian championship. In 1896 he was second in the German sprint championship behind the eventual world champion Willy Arend . Together with the Austrian racing driver Franz Seidl , who, like Büchner, came from the “Grazer Training School”, he formed a successful tandem pair .

In 1900 Büchner, who was temporarily under contract as a professional with the Puch works, ended his racing career because he had little success after falling in Leipzig two years earlier. In 1908 he was ranked 10th among the most successful German aviators (sprinters) on foreign railways from 1895–1908 in statistics with a total profit of 10,685 marks. In 1897, towards the end of his racing career, Büchner founded a training school for racing drivers:

“Bruno Büchner, the excellent Austrian (sic!) Racing driver, decided after the result of the Whitsun races on the cycling track of the Friedenauer Sportpark to set up a training school (sic!) In Berlin and to move his residence permanently to the capital of the Reich for this purpose. The Berliner Sportpark-Actien-Gesellschaft has succeeded in winning the excellent master for their track, especially since the track seems particularly suitable to him. The school will be set up according to the system of the famous trainer Gayer, who should appear in Berlin these days. Büchner brings a four-seater and a four-seater with him and will first bring in a team for a three-seater, then the training school will open. "

- bike world. June 9, 1897.

In addition, Büchner opened a restaurant near the Friedenau sports park in Berlin , where the racing driver colleagues frequented. "In personal dealings, he showed himself to be a lovable, humorous person who [...] made a handsome figure," wrote the Rad-Welt . Both ventures, however, were unsuccessful in business.

Car racing driver and pilot

Büchner as a pilot (1910)

Büchner then worked again at Dürkopp in Bielefeld, then opened his own motor vehicle dealership with a repair workshop in Magdeburg and took part in car races. In February 1907 he was runner-up in the Stockholm - Gothenburg automobile race . In June of the same year he drove his racing car to scrap while training for the “ Kaiserpreis-race ”. He started with a replacement car, a " Horch ", in this race, in which Fritz Opel and the former cyclist Thaddäus Robl (on a Gaggenau ) also took part, but retired after the first run.

From 1910, Bruno Büchner worked as a flight instructor and aircraft manufacturer at the automotive technical school, flight technology department, in Zahlbach near Mainz , where he taught, among other things, Anthony Fokker , the later founder of the Fokker Flugzeugwerke . Büchner, who didn't know much more about flying than his students and who had also become very heavy, however, demolished the school's only light aircraft while attempting to fly. Only a year later, he acquired on aviation - Double Decker as 53. German pilot's license. In the same year he was second in the "Saxon Round Flight" and shortly afterwards third in the highly regarded Germany flight . From spring 1912 Büchner worked as a flight instructor and works pilot for the " Deutsche Flugzeug-Werke " (DFW) in Leipzig-Lindenthal , was involved in the development of the "Mars double-decker" and a wooden propeller from Hugo Heine . In September of the same year he started in Heiligendamm at the “First German Seaplane Competition” on an aviation water double- decker . The "main competition" was originally intended to set up a naval aviation division of the German army. The flight attempts were so unsuccessful, however, that the prize money of 40,000 Reichsmarks was not paid out, but only three consolation prizes; the highest price of 7,000 Reichsmarks went to Büchner.

Braunbeck's sports encyclopedia listed Büchner's successes as a pilot:

“[...] Chief Pilot of Deutsche Flugzeugwerke Leipzig-Lindenthal. Some of his successes in 1911 include: 2nd prize in a sightseeing flight through Saxony in May 1911. To Dresden on May 25th. I. Prize of the Ministry of the Interior. At Leipzig on May 27th II. Prize of the City of Leipzig. In the German round flight in 1911 he received the following prizes: Second of the 1st stage Berlin-Magdeburg. Fifth of the 2nd stage Magdeburg-Schwerin. III. Prize in the local competitions in Schwerin. First of the 3rd stage Schwerin-Hamburg. III. and VI. Prize to Hamburg. Fifth of the 4th stage Hamburg-Kiel. Third of the 5th stage Kiel-Lüneburg. Second of the second stage Kassel-Nordhausen. First of the 1st stage Nordhausen-Halberstadt, Harzflug, 10,000 meters. First of the 13th stage Halberstadt-Berlin. Third in the entire sightseeing flight. II. Prize of the City of Berlin, a total of 47,890 marks. Flight from Mulhouse to Belfort and back, 160 km. Stopover in France. "

- Gustav Braunbeck (Ed.) : Braunbeck's Sport Lexicon. Issue 1912–1913. Braunbeck, Berlin 1912, ZDB -ID 2115649-9 , p. 58.

In 1913 Bruno Büchner took part in the Second Balkan War on the Bulgarian side with the Swiss aviator Albert Rupp . The two pilots traveled with 25 aircraft - dismantled and packed in boxes - on the train to Swilengrad , then Mustafa Pascha, to deliver them there. They also flew to the front themselves to watch troop movements and drop messages. Once Büchner got caught in enemy fire and his machine received 25 hits, but he was still able to land safely. German aviators were also active on the hostile side, the Ottoman Empire , including the Turkish aviator Reinhold Jahnow . When Büchner and Jahnow met once in the air, the fighter Jahnow turned off without firing because he had recognized the distinctive appearance of Büchner.

Büchner in Africa

Büchner's mail delivery in German South West Africa (drawing in the Deutsche Kolonialzeitung , 1914)

Büchner (center with association) rebuilding his aircraft in German East Africa

In May 1914, Bruno Büchner and his second wife Elisabeth traveled by ship to German South West Africa in order to make first flight attempts and demonstrations on behalf of the Berlin department store owner Rudolph Hertzog , who ran a branch in Swakopmund . Three aircraft from the Pfalz-Flugzeugwerke were also shipped.

Büchner's flight tests in south-west Africa, in which the use of airplanes for postal traffic was to be tested for the first time, turned out to be extremely difficult due to turbulence and strong winds. On May 18, 1914, however, Büchner flew 60 items of mail with the stamp “First flight mail attempt in DSWA” from Swakopmund to Usakos , which he reached with two stopovers; It took him almost a whole day to cover the 150-kilometer route that he flew along the railway line. A 50-cent stamp and a first day cover from the Post Office of Namibia commemorated this event 75 years later.

This was followed by passenger sightseeing flights at changing locations in the colony, including the first flight in German South West Africa with a woman on board, as was particularly mentioned. At times Büchner had the idea of ​​flying on to East Africa by plane. However, due to the low flight performance in South West Africa, he assessed the risks as too high. On July 4, 1914, the Pfalz double-decker was shipped from Lüderitzbucht to German East Africa , where Büchner installed the machine on the planned “II. General German-East African State Exhibition ”.

Büchner and his wife first stopped in Zanzibar , which was part of the British colonial empire. On August 4, 1914, shortly before the onward journey to German East Africa, the news of Great Britain entering the war as an opponent of Germany arrived. The First World War had broken out. The Büchner couple immediately embarked with their airplane on to Dar es Salaam , where they arrived shortly afterwards.

Büchner's Pfalz double-decker was requisitioned on August 5, 1914 by the German Schutztruppe under Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck . Büchner and his fitter volunteered for service. A makeshift airfield was created near the Dar es Salaam radio tower . Büchner was shot at and injured by enemy gunboats during a reconnaissance flight to Zanzibar. He managed an emergency landing on the beach near Dar es Salaam; he later reported walking 20 kilometers through the bush with a badly injured arm. After the aircraft was rebuilt, Lieutenant Ernst Ludwig Henneberger was supposed to fly the machine so that it could take off from the combat area on Kilimanjaro . But already on a test flight on November 15, 1914, Henneberger had a fatal accident. The aircraft was then rebuilt under Büchner's direction in a forge near Dar es Salaam, this time as a seaplane with floats. Büchner was still flying on the Rufiji Delta to support SMS Königsberg , but soon had to stop flying due to a lack of fuel. He then installed his engine in an old freight cart and used this strange vehicle , later named rail zepp , to transport goods from Dar es Salaam to Morogoro .

But then he fell ill with malaria and was interned by the English with his wife . In Germany he was considered dead. The couple only returned to Germany after the war. Under the headline "Reunion with someone believed dead", the newspaper Rad-Welt wrote :

“When the racing drivers showed up at the start on the Leipziger Bahn last Sunday, a man stepped over the fence, stepped up to the racing driver Bader and asked him if he knew who he was. Bader looked the questioner in the face and said that if he didn't know that Büchner was dead, he could believe he was seeing Bruno Büchner. The stranger smiled and confirmed to Bader that (sic!) He had guessed right, that he was Bruno Büchner. When Bader had recovered from his shock at seeing someone who was believed to be dead, Büchner recommended that the bike world be informed about his death. "

- bike world. 20th September 1920.

Pension landlord in Obersalzberg

left: Pension Moritz around 1900; right: advertising brochure for the "Gebirgskurhaus Pension Moritz" (before 1928)

In the early 1920s, Bruno Büchner and his wife leased the “ Pension Moritz ” in Obersalzberg , founded by Mauritia Mayer and managed by her sister until 1919 under the name Gebirgskurhaus Obersalzberg , which they bought in 1928 from the new owners. As a reminiscence of Richard Voss's popular novel Zwei Menschen ( Two People) by Richard Voss, they renamed the pension to “Platterhof”, after having already given the impression (fictional) Judith Platter from this book as a tenant for advertising purposes (see illustration) lived there. The National Socialist journalist Dietrich Eckart , who was wanted by an arrest warrant for insulting Reich President Friedrich Ebert, hid with them in 1923 . In the summer of 1925, the guest Adolf Hitler, who stayed there under the name “Hugo Wolf” after his release from prison, dictated the second part of Mein Kampf in a small log cabin, later called “ Kampfhäusl ”, on the property of the guest house .

Büchner's wife Elisabeth gave the guest a hippopotamus whip she had brought with her from Africa , and Büchner himself, an early supporter of the NSDAP , sent postcards of his pension after 1933 with the stamp: “Favorite stay of Adolf Hitler - our leader”.

After the seizure of power , however, Büchner - like the other residents of the village - came under pressure to sell his land to Martin Bormann , as Obersalzberg was to be expanded as an exclusive retreat for the top of the state to become a Führer prohibited area (→ redesign of Obersalzberg ). In April 1935, he turned to the hotel guest and Bavarian Minister of Economic Affairs, Hermann Esser, and initially complained about the road closures that accompanied Hitler's stay, as there was then a great rush of people:

“I have struggled hard for years and suffered particularly from my partisan attitude, and now that we have achieved success, business is being made more difficult for us by people who two years ago publicly spoke out against the party . "

- Chaussy / Püschner : Neighbor Hitler. Führer cult and destruction of homes on Obersalzberg. 2007, p. 97f.

Büchner was denigrated - it was said that his food was spoiled, he treated his adopted daughter Brigitte badly and had a criminal record - and expelled from the NSDAP. In 1936 the "Platterhof" was closed by SS men , electricity and water were turned off and the property was fenced in. The Büchners received 260,000  Reichsmarks , only around half of the purchase price they wanted, and had to leave Obersalzberg. However, Bruno Büchner fought against his party exclusion by writing a letter to Rudolf Hess :

"[...] it is [...] hardly possible to find an existence again unless the membership is returned to me, I do not want to be seen as a second class person [...]"

- Chaussy / Püschner : Neighbor Hitler. Führer cult and destruction of homes on Obersalzberg. 2007, p. 97f.

A party court decided to give Bruno Büchner his party membership back. He moved to Austria with his family and opened another hotel there for a short time on Lake Wallersee . On November 30, 1943, Bruno Büchner died of a heart attack in Munderfing, Austria .

literature

• Ludwig Boell: The operations in East Africa. World War 1914–1918. Dachert, Hamburg 1951.
• Ulrich Chaussy , Christoph Püschner: Neighbor Hitler. Führer cult and destruction of homes on Obersalzberg. 6th, revised and expanded edition. Links, Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3-86153-462-4 . Online: [1]
• Kurt Graunke , Walter Lemke, Wolfgang Rupprecht: giants from then until today. The story of the German professional road cyclists. Names, successes, anecdotes. Edition Sedina, Munich 1993, ISBN 3-9803273-0-2 .
• Willi Hackenberger : The old eagles. Pioneers in German aviation. Lehmann, Munich 1960. Online: [2]
• Sebastian Mantei: From the "sand can" to the communication network. The history of the development of the post and telegraph system in the colony of German South West Africa (1894–1915). Diss. Phil. Hall 2004. Online: [3]
• Karl-Dieter Seifert: German aviators over the colonies. VDM, Zweibrücken 2007, ISBN 978-3-86619-019-1 . Online: [4]
• Peter Supf : The book of German flight history. Volume 2: Pre-War, War, Post-War. Klemm, Berlin 1935.
• Wolfgang Wehap: fresh, cycling, Styrian. A journey through time through the regional cultural history of cycling. Steirische Verlags-Gesellschaft, Graz 2005, ISBN 3-85489-126-1 .
• Egbert Wünsche: Oberlausitzer aviation history (s). About flying on the Kottmar and elsewhere. Local history and history association, Neugersdorf 2004.

Web links

Commons : Bruno Büchner  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Bruno Büchner in the Radsportseiten.net database
• Bruno Büchner on cycling4fans.de

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Wishes: Upper Lusatian pilot history (s). 2004, p. 71 ff.
2. ↑ Wehap: fresh, cycling, Styrian. A journey through time through the regional cultural history of cycling. 2005, p. 59.
3. ↑ Review of the distance bike ride Vienna – Berlin 1893. Published by the Comité Berlin. In: Graunke / Lemke / Rupprecht: Giants from then until today. The story of the German professional road cyclists. 1993, p. 237.
4. ↑ All of these championships were "open" competitions.
5. ↑ Franz Seidl also became an aviation pioneer; in June 1913 he died in a plane crash near Vienna.
6. ↑ Wehap: fresh, cycling, Styrian. A journey through time through the regional cultural history of cycling. 2005, p. 110.
7. ↑ Bike World. Sports album. A cycling yearbook. 7th year, 1909, ZDB -ID 749618-7 , p. 121.
8. ↑ Bike World. Sports album. A cycling yearbook. 2nd year, 1903, p. 62.
9. ↑ Bike World. June 9, 1897, ZDB -ID 600091-5 .
10. ↑ Bike World. Sports album. A cycling yearbook. 2nd volume, 1903, p. 63.
11. ↑ Bike World. June 9, 1907.
12. ↑ Hackenberger: The old eagles. Pioneers in German aviation. 1960, p. 73.
13. ↑ Fokkerf27.nl , May 9, 2007.
14. ↑ Hackenberger: The old eagles. Pioneers in German aviation. 1960, p. 67.
15. ^ German Hydro-Airplane Meeting. (PDF) In: FLIGHT International, September 14, 1912. Flight International , September 14, 1912, p. 842 , accessed on November 30, 2018 (English): “[…] consolation prizes ranging from 3,000 to 7,000 marks were distributed among the competitors. " 
16. ↑ Jahnow is considered to be the first German officer in the air force to be killed in the First World War. He died in action on August 12, 1914.
17. ↑ Supf: The book of German flight history . Volume 2. 1935, pp. 117 and 121. The fact that the German side was two-pronged here can be explained by the fact that the German Empire was allied with the Ottoman Empire, the Bulgarian king at the time, Ferdinand I , but from the German princely house of Saxony -Coburg and Gotha . It is also possible that Büchner acted as a private person.
18. ↑ Mantei: From the "sand can" to the communication network. The history of the development of the post and telegraph system in the colony of German South West Africa (1894–1915). 2004, p. 107.
19. ^ PFW website: History. (No longer available online.) On: pfw.de , formerly in the original ; Retrieved November 30, 2013 .  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  
20. ↑ Boell: The Operations in East Africa. World War 1914-1918. 1951, p. 26.
21. ^ Seifert: German aviators over the colonies. 2007, p. 61 f.
22. ^ Seifert: German aviators over the colonies. 2007, p. 101 f.
23. ↑ The German cyclist. June 25, 1941, ZDB -ID 600082-4 .
24. ^ Seifert: German aviators over the colonies. 2007, p. 101 ff.
25. ↑ Supf: The book of German flight history. Volume 2. 1935, p. 437., the eponymous rail zeppelin only became known in 1931 due to a speed record
26. ↑ Aviation. June 7, 1916, ZDB ID 1009929-3 .
27. ↑ NS-Residenz Obersalzberg: Der Höhenwahn on einestages.spiegel.de
28. ↑ Chaussy / Püschner: Neighbor Hitler. Führer cult and destruction of homes on Obersalzberg. 2007, p. 96.
29. ^ Postcard from Bruno Büchner to Fredy Budzinski , undated , Fredy Budzinski Archive, Central Library of the German Sport University Cologne, No. 15.
30. ↑ Bavarian Historical Archive, StK 114 105

This version was added to the list of articles worth reading on July 30, 2012 .