Felix Rötscher

Felix Rötscher (born April 23, 1873 in Querfurt , † April 11, 1944 in Aachen ) was a German university professor for mechanical engineering and materials science and rector of the RWTH Aachen .

Life

After graduating from high school in 1892, Rötscher studied mechanical engineering at the Technical University in Berlin and was then taken on as an assistant there after graduating as a graduate engineer in 1899. In April 1904 he moved to the AEG turbine factory in Berlin as a department head , but was still doing his doctorate in December 1905 at his old university. In 1906 he finally accepted a call to the Technical University in Aachen, where he was appointed full professor for the introduction to mechanical engineering, machine elements , materials science and manufacturing processes. He founded the Institute for Material Science here and became known primarily for his work on machine elements and in particular for his work in the field of the design of screw connections with the help of the descriptive "Rötscher diagram".

In addition, Rötscher was one of the co-initiators who brought together the scientific and technical research in the field of aircraft construction at the Technical University, the corresponding public interest and the necessary coordination of a planned long-haul flight to Berlin, which resulted in the founding of the Aachen Association on March 12, 1911 came for airship travel. Four scientific associations, the Aachen district association in the Association of German Engineers , the Society for Geography and Weathering , the Natural Science Association of Aachen and the Electrotechnical Association as well as 76 private individuals, including Rötscher, Professors Junkers , Reissner , Hertwig , Frentzen , Wallichs , the aviation pioneer Erich Lochner , the incumbent Mayor Veltmann, representatives of the authorities, city councilors, officers and even eight wives, including the ladies Lochner, Polis, Rötscher, Reissner and Delius, were among the signatories of the founding deed. More than 170 members joined the association and Felix Rötscher was elected to the first association board.

With an interruption during the First World War, during which Rötscher worked in an airship replacement department, he stayed at RWTH Aachen until his retirement in 1938 and in the meantime held the post of Rector from 1930 to 1932 as Hubert Hoff's successor and then the position of Vice-Rector of the TH and the Dean of Faculty III.

Rötscher's role in the National Socialist state

During the Third Reich , Rötscher initially tended to gain new hope and confidence in the field of science and research from the day of Potsdam , but, like his successor in the position of Rector Paul Röntgen, did not join the NSDAP . He tried to come to terms with the system and was inevitably involved more and more. Together with Adolf Wallichs , Hubert Hoff, Hermann Bonin and Robert Hans Wentzel, for example, he was busy checking the denunciation cases reported by the AStA ( General Student Committee ) and the student leaders on the basis of alleged communist ideas or behavior critical of the regime by colleagues and students . By forwarding these reports to the Reich Commissioner in the Ministry of Education Bernhard Rust , the non-Aryan professors Otto Blumenthal , Arthur Guttmann , Walter Maximilian Fuchs , Ludwig Hopf , Theodore von Kármán , Paul Ernst Levy , Karl Walter Mautner , Alfred Meusel , Leopold Karl Pick , Rudolf Ruer , Hermann Salmang and Ludwig Strauss withdrew their teaching license from September 1933 under the law for the restoration of the civil service , although Rötscher and Rector Röntgen had petitioned for the mathematics professor Otto Blumenthal, for example.

In 1934, together with Paul Röntgen and Hubert Hoff, Rötscher was also unable to counteract the fact that the proportion of Jewish students was to be reduced from 5 to 1.5% and later even further in the matriculation committee of the TH.

As part of the preparations for war and the associated requirements of the armaments industry , Rötscher was also encouraged to place greater emphasis on weapons technology , transmission theory , telecommunications and high-frequency technology, and automotive technology , while he himself carried out tests with new materials and calculations on structural parts .

All of this meant that Rötscher was unclean with himself and he therefore gradually withdrew from the university leadership and finally retired for health reasons in 1938. He continued to live in Aachen, but was fatally injured in a bomb attack by Allied troops in 1944.

Works

• The machine elements , Berlin, Julius Springer, 1927
• Manual for the execution of welded steel structures, Aachen, Eros-Gesellschaft für Schweisstechnik , 1930
• Strain measurements and their evaluation , Berlin, Julius Springer, 1939

literature

• Ulrich Kalkmann: The Technical University of Aachen in the Third Reich (1933–1945) . Verlag Mainz, Aachen 2003, ISBN 3-86130-181-4 , ( Aachener Studies on Technology and Society 4), (At the same time: Aachen, Techn. Hochsch., Diss., 2003), p. 414 ff. And others (s . Search index), [1] .

Web links

• http://www.archiv.rwth-aachen.de/biographischedatenbank/ (groups of people - directors)