Friedrich Wilhelm Sander
Friedrich Wilhelm Sander (born August 25, 1885 Glatz / Silesia ; † September 15, 1938 Berlin ) was a German pyrotechnic engineer. The designer from Bremerhaven and Wesermünde was next to Max Valier companion of the rocket pioneer Fritz von Opel .
biography
education and profession
Sander was the son of a professional soldier. He went to school in Uslar on the southwestern edge of the Solling and then learned to be a mechanical engineer. He became an engineer at the Technikum Strelitz in Altstrelitz in Mecklenburg around 1908/09.
In 1909 Sander moved to Bremerhaven. Here he worked in various areas. In 1920 he took over the company of the master gunsmith HG Cordes, who had been in existence since 1853 and was known as the inventor of the whaling cannon. From 1925, the Sander linen rocket pistols designed by him for the rescue of shipwrecked people belonged to the equipment of the rescue stations and boats of the German Society for the Rescue of Shipwrecked People and many similar organizations around the world. In 1925, Sander bought the Schultz ship telegraph factory in Bremerhaven, which gave him a larger, two-story factory building at Fährstrasse No. 26 as a prerequisite for accepting development contracts offered by the Navy.
Rocket pioneer
Sander worked with Fritz von Opel and Max Valier since the late 1920s. Opel became aware of Sander's work in 1927. He sent his representative Valier to Sander. From 1913 he had studied astronomy, meteorology, mathematics and physics in Innsbruck . After the First World War , he published the book The Advance into Space in 1924 , in which a program for the development of rocket technology is described. Valier was impressed with the technical facilities of the Sander company. Sander was invited to Rüsselsheim to carry out joint experiments.
Together with von Opel, Valier and the engineer Kurt C. Volkhart, Sander built a racing car with a powder rocket drive ( Opel-Sander-Rakwagen 1 ) and on April 11, 1928, reached a speed of 138 km / h with the Opel-Sander-Rakwagen 2 on May 23 of the same year then 235 km / h. On June 23, the unmanned RAK 3 set the speed record for rail vehicles on a dead straight railway line, the "Hasenbahn" near Burgwedel , to 254 km / h. The experiments and events of the huge Opel rocket spectacle also made the humble Sander known worldwide as the "rocket sander". On December 11, 1929, Sander received the Golden Medal of Honor from the city of Wesermünde for his great scientific merits in the field of rocket construction .
Sander relocated his enlarged business to the street Am Deich 23 (today Bussestraße) in the Wesermünder district Geestemünde . He produced a. a. Cordes guns , rifles for line shooting, Sander rocket pistols , rockets, signaling devices. Even today, his inventions are hardly changed for the sea rescue system. His company letterhead proudly adorned the reference to "30 first prizes at home and abroad".
In order to be able to carry out the growing development orders from the army and air force smoothly, Sander also built another rocket factory in the district of Wulsdorf , Vieländer Weg, and equipped it with the most modern presses and machines at the time.
In 1935, the National Socialists drastically restricted commercial rocket development. Sander's factories ran into financial difficulties as a result. The embittered Sander sold his missiles to the allied Italy despite the ban. On January 31, 1935, Sander was therefore arrested by the Gestapo , released after remand in April 1935, arrested again in November 1935 and sentenced by the Hanseatic Higher Regional Court in September 1936 to four and a half years in prison and heavy fines for "negligent treason" . He was forced to sell his factories at a ridiculous price, which was transferred to the newly founded Donar GmbH and continued to exist under this name even after the war. In 1938 Sander was released. A laboratory was set up for him in Berlin where he was allowed to experiment under police supervision.
Honors
- Golden Medal of Honor of the City of Wesermünde (1929)
- Renaming of the Vieländer Weg in Wulsdorf to F.-W.-Sander-Weg (1968)
- Sander stele on the researcher mile (2010)
literature
- Matthias Blazek : The record attempts of 1928. The rocket-powered rail car on the Langenhagen – Celle railway line. In: home country. 2008, ZDB -ID 501220-x , pp. 94-97, online (PDF; 560 kB) .
- Ilse Essers : Max Valier. A pioneer of space travel 1895–1930. VDI-Verlag, Düsseldorf 1968, p. 184 ff. ( History of technology in individual representations 5).
- Klaus F. Filthaut: Project RAK. The age of rockets began in Rüsselsheim. A documentation. Aero-Verlag, Petershausen 1999, ISBN 3-934596-00-2 , especially a short portrait on p. 197 ff.
- Markus Kutscher, Michael K. Wustrack: History of aviation in Frankfurt am Main. About aeronauts and jumbo jets. Umschau, Frankfurt am Main 1995, ISBN 3-524-69110-2
- Mentioned in: Hans Christoph Graf von Seherr-Thoß: Friedrich Karl Adam Georg Opel. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 19, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1999, ISBN 3-428-00200-8 , pp. 543-546 ( digitized version ).
- Harry Gabcke , Renate Gabcke, Herbert Körtge, Manfred Ernst: Bremerhaven in two centuries ; Volume II from 1919 to 1947, p. 82. Nordwestdeutsche Verlagsgesellschaft, Bremerhaven 1989/1991, ISBN 3-927857-37-8 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Hans Paul Kaufmann : German whaling earlier times . In: Fette und Seifen , January 1938, Issue 1, pp. 7-13. doi : 10.1002 / lipi.19380450104
- ↑ Filthaut, RAK project, p. 197.
- ^ Filthaut, RAK project, p. 198.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Sander, Friedrich Wilhelm |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German designer, engineer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | August 25, 1885 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Bald |
| DATE OF DEATH | September 15, 1938 |
| Place of death | Berlin |