Günter Zumpe

Günter Zumpe (born May 4, 1929 in Lomnitz near Dresden ) is a German civil engineer who taught as a professor of statics at the Technical University of Dresden .

Life

Zumpe is the son of a small village building contractor ; his younger brother is the architect Manfred Zumpe . He studied at the Technical University of Dresden and initially wanted to be self-employed as a structural engineer and structural engineer (or to work for his father's construction company, which was finally nationalized in 1972), but then went back to the Technical University of Dresden as an assistant due to limited work opportunities. He received his habilitation in 1961 and then taught technical mechanics at the Technical University of Dresden. At the same time he became a building expert for statics and construction in 1962, but was restricted in his part-time work as a university lecturer in the GDR . In Dresden he was most recently professor for building mechanics and building informatics .

In technical mechanics, stimulated by discussions with mathematicians who attended his lectures on technical mechanics as a minor in the early 1960s, he developed his own approach with six-dimensional bits in addition to vectors. A number of outstanding specialists have emerged from his academic environment, including professors such as Hubertus Milke , former rector of the Leipzig University of Technology, Economics and Culture . He is a corresponding member of the Braunschweig Scientific Society .

Investigation of the historical statics of the Frauenkirche Dresden

After the fall of the Wall, Zumpe became known for his investigation of the historical statics of the Frauenkirche in Dresden, which was reconstructed from 1993 to 2005 . A fundamental error in the static concept finally implemented by George Bähr from the 1730s led to the load on the stone dome of the Frauenkirche being carried over the inner pillars, contrary to Bähr's original static concept, which was carried out via the outer walls connected to the pillars intended. After Bähr's death in 1738, the error was already addressed in an expert report by Gaetano Chiaveri at that time . In the 1930s, Georg Rüth carried out a detailed structural investigation . According to Zumpe, if the original concept had been implemented, the Frauenkirche would probably have survived the inferno in Dresden in 1945. The mistake repeatedly led to cracks in the pillars and the dome before it was destroyed in 1945. Zumpe advocated a reconstruction that implemented Bähr's original concept of a stone bell, and this was also implemented in the foundation's specifications. Zumpe is chairman of the George Bähr Forum and an honorary member of the George Bähr Society.

Fonts (selection)

• Applied mechanic. 3 volumes, Akademie Verlag, Berlin 1975. / 2nd edition, from 1983.
• The stone bell in the structure of the Frauenkirche in Dresden. In: Bautechnik , year 1993, issue 7, pp. 402–414.
• The supporting bell of the Frauenkirche in Dresden. Static analysis. In: Bautechnik , year 1993, issue 8, pp. 483–490.
• Static-constructive thinking in the 18th century. Shown using the example of the Frauenkirche in Dresden. In: Bautechnik , year 1998, issue 11, pp. 871–883.

literature

• Klaus Stiglat (Ed.): Civil engineers and their work. Ernst & Sohn, Berlin 2004, p. 475. (Zumpe's autobiographical notes)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Who is who? The German Who's Who. 39th edition (2000/2001), Schmidt-Römhild / Verlagsgruppe Beleke, Lübeck 2000, ISBN 3-7950-2029-8 , p. 1584.
2. ↑ The mathematical structural analysis was hardly developed when the Frauenkirche was built. In general ( Hans Straub ), the expert opinion for the dome of St. Peter's Basilica by Rugjer Josip Bošković in 1742 is considered to be the hour of birth of mathematical structural analysis .
3. ^ Fritz Wenzel (ed.): Report on the reconstruction of the Frauenkirche in Dresden. Universitätsverlag, Karlsruhe 2007, p. 35. (on the exclusion of alternative designs such as reinforced concrete panes)