Gustav Witte (firefighter)

Gustav Witte (* 1839 in Pasewalk ; † June 23, 1888 in Berlin ) was a German inventor, captain and firefighter and from 1875 to 1887 the second head of the Berlin fire department .

Life

Gustav Witte was captain of the railway regiment when he stayed with the Berlin fire brigade from May 1, 1875. After five months of training by its director Ludwig Scabell , he succeeded him on October 1, 1875. He was officially named fire director, but was also happy to be addressed as Mr. Major .

Witte took over the management of the fire brigade at a time when Berlin was in its founding years due to growing industrialization. This also had an impact on the fire service.

Just ten days after he took office, a serious fire broke out in the “Kaiserhof” hotel in Berlin, but it did not result in any fatalities. The reason for this was the already well-functioning fire brigade. At that time, fire director Witte created the slogan “Rescuing people before fighting fires”, which is still valid today.

Witte carried out structural reforms in the fire brigade and partially changed the structure of his predecessor Scabell's authorities. For example, he already replaced five existing fire inspections with four company areas and formed the first fire-fighting teams at the guards who moved out together during operations.

Street fire alarm in Berlin

In 1876 he introduced the first street fire alarms in Berlin and began to set up preventive structural fire protection. The background was losses in their own ranks. Numerous firefighters died during operations because there were no provisions on fire protection regulations for the building fabric of the buildings and houses of that time.

In 1879, Witte developed the first mechanical rescue ladder ( turntable ladder ), which he had patented with the manufacturer Greiner.

On May 23, 1887, Witte implemented a pension scheme for his firefighters, which only took effect in the event of disability or death. He also introduced fire suits and modern safety lanterns.

In the course of 1887 Gustav Witte became terminally ill and was admitted to a mental hospital. He was released from his duties as fire chief on August 11th. At the end of the same year he retired and died without recovery on June 23, 1888.

Fire director Alexander Stude was appointed his successor .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Günter Strumpf: Gustav Witte - introduction of order tactics with the formation of fire-fighting trains, introduction of the 10 minute help period , Berlin 2007. Online ( memento from March 30, 2016 in the web archive archive.today ) Printed among other things in: VFDB e. V. (Ed.): Biographical manual on the history of the German fire service. 1st edition, Cologne 2014.
2. ^ Fire director Gustav Witte (1875–1887). In: berliner-feuerwehr.de. Retrieved March 30, 2016 . 
3. ↑ Wolfgang Hornung-Arnegg: Fire Department History , 4th edition 1995, Kohlhammer Verlag, ISBN 3-17-013203-2 , p. 73.