Hanns Hörbiger

Hanns Hörbiger (born November 29, 1860 as Johann Evangelist Hörbiger in Atzgersdorf (today in Vienna ); † October 11, 1931 in Mauer (today in Vienna)) was an Austrian engineer and father of the actors Attila and Paul Hörbiger .

Life

Hörbiger was an illegitimate son of Amalia Hörbiger, who in turn was the daughter of Alois Hörbiger . He spent his youth with his mother in Carinthia . He attended the mechanical engineering school of the Technological Trade Museum in Vienna, but was unable to finance a university course. After a job as a draftsman in a company for precision valve controls in 1881 and brief military service, he earned his living as a wandering zither player in order to work for the Brno machine factory from 1884 . On January 9, 1887, he married the Bohemian seamstress Leopoldine Janák in Vienna . The marriage resulted in four sons, of whom Paul and Attila Hörbiger became known as actors.

Since his employment at the machine factory Lang in Budapest in 1891, Hörbiger has achieved remarkable things in the field of heating and cooling technology. In particular, his patent for the steel plate valve issued in 1896 , already known as the “Hörbiger valve ” at the time, brought him considerable wealth. It is a low-mass plate valve for blowers , pumps and compressors that is guided without friction by means of a handlebar (DE 87267 A, application date August 7, 1895, publication date July 8, 1896). Since the machine factory Lang did not support his invention, he founded a design office in Budapest in 1900 with the help of Siemens & Halske , which moved to Vienna in 1903 and made a living from selling licenses abroad.

After 1918, there was almost no license receipt from abroad, and inflation in the 1920s wiped out all of his assets. He was able to overcome this crisis until his death in 1931 by founding a trading company for customer care under difficult conditions. The company Hoerbiger & Co founded by him developed into the Hoerbiger Holding and is today the world market leader in the field of components for compressors.

Hanns and Hans Robert Hörbiger as well as Engelbert Pigal with the language founder Edgar von Wahl (from left to right) 1927

Hanns Hörbiger and his son Hans Robert (1885–1955) supported the planned language Occidental , founded by Edgar von Wahl .

Hörbiger's grave is at the Mauer cemetery in Vienna. In 1925 the Johann-Hörbiger-Gasse in Vienna-Mauer was named after him.

The world ice theory

Main article: World ice theory

In the general population it was his 1912 along with the amateur astronomer Philipp Fauth published Welteislehre known under the title "Hörbigers Glacial cosmogony", where he had worked since 1894th By generalizing his experiences in heat engineering, he explained astronomical phenomena on the basis of ice , thus setting himself apart from modern astronomy and winning numerous followers, especially in the 1920s and 30s. In reality , the entire Milky Way should consist of chunks of ice that plunge into the sun and create prominences ; Shooting stars from ice melt when they enter the earth's atmosphere , causing rain and hail ; even the moon , in his opinion, was made of ice.

Numerous pseudoscientific associations and institutes emerged, and a number of representatives of the Third Reich promoted this theory of the creation of the world, above all Heinrich Himmler within his SS “ Forschungsgemeinschaft Deutsches Ahnenerbe eV”, to which Philipp Fauth was accepted in 1938, along with the title of professor . In scientific circles, the world ice theory was hardly noticed and refuted from the beginning by observations. A named after him first lunar crater was by Henri-Alexandre Deslandres in Deslandres renamed.

literature

Hörbiger Hanns. In: Austrian Biographical Lexicon 1815–1950 (ÖBL). Volume 2, Publishing House of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna 1959, p. 364 f. (Direct links on p. 364 , p. 365 ).
Helmut Dolezal: Hörbiger, Hanns. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 9, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1972, ISBN 3-428-00190-7 , p. 352 f. ( Digitized version ).
Georg Markus : The Hörbigers. Family biography. Amalthea Verlag, Vienna 2006, ISBN 3-850-02565-9 .
Brigitte Nagel: The world ice theory. Their history and their role in the “Third Reich”. Verlag für Geschichte der Naturwissenschaften und der Technik, Stuttgart 1991, ISBN 3-928186-01-9 (2nd edition = unchanged reprint: Diepholz - Verlag für Geschichte der Naturwissenschaften und der Technik, Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-928186-55-8 ).
Christina Höfferer, Andreas Kloner: Hörbiger. A family constellation. ORF radio feature 2008, 54 min.

Web links

Literature by and about Hanns Hörbiger in the catalog of the German National Library
Entry on Hanns Hörbiger in the Austria forum

Individual evidence

↑ Alois Hörbiger (1810–1876) - A successful organ builder from Thierbach. (PDF; 234 kB) p. 2 , accessed on July 30, 2012 .

personal data
SURNAME	Hörbiger, Hanns
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Hörbiger, Johann Evangelist
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Austrian engineer
DATE OF BIRTH	November 29, 1860
PLACE OF BIRTH	Atzgersdorf (today Vienna )
DATE OF DEATH	October 11, 1931
Place of death	Wall (today in Vienna)

[1] Alois Hörbiger (1810–1876) - A successful organ builder from Thierbach. (PDF; 234 kB) p. 2 , accessed on July 30, 2012 .