Hans Flemming (airship operator)
Hans Curt Flemming (born November 30, 1886 in Stettin , † February 15, 1935 in Weingarten ) was a German aeronaut .
Life
Hans Flemming was the son of the Szczecin merchant Amandus Ferdinand Wilhelm Flemming and his wife Hedwig Bally. The father died very early. He attended the Schiller Realgymnasium in Szczecin and passed the school leaving examination in autumn 1906. He then worked for six months at the Nüscke shipyard in Stettin, before joining the Imperial Navy as a midshipman on April 3, 1907 . In 1910 he was promoted to lieutenant and in 1913 to first lieutenant at sea. Flemming took part in the Battle of the Skagerrak on the small cruiser " Stettin " .
In November he was sent to the flight school in Nordholz for training , the chief instructor of which was Hugo Eckener . This is where the friendship of the two, which lasted until Flemming's death, began. Flemming was soon appointed pilot of an airship . In March 1917 he received the certificate of airship commander and was promoted to lieutenant captain in July. In the attack on England he set the world altitude record of 7650 m (−30 ° C) at the time with the "L 55" - to avoid enemy aircraft. Then he became the commander of the "L 60". After its destruction he was a naval test airship commander until the end of the war.
In September 1919, Eckener took him to Friedrichshafen as the leader of the “ Bodensee ” airship . He delivered the “Bodensee” to Italy on July 3, 1921 as a reparations airship . In October 1924 he delivered the " ZR III " as reparation to America.
On December 4, 1919, he married his partner Lisa Meister from Miedzyzdroje . On August 21, 1920, their son Jürgen Flemming emerged from the marriage . This made him the grandfather of the microbiologist Hans-Curt Flemming , whom he never met due to his early death.
On the great America trip of the " Count Zeppelin " in October 1928, in which he took part as a guide with Eckener, he covered 9,926 km in 112 hours. In March 1929 an Orient flight followed, in August / December 1929 the flight around the world, in May / June 1930 the first South America flight, in July 1931 the Arctic flight. He made 55 trips with the LZ Graf Zeppelin.
He made it through his last driving period in 1934 with severe physical pain. He died of the consequences of an intestinal operation in Weingarten Hospital at the age of 48 and was buried in Friedrichshafen.
Appreciation
In the Aeronauticum in Nordholz there is a Hans Curt Flemming exhibition from the estate of Hans Curt Flemming.
literature
- Wilhelm Eggebrecht: Hans Curt Flemming. In: Pommersche Lebensbilder II. Saunier, Stettin 1936, pp. 435–443.
- Eckhard Wendt: Stettiner Lebensbilder (= publications of the Historical Commission for Pomerania . Series V, Volume 40). Böhlau, Cologne / Weimar / Vienna 2004, ISBN 3-412-09404-8 , pp. 154–155.
Individual evidence
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Flemming, Hans |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Flemming, Hans Curt (full name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German airship |
| DATE OF BIRTH | November 30, 1886 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Szczecin |
| DATE OF DEATH | February 15, 1935 |
| Place of death | Vineyard |