Heinz Schrader (engineer)

The building at Am Krökentor 2 of the technical college for heavy engineering and the technical school for civil engineering, in which on March 3, 1954, theoretical teaching began at the college for heavy engineering, founded in 1953

Heinz Schrader (born May 4, 1910 in Braunschweig ; † March 1990 in Magdeburg ) was a German mechanical engineer and professor of fluid flow machines . In addition, in 1953 he was the founding rector of the Magdeburg University of Heavy Mechanical Engineering , from which the Otto-von-Guericke Magdeburg University of Technology , the Magdeburg University of Technology and the Otto-von-Guericke University of Magdeburg later emerged. He was the founding director of the Institute for Fluid Mechanics and Fluid Mechanics at this university.

Live and act

Heinz Schrader was born in Braunschweig as the son of a clerk, his mother was a housewife. He grew up here and attended an elementary school from 1916 to 1920 , then an upper secondary school until 1929 , from which he graduated with a school leaving certificate .

Schrader then began studying mechanical engineering at the Braunschweig Technical University (TH Braunschweig). He completed his studies in 1934 as a graduate engineer (Dipl.-Ing.). He then took a position as a scientific assistant at the chair for fluid flow machines at the Technical University of Braunschweig, wrote a dissertation on fluid flow processes in centrifugal pumps and received his doctorate in 1938 as a doctoral engineer (Dr.-Ing.).

From May 1938 Schrader began his industrial activity in the development office of the company Klein-Schanzlin & Becker AG , Frankenthal (Palatinate) , which later became the study and research company of the Kleinschanzlin Group. There he was busy with construction and rationalization work for the group plants. He later worked as a department head, as an authorized signatory and technical manager at Klein-Schanzlin-Odesse GmbH in Oschersleben (Bode) . In May 1941 he was appointed head of the steam turbine department. The company was dismantled in the spring of 1946. From the summer of 1948, as plant manager, he was in charge of the reconstruction of the now nationally owned company, the Oddesse pump factory . At the end of 1948 he changed the company and became plant manager of the state-owned company Hallesche Pumpenwerke in Halle (Saale) .

In 1951 he was appointed to work in the Ministry of Mechanical Engineering of the GDR in Berlin , where he initially dealt with special tasks. Then he became technical director in the heavy engineering head office. At the end of 1952 he became a group leader in the coordination and control center for industry and transport in the mechanical engineering sector, and three months later he became the sector manager for the heavy machinery sector. At the time, this sector also dealt with the formation of the new university in Magdeburg.

Foundation of the HfS Magdeburg

In the ministry, Schrader was involved in the preliminary planning for the establishment of a special university in Magdeburg, which was supposed to cover the engineering needs in the center of heavy engineering in the GDR.

The government of the GDR (Council of Ministers) had decided at its 134th meeting on 6 August 1953: "creating new training capacity through the establishment of new universities, through the development of vocational schools to universities, through the expansion of universities and colleges." Therefore, the 1953, University of Maschinenbau Karl-Marx-Stadt , the University of Electrical Engineering Ilmenau and the University of Heavy Mechanical Engineering Magdeburg (HfS) were founded, followed in 1954 by the Technical University of Chemistry Leuna-Merseburg .

The provisional head of the university to be founded in Magdeburg was initially the graduate engineer Otto Schäfer , at that time head of the Magdeburg School for Heavy Engineering. However, he assumed the corresponding function at the new university in Karl-Marx-Stadt (today Chemnitz again) and was no longer available for a short time. Therefore, in mid-August 1953 , Heinz Schrader, who had a doctorate, was appointed acting head of the new University for Heavy Engineering in Magdeburg, which officially opened its doors on September 1, 1953. The university enrolled the first 532 students at the same time, but at that time only 27 teachers were available.

These newly enrolled students first completed a pre-study internship in industrial companies in their first semester (called the autumn semester), as was a good tradition in engineering training. Theoretical teaching began in the spring semester from March 3, 1954, for this purpose the premises of the former technical schools in the street Am Krökentor 2 near the then Maxim-Gorki-Theater were used.

It was therefore one of Schrader's first tasks to systematically expand the teaching staff by identifying and engaging suitable personalities (there were no job advertisements in the GDR). This included the structuring of the new university by establishing institutes and integrating them into faculties . Schrader also had to set up a university administration .

He also had to carry out plans for the accommodation of lecture halls, seminar rooms, library and cafeteria and for the creation of university buildings. In the former auditorium of the technical schools, an auditorium maximum called lecture hall 1 was set up. Furthermore, for the special needs of experimental physics (director: Ernst-Joachim Gießmann) in this building complex, lecture hall 2 was built with steep seating. The Institute for Materials Science (Director: Ernst Schiebold ) was built near the existing German Office for Material and Goods Testing (DAMW) in Grosse Steinernetischstrasse. Finally, the building of the basic institute, designed in an angle, on the campus between Walther-Rathenau-Straße and Nordpark was planned for mathematics ( Karl Manteuffel , Samu von Borbely ), electrical engineering ( Ernst Stumpp , Richard Teßmer ), welding technology ( Hans Neese , Manfred Beckert , Reinhard Probst ), computer technology ( Franz Stuchlik ) as well as for drawing rooms, etc. In an assigned old building in Falkenbergstraße, the small lecture hall 4 was set up. It was only when the chemistry / physics institute building was later built that the large lecture hall 5 was built. Finally, boarding school buildings for the students had to be planned and implemented immediately.

As a native of Braunschweig, Schrader also established connections with the TH there, so that mutual visits by employees and students took place regularly, most recently in the spring semester of 1961. Such contacts were sometimes very lasting and have lasted since then, despite the political separation caused by the Berlin Wall , as between the former Students Helmut Einicke (Magdeburg, Berlin), Werner Kriesel (Magdeburg, Berlin, Leipzig) and Peter Lehrke (Braunschweig, Essen, Darmstadt).

On September 6, 1955, Heinz Schrader was officially appointed founding rector of the Magdeburg University of Heavy Engineering. The construction years since 1953 were characterized by a very large number of tasks, especially since the war damage in the bombed city was still visible on all sides and the space that was built up was extremely limited. These circumstances made the work of Schrader difficult and influenced considerably and often led to controversial decisions. Therefore, he decided not to run again when the rector was elected in June 1956. His successor in office was Ernst-Joachim Gießmann , who later became State Secretary and Minister.

Schrader planned and implemented a building complex with a test hall at Nordpark for his Institute for Fluid Mechanics and Fluid Mechanics, in which he worked as a professor with a teaching assignment from June 1957 and was appointed professor with a full teaching assignment from May 1961. He worked here until his retirement after reaching the age limit in June 1975. In the course of the university reform of 1968, his institute became part of the Diesel Engines, Pumps and Compressors section (founding director: Wolfgang Hinze ).

The founding rector Heinz Schrader died at the age of almost 80 in Magdeburg.

Publications (selection)

• Measurements on guide vanes of centrifugal pumps. Triltsch Verlag, Würzburg 1939.
• International technical and scientific conference of the pumps and compressors industry. Part 1: Thermodynamic determination of the efficiency of centrifugal pumps, especially boiler feed pumps. Halle (Saale) 1961.

literature

• Carmen Schäfer: On the history of the Magdeburg University of Heavy Mechanical Engineering from 1953 to 1961 with special consideration of the development of the faculties and their institutes. Magdeburg 1993. [1]
• Carmen Schäfer: Schrader, Heinz. In: Guido Heinrich, Gunter Schandera (ed.): Magdeburg Biographical Lexicon 19th and 20th centuries. Biographical lexicon for the state capital Magdeburg and the districts of Bördekreis, Jerichower Land, Ohrekreis and Schönebeck. Scriptum Verlag, Magdeburg 2002, ISBN 3-933046-49-1 , p. 649.
• Mechanical and plant engineering in the Magdeburg region at the beginning of the 21st century. Future based on tradition. Delta-D publishing house, Axel Kühling, Magdeburg 2014, ISBN 978-3-935831-51-2 .
• Peter Neumann (Hrsg.): Magdeburg's automation technology in transition - from industrial to research location. Authors: Christian Diedrich , Rolf Höltge, Ulrich Jumar , Achim Kienle, Reinhold Krampitz, Günter Müller, Peter Neumann, Konrad Pusch, Helga Rokosch, Barbara Schmidt, Ulrich Schmucker, Gerhard Unger, Günter Wolf. Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg ; Institute for Automation and Communication Magdeburg (ifak), Magdeburg 2018, production: Grafisches Centrum Cuno GmbH & Co. KG, Calbe (Saale), ISBN 978-3-944722-75-7 .

Web links

• Literature by and about Heinz Schrader in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Heinz Schrader: Measurements on guide vanes of centrifugal pumps. Dissertation, Braunschweig Technical University, 1938.
2. ↑ Resolution of the Council of Ministers No. 134 of August 6, 1953: “The Minister for Heavy Engineering, Ziller, is commissioned to establish a university on September 1, 1953 through the expansion and expansion of the rooms at the Magdeburg, Am Krökentor technical college for heavy engineering and construction for heavy engineering and to expand to a total capacity of 7,500 students by 1960. On September 1, 1953, 900 students are admitted to university studies. ”Quote from Carmen Schäfer: On the history of the Magdeburg University of Heavy Mechanical Engineering from 1953 to 1961 with special consideration of the development of the faculties and their institutes. Magdeburg 1993, p. 85.