Hermann Lattemann

Hermann Lattemann (born September 14, 1852 in Gebhardshagen , † June 17, 1894 in Krefeld ) was a German professional airman and parachutist .

life and work

Lattemann's house in Gebhardshagen - the house where he was born

Hermann Lattemann - his full name was Carl Christoph Hermann Lattemann - was born on September 14, 1852 in Gebhardshagen as the son of Kothsassen and master turner Conrad Heinrich Christoph Lattemann. He was enthusiastic about balloon flying at an early age, which is why he trained as an airship operator and then performed as a balloon pilot.

At the same time he worked on building a parachute. When its design was fully developed, Lattemann was one of the first to venture into the depths with the help of a parachute from the basket of a balloon. Its first public performance took place in Charlottenburg (Berlin) in 1886. At that time such events with balloon ascents were a lucrative business, and Lattemann had great success with his daring balloon flights.

Lattemann developed the parachute further and brought out a collapsible folding parachute which he called the tourist parachute . He also constructed a parachute balloon . For this purpose, the balloon was enclosed with a metal hoop that divided it in half. When the gas flows out, the lower half of the balloon envelope should fold inwards around the tire and lie tightly against the upper half. Thus the balloon turned into a parachute, on the lower edge of which hung the basket attached to the metal hoop.

On June 17, 1894, Lattemann made his third attempt to jump with the new parachute balloon. At this event in Krefeld the accident happened that the balloon did not fold up as intended and act as a parachute. Lattemann fell and was fatally injured. Three days later he was buried in the Protestant cemetery in Krefeld.

Lattemann met his partner Käthe Paulus in 1889. Their son Willy Hermann Paulus was born on March 7, 1891. At first, Käthe Paulus Lattemann helped manufacture and repair balloons. It was not until 1893 that she took part in Lattemann's demonstrations. Also on the flight in Krefeld, in which Lattemann had a fatal accident, she had climbed up with him in the balloon, but had previously jumped off with the parachute and was thus uninjured.

literature

• Horst-Rüdiger Jarck, Günter Scheel (Ed.): Braunschweigisches Biographisches Lexikon. 19th and 20th centuries , Hannover 1996, p. 370f
• Calbecht, Engerode, Gebhardshagen, Heerte. West town in old views . Series Contributions to City History , Volume 14. Published by the archive of the city of Salzgitter. Design and editing: Reinhard Försterling, Jörg Leuschner, Sigrid Lux. Salzgitter 2003, ISBN 3-930292-15-7 . Pages 280 + 281
• Max Humburg. Life pictures from Salzgitter , series of contributions to city history , Festschrift 1995. Published by the archive of the city of Salzgitter. Design and editing: Jörg Leuschner, Sigrid Lux, Gudrun Pischke. Salzgitter 1995, ISBN 3-930292-01-7 . Pages 103 + 104