Curt Herzstark

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Curt Herzstark (born January 26, 1902 in Vienna , † October 27, 1988 in Nendeln ) was an Austrian inventor and office machine mechanic.

Life

As the son of the adding machine manufacturer Samuel Jakob Herzstark, he dealt with these devices from an early age. He was allowed to do handicrafts in his father's workshop and accompany his father to international exhibitions. At the International Office Exhibition in Vienna in 1910, he demonstrated the Austria Model III calculating machine . In 1916 he passed the Matura at the higher technical school for mechanical engineering and completed an apprenticeship in precision mechanics and tool making in his father's company from 1916 to 1918. At that time, however, no calculating machines were made, but - due to the war - shrapnel detonators, which, however, also required the highest precision. He spent an apprenticeship year abroad in Chemnitz at the Astrawerke and the Wanderer factories .

From 1925 he began working in his parents' company and initially worked as a designer in production and as a sales representative. After the death of his father on October 24, 1937, his mother gave him sole management.

Through his field work, he got to know the special wishes of his customers, which he implemented in new calculating machine models, for example large balancing machines with electric drives for banks.

As early as 1928 he recognized the need for a small, light and easy-to-use calculating machine. This led him to the invention of the Curta , a mechanical calculating machine in the form of an 85 mm high cylinder with a 53 mm diameter , which could be comfortably held in one hand while numbers were entered with the fingers using the slider and then the calculation process was triggered using a crank . For this he was granted several patents on April 13, 1939.

Before he could work out this idea, he was arrested as a " half-Jew " by the National Socialists under false accusations in July 1943 and was sent to the Buchenwald concentration camp after being in prison in Vienna, Linz and Budweis . There he was employed as the head of a department in the Gustloff works that was involved in the manufacture of precision mechanical parts, including on behalf of the Peenemünde Army Research Institute for the manufacture of V2 rockets . For Ing. Münich, the boss of the Gustloff Works, he manufactured the first Liliput calculating machine, as the Curta was originally to be called.

Herzstark used his influence to save other inmates from death by placing them in his department. He was also able to help prisoners from Luxembourg indirectly, for which he was the only foreigner to be awarded the Order of the Luxembourg Brotherhood after the war .

By chance he was recognized by a former business competitor and allowed to continue working on his invention, for which he was able to make the construction drawings. The implementation itself only came after his liberation by Allied troops in April 1945. From May he was in contact with the Rheinmetall office machines company in Sömmerda. When the Americans withdrew and the Russians marched in, he fled to Vienna with his drawings in November 1945, but found no sponsor to start production. Eventually he was invited to Liechtenstein , where a factory (Contina AG) was set up to manufacture the Curta.

In 1952, Herzstark retired from Contina AG for health reasons and worked as a consultant for German and Italian office machine manufacturers. He held u. a. Lectures in Darmstadt, Stuttgart, Hamburg and Berlin. However, he still lived in his adopted home, Liechtenstein, where he died in 1988.

Herzstark became an honorary member of the IFHB posthumously in 1994 .

literature

Video / DVD

  • Curta - a legend. The video shows the assembly of one of the last CURTAs.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Strong heart, Curt
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian inventor and office machine mechanic
DATE OF BIRTH January 26, 1902
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna
DATE OF DEATH October 27, 1988
Place of death Nendeln