Josef Maier (mechanic)

Josef Maier (born March 19, 1921 in Lippertsreute , today the city of Überlingen , † October 25, 1995 in Saint-Claude in the Jura department ) was a Franco-German mechanic, inventor and industrialist.

Origin and apprenticeship time

Josef Maier was born in the Bruckfelder Mühle as the sixth of twelve children of the miller Johann Maier. After attending elementary school in Lippertsreute, he started his apprenticeship with master mechanic Karl Widmer in Altheim (today Frickingen municipality ). His workshop specialized in the manufacture and maintenance of agricultural equipment, especially for fruit growing. Maier's journeyman piece consisted of a crank bearing housing and a crankshaft for a six-cylinder engine, which were so perfectly worked that the examiners initially believed it was a deception.

Second World War and prisoner of war

In September 1940 Josef Maier was drafted into the Wehrmacht. He initially served at Memmingen Air Base , then as a driver in southern Russia. During this time he dealt with radio and electrical engineering and designed a swashplate motor for aircraft, for the completion of which he was ordered back to Germany. In January 1945 he completed a functional prototype in the workshop of the “New Cotton Spinning Mill” in Bayreuth . At the end of the war, Maier was on home leave in Lippertsreute, where he was taken prisoner by the French. At the citadel of Besançon his mechanical talent was noticed; it enabled him to take up a regular employment relationship.

Gainful employment

From 1947 to 1955 Josef Maier worked in the plastics factory of Monsieur Rey in Saint-Claude, where he designed injection molding machines that allowed more efficient production. During this time the workforce grew from 38 to over 300 workers; a new factory building planned by Maier was also built. In 1955 Josef Maier founded Maier SA in Saint-Claude and La Verne, which constructed special machines for precision parts and rose to become a leading manufacturer of eyeglass hinges and flexible metal watch straps. Maier's most important business partner was the eyewear manufacturer Pierre Chevassus († 2013) in Morez , who produced around four fifths of all French eyeglass hinges with Maier's machines around 1970. In 1984 Maier sold Maier SA to Joël Garnier-Chevassus († 2017), the son of his partner Pierre Chevassus.

Aviation projects

Around 1953 Josef Maier began working on a car that would both fly as a helicopter and be easy to operate. Maier designed the engine in his factory in France; Further development took place at J. Wagner GmbH in Fischbach (Friedrichshafen) , the leading manufacturer of paint spray guns, whose founder Josef Wagner († 1987) worked as an aircraft engineer during the war. The result was the small four-wheeled Rotocar helicopter , but its flight performance remained unsatisfactory; In 1962 Maier withdrew from the project. From 1982 Josef Maier dealt again with the swash plate motor, for the further development of which he founded the company ERM (= Études, Recherches, Mécanique). The presentation of a prototype at the Paris Air Show in Le Bourget in 1985 caused a sensation in the professional world. The well-known computer pioneer and entrepreneur Heinz Nixdorf became aware of the construction; he promised Maier further funding and the clarification of patent law problems that had arisen in the meantime. Nixdorf's death in 1986 and Maier's illness soon afterwards prevented the project from continuing.

Patronage

The Tinkerer Workshop Museum in Frickingen-Altheim

Josef Maier's center of life has been in Burgundy since the end of the war, where he was highly regarded as a mechanic and entrepreneur. Coste got married. Nevertheless, he remained closely connected to his home in the lower Linzgau . He paid for the restoration of the organ in the parish church of Our Lady in Lippertsreute from 1988 to 1990 and established a connection between the church choirs of Saint-Claude and Altheim (Frickingen). His widow Bernadette Maier continues the commitment and financed the establishment of the tinkerer's museum in Altheim, which was opened in 2003 in her husband's former training workshop. In 2013 she founded the “Bernadette and Josef Maier Foundation” based in Frickingen, whose funds are used to maintain the tinkerer's museum; The purpose of the foundation also includes the promotion of the Bodensee fruit museum in Frickingen and the tanner museum in Leustetten (Frickingen), as well as the promotion of tourism and cultural maintenance.

literature

• Albert Mayer: Josef Maier. Inventor, entrepreneur, person - inventor, entrepreneur, L'homme. Frickingen 2019.

Web links

• Site of the tinkerer workshop museum in Frickingen-Altheim