Karl Otto grandfather

Karl Otto Altvater (born September 4, 1885 in Hildesheim ; † December 29, 1948 in special camp No. 2 Buchenwald ) was a German officer, manager and pioneer of control systems for aircraft. Grandfather was SS-Oberführer and captain at sea a. D. In addition, he was works director and head of the aviation department at Siemens.

Life

Altvater was the son of the wholesale merchant and factory owner Theodor Altvater in Hildesheim. After high school he joined the Imperial Navy in 1902: training, various assignments, in 1913 promotion to lieutenant captain . In 1930 he left the Navy at his own request and switched to the private sector at Siemens & Halske. There he built up the new area of aircraft electrical engineering in the course of the NS rearmament, became department director of the aviation equipment department in 1936 and, from 1943, chairman of the management of Luftgerätewerk Hakenfelde, a subsidiary of Siemens & Halske AG and Siemens-Schuckert.

During this time he applied for a number of patents. Altvater is together with Franz Fanselow the inventor of an autopilot for planes and ships. In 1934 he applied for a patent for an altitude control that automatically intercepts aircraft in a dive. The Siemens aviation department was one of the most important armaments companies of the Nazi years, in which intensive research and development was carried out and which produced electrical on-board devices for the air force.

In 1933 Altvater was accepted into the NSDAP ( membership number 3.075.910). In the same year he joined the SS (No. 244.042), in which he was promoted to Oberführer in November 1943. After the end of the Nazi regime , he was arrested because of his Nazi charges and interned in the special camp No. 2 Buchenwald of the Soviet military government, where he died in 1948.

literature

Flight without stars: Siegfried Reisch, pioneer of inertial navigation (= technology for people , volume 5), Olynthus, Vaduz 1992, ISBN 3-907175-21-2 .
Kurt Kracheel: Flight guidance systems - blind flight instruments, autopilots, flight controls: eight decades of German developments of on-board instruments for flight status, navigation, blind flight, from autopilots to digital flight control systems ("fly-by-wire") (= Die deutsche Luftfahrt , Volume 20). Bernard & Graefe, Bonn 1993, ISBN 3-7637-6105-5 .

Werner Kreisel: History and future of measurement and automation technology ( history of technology , volume 46), Association of German Engineers 1995, ISBN 3-18-150047-X , page 49.

Web links

Individual evidence

^ Communication of March 22, 1941 to the main personnel office.
↑ Tabular curriculum vitae from August 17, 1933.
↑ CV of November 21, 1944.
↑ Patent DE679812 from August 16, 1939 .
↑ Patent altitude control device for automatic interception of aircraft in a dive , Patent No. DE619055 C from January 11, 1934.
↑ Flight without stars: Siegfried Reisch, Pioneer of inertial navigation , p. 45 f.
↑ Certificate "service career" grandfather, linking not possible due to blacklist.

personal data
SURNAME	Grandfather, Karl Otto
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	German officer and manager
DATE OF BIRTH	September 4, 1885
PLACE OF BIRTH	Hildesheim
DATE OF DEATH	December 29, 1948
Place of death	Special camp No. 2 Buchenwald

[1] Communication of March 22, 1941 to the main personnel office.

[2] Tabular curriculum vitae from August 17, 1933.

[3] CV of November 21, 1944.

[4] Patent DE679812 from August 16, 1939 .

[5] Patent altitude control device for automatic interception of aircraft in a dive , Patent No. DE619055 C from January 11, 1934.

[6] Flight without stars: Siegfried Reisch, Pioneer of inertial navigation , p. 45 f.

[7] Certificate "service career" grandfather, linking not possible due to blacklist.