Kurt Klöppel

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Kurt Paul Klöppel (born September 15, 1901 in Aue , † August 13, 1985 in Darmstadt ) was a German civil engineer. He was a professor for steel construction at the TH Darmstadt .

life and work

Kurt Klöppel was born in Aue in 1901 as the son of the innkeeper Paul Klöppel. After completing his apprenticeship as a locksmith, he studied mechanical engineering at the State Academy for Technology in Chemnitz. He then worked for the cable car and steel construction company Adolf Bleichert & Co. in Leipzig (dealing with calculations for the Austrian Zugspitzbahn ) and at the Schichau shipyard in Danzig. He also worked as a freelance engineer. At the same time he studied civil engineering at the TH Dresden and the TH Danzig with the diploma in 1929. In 1929 he became head of the technical-scientific department in the German Steel Construction Association (DStV) and was also managing director of the later DASt (German Committee for Steel Construction, then German Society for experiments in iron construction, founded in 1908). In 1933 he was at the TH Breslau Dr.-Ing. PhD ( contribution to the question of the maintenance costs of steel structures ).

Klöppel joined the NSDAP on May 1, 1937 . After the Second World War he claimed that his entry into the NSDAP was connected with his appointment to the professorship at the TH Darmstadt . He was also a member of the National Socialist German Lecturer Association (NSDDB) and, along with Karl Lieser and Friedrich List, was one of the main pillars of the NS regime at the TH Darmstadt and confidante of Gauleiter Jakob Sprenger .

In 1938 he succeeded Heinrich Kayser as a full professor for bridge construction and head of the engineering laboratory at the TH Darmstadt. After the Second World War he made his institute one of the leading German institutes for steel construction. He was a test engineer for structural engineering.

From 1941 to 1944 he was Dean of the Faculty of Civil Engineering. As the successor to Karl Lieser , who resigned from his office after September 11, 1944, Klöppel took up the post of Rector of the TH Darmstadt on January 1, 1945 after being appointed by the Reich Ministry of Education. When the Americans marched into Darmstadt on March 25, 1945, he was arrested along with nine other professors from the TH, interned and intensively questioned about his research in connection with the Peenemünde Army Research Center . He returned to the TH in July 1945. He could not take up his post as rector against the resistance of the Americans.

He was significantly involved in the design of DIN 4114 from 1952 (proof of buckling resistance ). He examined the buckling of rectangular plates and the stability of frame corners, residual stresses from weld seams and brittle fractures (from which the recommendations for the choice of steel quality groups for welded steel structures arose).

From 1953 to 1955 he was rector of the TH Darmstadt. Since 1957 he was a member of the Academy of Sciences and Literature in Mainz and since 1974 a corresponding member of the Braunschweig Scientific Society . From 1958 to 1965, Klöppel was Vice President of the German Research Foundation . From 1958 to 1964 he was a member of the Science Council. From 1939 to 1981 he was editor of Der Stahlbau (as the successor to August Hertwig ).

Klöppel retired in 1969. He died in Darmstadt in August 1985. Klöppel had been married to Elsbeth Grönke since 1930.

Honors

Fonts

  • with J. Scheer buckling values ​​of stiffened rectangular plates , Ernst and Son 1960, Volume 2 with KH Möller 1968

literature

  • Peter Berg: Kurt Klöppel - his picture of the bridge , steel construction , volume 70, 2001, issue 9, p. 591–611
  • Joachim Scheer : Memories of Kurt Klöppel , Stahlbau, Volume 70, 2001, pp. 588–590
  • Michael Grüttner : Biographical Lexicon on National Socialist Science Policy (= Studies on Science and University History. Volume 6). Synchron, Heidelberg 2004, ISBN 3-935025-68-8 , p. 92.
  • Kurt Klöppel- 100 Years , Steel Construction, Volume 70, 2001, Issue 9
  • Kurt Klöppel Memorial Colloquium (TH Darmstadt, September 15/16, 1986), Series Science and Technology of the TH Darmstadt, Volume 31, 1986 (with list of publications)
  • Klaus Stiglat civil engineers and their work , Ernst and Son 2004
  • Karl-Eugen Kurrer Kurt Klöppel and "Der Stahlbau" , Der Stahlbau, Volume 70, September 2001, pp. 583-587
  • Karl-Eugen Kurrer History of Structural Analysis , Ernst & Sohn , 2002 (English translation: The history of the theory of structures , Ernst and Sohn 2008)
  • Christa Wolf / Marianne Viefhaus: Directory of professors at TH Darmstadt. Darmstadt 1977, p. 105.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ History of TH Darmstadt under National Socialism
  2. ↑ Those that already occupied him in the 1930s - brittle fracture problems at the Berlin-Zoo and Rüdersdorf bridges in the then new structural steel St 52
  3. ^ VDI badge of honor . In: VDI-Z. tape 98 , no. 23 , August 11, 1956, pp. 1432 ff .
personal data
SURNAME Klöppel, Kurt
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Klöppel, Kurt Paul
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German civil engineer
DATE OF BIRTH September 15, 1901
PLACE OF BIRTH Aue (Saxony)
DATE OF DEATH August 13, 1985
Place of death Darmstadt