Kurt Leibbrand
Kurt Leibbrand (born May 19, 1914 in Schmargendorf ; † July 21, 1985 in Santo Domingo, Brazil ) was a German civil engineer and traffic planner .
Live and act
Professional
Leibbrand studied civil engineering at the Technical University of Stuttgart and the Technical University of Berlin . In the post-war period he was involved in the reconstruction of the destroyed railway lines in Stuttgart . From 1948 to 1949 he worked as a senior building officer in Stuttgart and as a lecturer at the Technical University of Stuttgart and at the Stuttgart Federal Railway Directorate . In 1950 he moved to Zurich , where he opened an engineering office. Around 1951 he was an associate professor at the ETH Zurich , later a full professor (NZZ). He also had another office in Frankfurt am Main .
Leibbrand was one of the most influential traffic planners in Germany in the 1960s and 1970s. As " Karajan der Verkehrsplanung" (Münchner Abendzeitung ) or "Europe's No. 1 Transport Planner" ( picture ), he worked out so-called general transport plans for numerous cities , including Athens, Ankara, The Hague, Basel, Zurich, Rome, and in Germany Berlin, Bochum, Bonn, Bremerhaven, Münster and Wanne-Eickel.
war criminal
On July 24, 1961 Leibbrand was arrested by order of the Stuttgart District Court at Frankfurt airport - because of the Second World War in August 1944 from him as lieutenant , command members, in Orange in Avignon 28 Italian auxiliary volunteers of the 6th Company of the Railway Pioneer Regiment of the 19th Army to be shot with machine guns after they were said to have mutinied when the company withdrew. In the middle of the night, a company officer ordered the unsuspecting “ Hiwis ” to a small meadow in the forest, where they were mowed down by machine-gun gunners. Six of them were able to save themselves in the dark. According to the Spiegel report: 26 dead and five seriously injured.
In the absence of evidence, the Stuttgart jury acquitted Leibbrand on October 2, 1962, on charges of murder. He then returned to Zurich - but not to the chair from which he was on leave. The Federal Court of Justice in Karlsruhe overturned the judgment and referred the case back to the Stuttgart court for reassessment. On January 10, 1966, Leibbrand was tried for the second time in Stuttgart. Despite the charge of murder and a very clear evidence (see Die Zeit 9/1966), his act was rated as manslaughter and the proceedings were discontinued due to the statute of limitations .
This war crime affected Leibbrand's further career - especially in Switzerland - and cast a shadow over his life's work. Leibbrand renounced his ETH professorship in February 1963, gradually gave in to public pressure and finally emigrated from Zurich to Brazil in July 1966 (NZZ July 18, 2016).
Work (selection)
- 1957: Transport engineering - urban transport planning for rail and road, Birkhäuser Verlag, Basel and Stuttgart
- 1961: Stadtbahn Frankfurt am Main, overall planning overview "Leibbrand-Plan", comparison of Alweg, Unterpflaster and Tiefbahn for a transport network in Frankfurt am Main, 2 volumes
- 1964: Transport and urban development, Birkhäuser Verlag, Basel and Stuttgart
- 1966: Traffic planning of the city of Selb, revision with Walter Gropius 1968
- 1970: General traffic plan for Münster
- 1972: General traffic plan for Linz
- 1975: City planning for Merzig
As an urban planner and traffic expert, he designed Gonser's traffic plan for the city of Heilbronn together with Karl Gonser .
literature
- Christhard Schrenk: Heilbronn. Planning the reconstruction of the old town. Heilbronn 1994, p. 99.
Web links
- War crimes: Execution: Leibbrands Hiwis , Der Spiegel 3/1962, January 17, 1962 (also as PDF )
- (nl) It was only manslaughter: Leibbrand stood before his accusers for the third time , Die Zeit 9/1966, February 25, 1966
- Jürg Schoch: Nazi criminal as ETH professor: Leibbrand's dark secret - In July 1961, the affair over the German traffic expert Kurt Leibbrand made waves across Europe - a look back. , NZZ , July 18, 2016
Individual evidence
- ↑ Kurt Leibbrand: Traffic planning in large cities with special consideration of downtown Stuttgart . In: International Archives for Transport . tape 3 , no. 21 , 1951, pp. 485-490 .
- ↑ https://blogs.ethz.ch/digital-collections/2018/01/12/der-fall-kurt-leibbrand/
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Leibbrand, Kurt |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German civil engineer and traffic planner |
| DATE OF BIRTH | May 19, 1914 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Schmargendorf |
| DATE OF DEATH | July 21, 1985 |
| Place of death | Santo Domingo, Brazil |