Leopold Schoettler

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Leopold Carl Ferdinand Friedrich Schoettler (born April 7, 1881 in Bruchhausen , † July 29, 1948 in Berlin ) was a German aircraft pioneer. With the Schoettler I named after him, one of the first aircraft in China was designed and produced under his leadership .

Life

Schoettler completed an apprenticeship as a mechanic and from 1906 worked at Siemens-Schuckertwerke in Japan , where he supported the company's sales activities as a technical consultant. There he met his future wife, the teacher Sen Takeshi (1887-1980) know. In 1912 the family moved to Shanghai for professional reasons .

When the First World War broke out , Schoettler went to Tsingtau in the German leased area of Kiautschou and was commanded as a senior seaman for military service with the sea ​​defense at the governorate's pilot station. There he apparently helped Gunther Plüschow , an Etrich Taube , to keep the only aircraft available on the German side in operation for missions during the siege of Tsingtau by Japanese forces . From October 13th, he served in the Navy Company. After the surrender of the hopelessly defeated German defenders, he was taken prisoner in Japan in November 1914 and taken to the Kumamoto camp in Japan. On June 9, 1915, he was transferred to the Kurume camp . In December 1919, Schoettler was released and returned to Shanghai, where his wife and three children had spent the war years.

After the collapse of the central Beiyang government and the end of the First World War, a power vacuum developed in China , which both Japan and various Chinese parties took advantage of. The Chinese republic was heavily burdened by the rule of the warlords and by foreign conquests and a civil war in which various warlords fought for supremacy broke out. This created an enormous need for weapons and military equipment.

This situation wanted to use for themselves Schoettler well and he was active in July 1920 initially as a middleman, the Chinese warlord General Hu Yung-Hsiang, at that time ruler of Shanghai, a first imported aircraft, trainer aircraft of the type Avro 504 , procured . Since further imports apparently failed, General Lu commissioned the German company Buchheister & Co. on the site of what would later become the Shanghai airport in Longhua (also Lunghua) with the construction of a production facility to be able to design and manufacture aircraft on site in China. Schoettler took over the production line and produced in 1923 the prototype of a single-engine two-seater biplane , who as Schoettler I was called.

From 1924, a small number of Schoettler I aircraft continued to be built in Longhua , which Schoettler manufactured with the help of instruments and motors imported from Europe. The Schoettler I is one of the first mass-produced aircraft in China. Furthermore, the Schoettler I was apparently also produced in small numbers for the Manchurian warlord Zhang Zuolin for military use in Mukden .

Schoettler I.

In the years that followed, Schoettler developed and produced several other aircraft models in small series. So from September 1925 the Schoettler III a further development of the Schoettler I driven with a Beardmore motor and in 1926 the Schoettler B4 (also referred to as S4 ). The planned Schoettler C5 , which was supposed to be powered by a Renault engine, was no longer implemented.

Schoettler I 1923

From 1924 to 1927 Schoettler lived with his family in Taiyuan ( Shanxi Province ). From 1932 to 1936 he worked for Hugo Reis & Co. in Shanghai and from 1937 for China Steel Industries, Shanghai.

His further résumé, in particular the time of his return to Germany, has not been clarified.

Schoettler died in Berlin in 1948.

Remarks

  1. ↑ In some publications, the I Schoettler as Schoettler BI or Fuetterer-Schoettler I called. The latter designation refers to Schoettler's construction assistant Ernst O. Fuetterer.

literature

  • Werner von Langsdorf (ed.): Advances in Aviation (Number 14) - Yearbook 1927–28 . Frankfurt am Main. 1927. Bechhold Verlag. Page 209.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Lennart Andersson: The first German aircraft in China. Published in: The Propeller Blade. Bulletin of the Aviation Interest Group 1900–1920. Number 25, summer 2009. Pages III / 921 to III / 923.
  2. ↑ Stefan Berleb: Doctoral Dissertation: "... for China's Benefit ...": The Evolution and Devolution of German Influence on Chinese Military Affairs, 1919–1938. Queensland University of Technology. Brisbane. 2005. page 90. ( online )
  3. ↑ Schoettler I (B3). In: Corner of the Sky - non-commercial webpage on aviation history. Retrieved November 3, 2017 .
personal data
SURNAME Schoettler, Leopold
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Leopold Carl Ferdinand Friedrich Schoettler (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German aircraft pioneer
DATE OF BIRTH April 7, 1881
PLACE OF BIRTH Bruchhausen
DATE OF DEATH July 29, 1948
Place of death Berlin