Maximilian Schumann

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Lieutenant Colonel Schumann, portrait by Max Koner (1890)

Maximilian Schumann (born June 26, 1827 in Magdeburg , † September 5, 1889 in Schierke ) was a Prussian engineer officer.

Life

Schumann joined the 3rd Pioneer Department in Magdeburg in 1845 , became a lieutenant in 1848 and came to Mainz as captain in 1861 . Here he soon became an authority on armor use issues.

First he made trips to England (1863 and 1865) to study them. After the experiments carried out in 1866 on the artillery firing range of the Mainz Federal Fortress on the Großer Sand against an armored mobile cannon with a minimal slot carriage and iron plate cover, Schumann was assigned to the engineer committee in Berlin . Here he should use the experience gained for a new iron construction. His first armored turret was erected in Tegel , and the attempts made with it achieved an important success. Nevertheless, after participating in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870/71 with distinction , Schumann said goodbye in 1872 to devote himself to the further development of his designs in Mosbach near Biebrich .

In 1878 he came out with his designs, especially his armored mount , which proved itself extraordinarily. In 1882 Schumann united his company with Hermann Gruson's Grusonwerk AG Buckau in Magdeburg. The new company successfully competed against French competition in December 1885 and January 1886 in a shooting attempt in Bucharest to sell an armored turret. Schumann improves the armor effect through appropriate shaping. Curved panels were more resilient than flat panels. He systematically tested the effectiveness of a composite of different materials compared to solid panels with fire tests in La Spezia . The combination of 130 mm roller iron and 70 mm steel plates from Dillingen was more resistant than the French one from Major Mougin from Chamond .

Further successor designs led to the design of a movable tank (Schumann and Gruson), which was a dismountable armored turret for a 12 cm howitzer, as well as a mobile tank mount (called Fahrpanzer for short ) for a 5.3 cm rapid-fire cannon, caliber length L / 25. These guns were then used in the Sereth line in Romania.

According to Schumann's plans, the Serethlinie, an artillery fortification in Romania , was built from 1889 .

Friedrich Alfred Krupp wrote to the Bavarian general and military writer Karl Theodor von Sauer on October 14, 1891:

“About the testing of Schumann's tank constructions during last year's autumn maneuvers in Romania, since the matter is treated very securely there, only the following could be ascertained: The forts of the Sereth line are said to have come into operation in their full extent, while the mobile armored monkeys are [. ..] were not used because they are 'too difficult to move'. "

- Friedrich Alfred Krupp

Schumann's opinion was also obtained several times when other states were fortified. This showed the increasingly divergent development between the German and French views (on the part of Henri-Alexis Brialmont ).

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Georg Westermann Verlag, George Westermann, Friedrich Spielhagen, Adolf Glaser, Friedrich Düsel, Gustav Karpeles: Westermanns monthly books . G. Westermann, 1801, p. 128 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  2. ↑ On the increased use of iron and steel in fortress construction. In: Polytechnisches Journal . 267, 1888, pp. 545-550.
  3. ↑ Stuttgart Antiquarian Book Fair 2006 (PDF; 1.1 MB)
personal data
SURNAME Schumann, Maximilian
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Prussian engineer officer
DATE OF BIRTH June 26, 1827
PLACE OF BIRTH Magdeburg
DATE OF DEATH September 5, 1889
Place of death Schierke , Harz