Otto Kässbohrer

Otto Kässbohrer (born January 26, 1904 in Ulm ; † June 20, 1989 there ) was a German entrepreneur and vehicle designer . In 1951 he built one of the first self-supporting buses .

Life

Kässbohrer completed his apprenticeship as a Wagner from 1919 in the “Wagenfabrik Kässbohrer ” founded in 1893 by his father Karl Heinrich Kässbohrer . In 1922 he completed this with a journeyman's certificate . When his father died on December 26th of the same year, he and his brother Karl took over the management of the company with 20 employees. His older brother was studying engineering at the time. At that time the company was already specializing in public transport. In 1928, Kässbohrer bought the troubled Ulmer body factory Neuer & Thieme . Kässbohrer decided to specialize in buses , trailers and bodies. Twenty years later Otto Kässbohrer married his wife Kathi Kemnitz. In the same year he was appointed to the board of the Association of the Automotive Industry .

In 1951 he succeeded in building one of the first buses under the brand name Setra (for SElbstTRAgend ) that no longer had a body on a truck frame, but was self-supporting - analogous to developments in car construction. On the occasion of the International Motor Show in Frankfurt, Kässbohrer presented the first bus with a self-supporting body, the Setra S8 , on the company premises of a Kässbohrer general agent . In 1953, the first articulated bus in Europe for regular city transport followed, with space for 170 people. A year later, Kässbohrer delivered the first three-axle high-decker buses “Silver Eagle” and “Golden Eagle” to the USA.

In 1973 the co-owner Karl Kässbohrer died, Otto Kässbohrer took over the sole management of the company. Four years later, Kässbohrer donated a window for Ulm Minster , the window of fulfillment . In 1978 he was given by his hometown Ulm in recognition of its commitment to the interests of the City Public Service Medal awarded.

In 1982 Otto Kässbohrer handed over the chairmanship of the company's management to his nephew Heinrich Kässbohrer . In 1984 he set up the Otto Kässbohrer Foundation , which among other things supports employees in distress through no fault of their own. In 1989 Otto Kässbohrer received the Albrecht Berblinger Medal on the occasion of his 85th birthday and died on June 20 of the same year.

reception

To commemorate the “Setra inventor”, EvoBus launched the special series “100 Years of Otto Kässbohrer” in 2004 for Kässbohrer's centenary.

literature

• Dieter Mutard, Stefan Loeffler: Setra - Omnibuses since 1951 , Motorbuch Verlag Pietsch, 2002, ISBN 3-613-02191-9
• Dieter Mutard, Petra Forberger: Big things from small beginnings - 100 years of Otto Kässbohrer , DWM Verlag Ulm
• Frank Raberg : Biographical Lexicon for Ulm and Neu-Ulm 1802-2009 . Süddeutsche Verlagsgesellschaft im Jan Thorbecke Verlag, Ostfildern 2010, ISBN 978-3-7995-8040-3 , p. 190 .