Paul von Gans

Paul Gans , from 1912 von Gans (born July 11, 1866 in Frankfurt am Main ; † April 18, 1915 in Garmisch-Partenkirchen ) was a chemist , inventor , patron , automobile and aviation pioneer, balloonist , racing driver, idea carrier of the ILA , founder of Bavarian Aviation School Oberwiesenfeld near Munich and the German Transatlantic Flight Expedition.

life and work

Gans came from one of the oldest German Jewish families with a permanent family name, which has been mentioned since 1350. From 1550 the family was based in the Judengasse in Frankfurt. Paul von Gans was the middle son of Friedrich Ludwig von Gans ( Cassella company ) and Auguste Ettling. His brother was Ludwig Wilhelm von Gans (Pharma Gans Oberursel) and his sister Adela Wetzlar, his second marriage to Coit (London). Gans married the wealthy, Marseille-born Ellinka Freiin von Fabrice on May 18, 1896 in Konstanz. She was the eldest of five daughters of the owner of Gottlieben Castle on Lake Constance and great-granddaughter of Elector Wilhelm II (Hessen-Kassel) . They had three children, Josef Paul (Jozsi) (1897–1963), Margot von Gans (1899–1986), who flew sightseeing flights with Ernst Udet , and Countess Marie Blanche Aichelburg (1905–1988).

Before his 17th birthday, von Gans left Frankfurt and studied chemistry in Strasbourg. The topic of his dissertation was on monobromopyruvic acid and furazanecarboxylic acid (Strasbourg 1891).

Gans moved to Paris in 1892 and devoted himself to modern developments such as automobiles and aviation. In 1896 he won the Marseille – Nice race in a catalytic ignition Benz car and the first two-wheel Motocycles race (La Coupe de Motocycles) in France on his motorcycle in 1897. He became increasingly involved in aviation because he recognized its importance for Germany. At first, Gans devoted himself to balloon flights before he started designing his own aircraft. As early as 1895 Gans had acquired a property in Grainau / Upper Bavaria that was to be useful for his inventions. The Schmölz should be his permanent place of residence. Gans owned four paintings by Paul Klimsch , four by Alfred Oppenheim and, oddly enough, seven by Ottilie Roederstein .

In 1899 the Bavarian Automobile Club Munich (BAC) was founded, of which he became a founding member and, for the attached Department II for aviation, its chairman. His flight instructor was August Euler . The BAC organized, among other things, balloon rides and Gans had its own Quo Kadis balloon built by the Augsburg company Riedinger.

Starting in 1908, Paul von Gans invested his fortune and his work in the preparatory work for the International Airship Exhibition in Frankfurt in 1909 , which was originally planned in Munich, but then came about in his home town of Frankfurt in 1909. His uncle Leo Gans became chairman of the board. Paul is considered to be the inspiration behind the International Aviation Exhibition (ILA) and is known as the "gray eminence" of aviation.

Among other things, Gans developed an aircraft, namely a combination of a monoplane and a swing-wing aircraft with a 6 hp engine. In 1910 Paul Gans founded the Bavarian Aviation School in Munich-Oberwiesenfeld. He provided four single-seat Bleriot monoplane, a two-seat Euler double-decker and a Wright double-decker to interested officers.

In 1911 the army administration succeeded in breaking the agreements with Gans and the war ministry took over the private flying school. Von Gans donated one of his Blériot XI aircraft to the Deutsches Museum in Munich, where it can still be seen today.

At the same time, Gans was busy founding the German Transatlantic Flight Expedition . Gans wanted to cross the ocean with a dirigible airship with a gondola attached. The route should lead from Tenerife to New York . This eventual new means of transport was christened Suchard by Prince and Princess Heinrich of Prussia in 1911 . The German Transatlantic Flight Expedition did not come about due to the First World War .

Paul von Gans died at the age of 48. After 1920 the workshops in Grainau became the Schmölz bodywork , which his son Jozsi von Gans used for his automobile inventions. His widow Ellinka married her childhood friend Haupt Graf zu Pappenheim on January 11, 1916 .

literature

• Angela von Gans, Monika Groening: Die Familie Gans 1350-1963 , Verlag Regionalkultur, Heidelberg 2006, ISBN 978-3-89735-486-9
• Recording about the transatlantic flight expedition, Deutsches Museum, Bibliothek and Deutsches Technik Museum Berlin
• Braunbeck's Sportlexicon 1912/13, p. 134 and 1911/12, p. 137
• German Aviation, Vol. 9
• Aviation 1909, No. 5, p. 122
• Allgemeine Automobil-Zeitung 1908, No. 46, p. 51, as well as No. 29, p. 64 and No. 5, p. 52

Individual evidence

1. ↑ August Wiederspahn, Helmut Bode: Die Kronberger Malerkolonie, page 122, 1976
2. ↑ H. Holzer / L. Löffler: The Bleriot XI in the Deutsches Museum, July 1988, Ms