Pieter Schelte Heerema

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Pieter Schelte Heerema
(marriage, Dec. 1942)

Pieter Schelte Heerema (born April 27, 1908 in Amsterdam , Netherlands ; † September 30, 1981 ) was a Dutch shipbuilding engineer who worked as an entrepreneur in the offshore sector and is now considered one of the pioneers of this industry due to the development of numerous new technologies.

Second World War

Heerema was an officer (December 1942: SS-Untersturmführer ) of the Waffen-SS in World War II . He was a staunch anti-Semite and anti-communist and was heard by the German leadership for his views. On behalf of the SS, he worked as the deputy director of an organization that deported unemployed Dutch people to “colonize” the Nazi-occupied areas in Eastern Europe. Hundreds were killed. He then deserted and supported the Dutch resistance movement from August 1943 to March 1944 .

In March 1944 he was arrested in Switzerland . After the war he was charged and sentenced to three years imprisonment in the Netherlands for war crimes . In November 1946, however, he was released early from custody due to his support for the resistance movement. His criminal record showed that he said in a speech in 1941 that the German breed was the model. In comparison, the Jewish race parasitic ... so the Jewish question needs to be resolved in every Aryan country .

Entrepreneurial activity

In 1947 he left his home for Venezuela , where in 1948 he started with the company Heerema & Bomans to build offshore structures in Lake Maracaibo . In 1950 the name was changed to Constructora Heerema . His breakthrough came in 1956 when he started working with prestressed concrete . He worked with Brown & Root (now KBR ) , among others .

Pieter Schelte returned to the Netherlands in 1961 and one year later founded Heerema Engineering Service , today's Heerema Marine Contractors (HMC). He was then involved in the development and expansion of the offshore industry in the Netherlands with the installation of drilling platforms. With the conversion of the Sunnas , a Norwegian tanker, into a crane ship with a capacity of 300  tons (t), the foundation for further developments was laid in 1963. The ship, renamed Global Adventurer , was much better suited for the weather in the North Sea than its predecessor.

In 1968 the Challenger with a lifting capacity of 650 t and in 1972 the Champion with a crane capacity of 1100 t went into operation. The increase in performance continued in 1974 with the Thor (capacity 2000 t) and 1976 with the Odin (capacity 3000 t). This enormous increase in performance made it possible for the oil companies to prefabricate ever larger modules for the platforms, thereby reducing installation time.

With the Balder and the Hermod , Heerema owned two semi-submersible ships in 1978 , each with two cranes and a capacity of 2000 t and 3000 t. These ships were later modified and the crane capacities increased. By designing the crane ships as semi-submersible, they were less sensitive to the sea and surface currents and could therefore also work in the North Sea during the winter months. Due to the high stability, more powerful cranes could also be used than with conventional ships.

After death

After the death of Pieter Schelte Heerma in 1981 he left his company to his five sons Edward, Ruurd, Pieter, Hugo and Erik. A long legal argument ensued between the brothers. In 1985, Edward Heerema founded the offshore service company Allseas . Six years later he was bought out of the family business HMC by his brother Pieter Heerema. Hugo Heerema founded Bluewater Energy Services as early as 1978 .

Controversy over ship names of the Pieter Schelte

With the Pieter Schelte, Allseas had the largest work ship in the world built. Edward Heerema named the ship after his father to honor one of the pioneers in the offshore industry. Because of his membership in the Waffen SS and his conviction as a war criminal, this choice of name led to a political controversy worldwide and in particular in the Netherlands, which supported the development of the ship with € 800,000 from tax revenues. In February 2015, the ship was renamed Pioneering Spirit .

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Dutch outcry over naming ship after Nazi. The Telegraph, November 7, 2008, accessed April 11, 2014 .
  2. ↑ Article on USAToday.com on Pieter Schelte Heerema . www.usatoday.com. July 11, 2008. Retrieved January 26, 2011.
  3. ↑ Allseas renames Pieter scolding to pioneering spirit. www.offshore-mag.com, February 11, 2015, accessed on February 15, 2015 (English).
personal data
SURNAME Heerema, Pieter
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Dutch entrepreneur
DATE OF BIRTH April 27, 1908
PLACE OF BIRTH Amsterdam
DATE OF DEATH September 30, 1981