Richard Koch (engineer)

Richard Koch (born September 8, 1887 in Ulm , † 1972 ) was a German engineer and production planner .

Life

Richard Koch studied mechanical engineering at the Technical University of Darmstadt . He then worked as a designer in various companies. In 1917, after serving at the front, he was assigned to the manufacturing office of the weapons and ammunition procurement office as a lieutenant , where he was in charge of the tool shop and later the tolerance department . In April 1918, Koch received his doctorate in engineering from Georg Schlesinger with the study The importance of a uniform reference temperature for interchangeable manufacturing .

From 1920 to 1945, Koch chaired the standards testing center of the standards committee of German industry .

In 1930 he and Otto Kienzle founded the engineering office Koch and Kienzle in Berlin, the first freelance company for rationalization purposes, in contrast to REFA . Wilhelm Renner could be won as an employee .

In 1932 Richard Koch was a member of the HASAG supervisory board and recommended the appointment of Paul Budin (born December 4, 1892 in Magdeburg ; April 18, 1945 in Leipzig ) as general director. Budin joined the NSDAP on May 1, 1933 and was expelled for Freemasonry in October 1934. In August 1938 Heinrich Himmler accepted him into the SS and in September 1939 declared HASAG to be the home supplier of the Waffen SS . After Adolf Hitler was commissioned to form a government, Budin immediately adapted production to the political changes: some of the HASAG operations were converted to manufacture ammunition and other military equipment and, at the same time, the relationship with the Heereswaffenamt was deepened. In order to keep the entrepreneurial risk of integrating the former state ammunition factory in Skarżysko-Kamienna Werk C and other companies in Kielce and Częstochowa during the occupation of Poland by the Wehrmacht low, HASAG Metallwerke GmbH was founded in 1939 , which in 1940 became the original Hugo Schneider AG merged. This economic situation led HASAG to develop into an exclusive arms company in 1940 , which specialized in the production of ammunition and covered a spectrum ranging from the caliber of simple bullets to grenades for combat aircraft.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Rita Seidel, Otto Kienzle - Systematics of Manufacturing Technology: An Engineer on a Train Through Time, p. 58 , p. 60
2. ↑ Mike Schmeitzner, Francesca Weil, Saxony 1933–1945 : The historical travel guide, p. 67
3. ↑ Felicja Karay, We lived between grenades and poems .: The women's camp of the armaments factory HASAG in the Third Reich, Böhlau-Verlag GmbH, 2001, 223 p., P. 15