Robert Böker (engineer)

Robert Böker (full name Robert Albert Böker ; born May 23, 1885 in Leipzig , † July 7, 1980 in Bad Homburg in front of the height ) was a German engineer and science historian .

Life

Robert Böker was the son of bridge builder Robert Anton Gescheidt Böker (1845–1923) and his wife Anna geb. Harkort, the daughter of the railway industrialist Johann Caspar Harkort (1817-1896). His grandfather was the entrepreneur Hermann Böker (1803–1884), who had emigrated to the USA and founded the trading company H. Boker & Co in New York in 1837. His father Robert Böker returned to Germany and settled there, but remained a US citizen, as did his children born in Leipzig.

Robert Böker attended the St. Thomas School in Leipzig . After graduation (1906) he studied engineering and physics at the University of Leipzig . In 1907 he took on Saxon citizenship and served as a one-year volunteer in the army. He then continued his studies at the Technical University of Dresden and the University of Göttingen . From 1913 to 1914 he worked as an assistant to Richard Mollier at the TU Dresden. In 1914 he was at the Technical University of Aachen Dr. ing. PhD .

At the First World War Boker took part of the Reserve 1914 to 1917 as a lieutenant. He took part in numerous battles and received the Iron Cross 1st class and the Albrechts Order (knight 2nd class with swords). After being wounded, he was released in 1917. In the same year he married Charlotte Körting (1897–1990), the daughter of the electrical industrialist Max Körting (1862–1948).

After the end of the war, Böker worked in industrial practice before he became a member of the board of the Plessa lignite works in 1923 . From 1933 he also worked as a civil engineer in lighting technology.

After the end of the Second World War , Böker was dismissed from the board of the Plessa lignite works. In 1948 he retired, which he spent in Leipzig. In 1959 he moved with his wife to Bad Homburg vor der Höhe , where he died on July 7, 1980, very old.

In addition to his work in industry, Böker was also active in science. He constructed a precession celestial globe that is exhibited in the Deutsches Museum in Munich. His research focus was on the history of the natural sciences in antiquity, especially the history of technology and economics, as well as the history of railway construction. He wrote numerous articles for the real encyclopedia of classical antiquity (RE) and for the little Pauly (KlP).

Fonts (selection)

• The mechanics of permanent change in shape in crystalline bodies . Berlin 1914 (dissertation)
• Early Saxon railway founding. In memory of Gustav Harkort and the opening of the Leipzig-Dresden Railway a hundred years ago on April 8, 1839 . o. O. 1939
• To the descendants of the Leipzig merchants Gustav Harkort, Albert Dufour-Feronce, Carl Lampe, Wilhelm Seyfferth, Wilhelm Crusius, to the members of the family association of the Harkort family, to researchers in the field of German economic history . Leipzig 1943
• Incredibility of the accusations common in the list literature against Gustav Harkort and his employees in the Leipzig-Dresden railway company . Leipzig 1943
• The Formation of the Star Sphere Arats . Berlin 1952
• Babylonian observation of the Perseid radiant . Leipzig 1954

literature

• Charlotte Böker: Robert Böker . In: German Family Archives . Volume 61 (1974), pp. 287–304 (with list of publications and portrait)
• Felix Schmeidler : The precession globe and the other scientific works by Robert Böker . Munich / Düsseldorf 1978 (with portrait)
• Robert Böker . In: Werner Schuder (Ed.): Kürschner's German Scholars Calendar . Founded by Joseph Kürschner . 14th edition. De Gruyter, Berlin 1983, ISBN 3-11-008558-5 , p. 4818 .

Web links

• Literature by Robert Böker in the catalog of the German National Library
• Literature by and about Robert Böker in the Saxon Bibliography
• Information on the estate at the Deutsches Museum