Robert Thelen

Robert Thelen ( Aviation 1911, No. 13)

Robert Thelen (born March 23, 1884 in Nuremberg , † February 23, 1968 in Berlin-Hirschgarten ) was a German engineer , pilot and aviation pioneer.

Life

Robert Thelen was born as the son of Margarethe and Hermann Thelen in Nuremberg, he still had two sisters and two brothers. From 1900 his father ran the “Berlin Factory for Brewery Supplies, Gebr. Thelen” and around 1904 he built a villa for his family in the Hirschgarten colony, Eschenallee 5 (today Wißlerstraße 15).

Robert spent his school days at the Sophien-Realgymnasium in Berlin, where he passed his matriculation examination in August 1903. After a one-year traineeship in the "Berliner Maschinenbau-Aktien-Gesellschaft", he began studying mechanical engineering at the Technical University of Berlin in October 1904 , where he received his diploma as a mechanical engineer in June 1909 . The title of his diploma thesis was: "Drive machine for an airplane".

Imperial times

Thelen was already enthusiastic about aviation during his studies and bought a Wright biplane in the fall of 1909 . At the same time, he began pilot training at the “Flugmaschine Wright-Gesellschaft mbH” and, with Paul Engelhard, led pilot training courses for potential customers in St. Moritz. Fridolin Keidel was Thelen's flight instructor, with whom he completed five training flights and one unauthorized solo flight. On May 11, 1910, Thelen received license number 9 from the German Airship Association .

Just four days later, he took part in the 2nd Johannisthal International Flight Week, which took place from May 10th to 16th, but crashed his Wright biplane. After the repair, he was the first German pilot to complete a sightseeing flight beyond the airfield area on July 11, 1910 , which took him in 25 minutes from Johannisthal airfield via Adlershof and Grünau to the Müggelbergen and back along the Dahme and via Adlershof back to Johannisthal airfield. In the same year, the Adlershof municipal council decided to name Thelenstrasse after him. During the Berlin flight week from August 7th to 13th, 1910, Thelen won several prizes, including the Höhenpreis. In the following months, Thelen trained other pilots as a flight instructor at Ad Astra Flug GmbH, which was founded in the same year , including Melli Beese . He also took part in other events, including an overland flight from Frankfurt to Mannheim from August 16 to 22, 1910 and one from Trier to Metz from September 27 to October 1, 1910, where he won second prize and several honorary prizes could. The National Flight Week in Johannisthal , organized from October 9 to 16, 1910, represented a major aviation event . Thelen took part and was able to win several awards, including the Bleichröder Prize and the price for the longest passenger flight. Two weeks later, on October 30, 1910, he was one of the participants in the first German air race from Bork to Johannisthal. The year 1911 began for Thelen with an overland flight with the stages Gotha – Weimar – Erfurt – Gotha. This was followed by the German reliability flight (May 19-27) in Offenburg, which he had to end prematurely due to a crash landing against a tree, and the German sightseeing flight from June 11 to July 10, 1911, where Thelen received several prize money of a total of RM 15,892. But Thelen was not only successful in Germany. In late summer 1911 he stayed in Denmark, where he took part in the local flight. His 80 km flight from Aarhus to Copenhagen caused a sensation in the local media, which also crossed the Kattegatt and earned him a prize from the Copenhagen daily newspaper .

He worked as a lecturer at the Adlershof Aviation School, which opened in 1912. Up until the beginning of the First World War , it set several flight records (highest flight altitude, longest covered distance, highest transported weight). On March 20, 1914, he set the altitude record for an airplane with three passengers at 3700 m.

First World War

Albatros D.III

During the First World War Thelen was employed by Albatros Flugzeugwerke as a test pilot and designer; at the same time Ernst Heinkel was responsible for the design of bomber planes. Thelen's constructions included the Albatros D.III , one of the most widely used fighter aircraft in the air force . As a test pilot, he flew the Albatros seaplanes built in Friedrichshagen .

Weimar Republic

After the war, Thelen first managed his father's business before becoming head of the testing department at the German Aviation Research Institute in Adlershof in 1926 .

time of the nationalsocialism

When the DVL was subordinated to the newly created Reich Aviation Ministry after the National Socialists came to power in 1933 , the authority took over as chief engineer. At the age of 60, Thelen reached retirement age in 1944 and resigned from the Reich Aviation Ministry on November 30, 1944 as Colonel of Aviation Engineering. Despite his retirement, from January 1945 he worked as a freelance consultant at the "Testing Center for Detachable Connection Parts" at the Reich Minister for Armaments and War Production.

post war period

After the war, Robert Thelen's house was confiscated by the Soviet Army and his family lived in the garage in front of the house for a long time. Nevertheless, the family decided to stay in the GDR. Robert Thelen lived in the villa built by his father in Berlin-Hirschgarten until his death .

Robert Thelen was buried in the family's grave at the Evangelical Cemetery in Berlin-Friedrichshagen. Although the grave had been in place for years, it is in good condition. The Heimatverein Köpenick tries to get a guarantee for the grave from the Evangelical Christophorus Community in Friedrichshagen.

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  Grave complex of the Thelen family at the Berlin-Friedrichshagen cemetery (status 2013)

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  Inscription of the tomb for Robert Thelen and his son Knut, who died in World War II

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  Memorial plaque on the Thelen family's grave

literature

• Heinz AF Schmidt: From the life of German aviation pioneers: Robert Thelen . In: Flieger-Jahrbuch 1968 . Transpress, Berlin 1967, p. 157-162 .
• Alexander Kauther, Paul Wirtz: Robert Thelen - An old eagle in Berlin-Johannisthal . Grin-Verlag, 2011.

Web links

Commons : Robert Thelen  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Thelenstrasse. In: Street name lexicon of the Luisenstädtischer Bildungsverein (near  Kaupert )
• Documents from Robert Thelen's estate in the archive of the Otto Lilienthal Museum

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Otto Lilienthal-Museum Anklam, Robert Thelen estate, archive no.9402
2. ^ Advertisement in the BZ at noon, February 14, 1910
3. ↑ FAI license No. 9, May 11, 1910, Robert Thelen, Stiftung Deutsches Technik Museum Berlin
4. ^ Personnel form Robert Thelen, Reich Ministry of Aviation, note VKA: L1 / Kf; January 20, 1945