Josef Sablatnig

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Josef Sablatnig (also: Joseph Sablatnig ; born February 9, 1886 in Klagenfurt ; † February 28, 1946 in special camp No. 2 Buchenwald ) was an Austrian pioneer in aviation , aircraft construction and air transport .

Life

Sablatnig NI , 1916

Sablatnig graduated in 1904 in Klagenfurt, where he the Corps Arminia became a member, and then studied mechanical engineering at the TH Graz , where he joined the Graz academic fraternity Allemannia, where he remained until his death, and electrical engineering at the Technical University in Brno studied . After passing the second state examination in 1909 , Sablatnig received his engineering degree on December 9th. During his studies he came into contact with motor racing and subsequently took part in international car races in other European countries as a co-driver of Otto Hieronimus . During one such stay in France, he witnessed Wilbur Wright's flight demonstrations in Pau . When the Carinthian Automobile Club founded an aviation department shortly afterwards and bought a Wright Flyer on Sablatnig's advice , he began training as a pilot at Flugmaschine Wright GmbH at the Johannisthal airfield in autumn 1909 , which he continued in his home country and on August 24, 1910 graduated as the twelfth Austrian. From May on, he carried out public sightseeing flights in Klagenfurt , Graz and Gorizia with the flyer even before obtaining his pilot's license . This was followed by participation in the National Flight Week in Johannisthal, the Wiener Neustädter Flight Meeting and further demonstrations in Prague , Lemberg and Wels .

Sablatnig CI , 1917

In 1911 he started working for Louis Blériot and then, on the initiative of Manfréd Weiss in Wiener Neustadt, at the Austro-Hungarian Autoplanwerke . In the same year, at the request of Prince Heinrich of Prussia, he was resettled and naturalized to Germany, where Sablatnig became a partner in the newly founded Union-Flugzeuwerke GmbH in Berlin-Teltow for a short time in 1913 .

He was considered the first night pilot and before the First World War he set several high altitude records and a distance record with the later pilot Lilly Steinschneider as a passenger .

During the First World War he was a volunteer under Prince Heinrich of Prussia in Kiel, involved in building up German naval aviation . In 1915 he founded his own aircraft construction company, Sablatnig-Flugzeugbau GmbH , which constructed the Sablatnig SF 2 , SF 5 , SF 6 and SF 8 types and built them in small series. Since the small company was overwhelmed by the production orders, it was supported by the Luftfahrzeug-Gesellschaft mbH . Sablatnig built the FF 49 under license for aircraft construction in Friedrichshafen . In 1918 he carried out air courier services on behalf of the government .

After the war, he converted naval aircraft into transport aircraft and initially operated the Berlin- Warnemünde line . In 1919 he constructed his first real passenger plane , the SAB PI, and took up the first German international route with it: From April 21, 1919, Sablatnig Flugzeugbau GmbH flew in regular service to Copenhagen and Stockholm . Hans Seehase designed the civil airliner SAB P III for him. Sablatnig was also a co-founder of Dansk Luftexpress and acquired postal concessions for the Stockholm – Gothenburg route . In addition, an association of the aviation industry was founded with his participation in 1919. After the former head of IdFlieg , Wilhelm Siegert , switched to Sablatnig's company as a consultant in 1920, he took a stake in a scheduled transport company ( Lloyd Luftverkehr Sablatnig , created by merging with a subsidiary of North German Lloyd ) and operated routes between Berlin and Hesse . During this time, among others, Victor Entler worked in his construction company.

In 1923, Lloyd merged with several other aviation companies (including Deutsche Luft-Reederei and Deruluft ) to form Deutsche Aero Lloyd . It was in 1926 with the Junkers air traffic AG to Deutsche Luft Hansa merged .

The Versailles peace treaty banned the German Reich from all aviation activities and so it turned to a less successful involvement in automobile construction (→ see: Sablatnig-Beuchelt ). It was not until 1931 that he was able to work again in aircraft construction at Junkers Flugzeugwerk AG . In the 1932 presidential election , Paul von Hindenburg's representative von Sablatnig used loudspeaker planes for their campaigns .

Most recently entrusted with the development of assault boat engines, he was arrested on June 16, 1945 in Berlin by the Soviet occupying forces, which is why older sources give him missing in 1945 . In fact, he was transferred to the Soviet Buchenwald special camp , where he died in 1946.

effect

The feeder that leads from Annabichl via Klagenfurt Airport to the A2 Südautobahn is named after him.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Compare The Motor Car. Automobile and aviation technology magazine , year 19, Berlin: Krayn; P. 428; limited preview in Google Book search
  2. ↑ Book of the Dead of the Buchenwald Special Camp, p. 114.
  3. ^ A b c Karl-Dieter Seifert:  Sablatnig, Josef. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 22, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-428-11203-2 , p. 321 f. ( Digitized version ).
  4. ↑ Source: Song texts of the Corps Arminia. September 1976., there cited as "Extract from the Festschrift"
  5. ↑ a b Sablatnig, Josef. (PDF; 172 kB) In: Austrian Biographical Lexicon 1815–1950. Retrieved March 15, 2016 .
  6. ↑ From gliding to jet planes ( Memento from October 9, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) (archive version)
  7. ↑ Lutz Budrass: eagle and crane. Lufthansa and its history. Blessing, Munich 2016, ISBN 978-3-89667-481-4 , p. 20
personal data
SURNAME Sablatnig, Josef
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Sablatnig, Joseph; Zablatnik, Jože
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian pioneer in aviation, aircraft construction and air transport
DATE OF BIRTH February 9, 1886
PLACE OF BIRTH Klagenfurt
DATE OF DEATH February 28, 1946
Place of death Special camp No. 2 Buchenwald