Theodor Wüllenkemper

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Theodor Wüllenkemper (born October 22, 1925 in Essen ; † February 6, 2012 in Mülheim an der Ruhr ) was a German aviation entrepreneur.

Live and act

After Wüllenkemper had made his first experiences in gliding as a teenager , he joined the Air Force in 1943 at the age of 17 to be trained as a fighter pilot . However, the German surrender in May 1945 spared him the war effort.

After the Second World War, the Germans were initially banned from both military and civil aviation. Wüllenkemper used the time to complete pilot training in England and Switzerland and, after the restrictions were lifted in 1955, was one of the first Germans to be granted a license by the Allies.

Almost at the same time that LTU was founded by Kurt Conle from Mülheim , the West German Air Advertising (WDL, see: WDL Luftschiffgesellschaft ) company owned by the Mülheim-born Theodor Wüllenkemper was established. He built up his company during the economic miracle with work flights, holiday flights, sightseeing flights and aerial advertising. For example, he organized a seaside resort service to the North Sea islands, offered pest control from the air and discovered the sky as an advertising space by circling planes with advertising banners.

He also trained around 300 pilots and took on several of them in his service. The ranks of the pilots he employed included Sabine Trube , who later became one of the first women to fly large jet airliners for the LTU aviation company.

When the low-flying propeller machines with their advertising banners became a political issue in the 1960s for reasons of noise protection, Wüllenkemper developed the idea of ​​transporting advertising with airships instead. The first blimp took off in 1972 at the Essen / Mülheim airfield and advertised the Wicküler brewery .

The decades-long conflict over the expansion of the Essen / Mülheim airport led to Wüllenkemper announcing his resignation from the SPD in 2009 . However, he did not carry out his threat to relocate the company headquarters from Mülheim an der Ruhr and to vacate the airport completely.

Wüllenkemper was privately involved as a sponsor of the Endoscopy Center Duisburg, the company HPS and sat on the supervisory board of the Embry Riddle University of Aerospace in Florida.

Honors

literature

  • Mülheimer Jahrbuch 2006, pp. 78–82.
  • Frank Messing: Theodor Wüllenkemper - pioneer of aerial advertising. In: Horst A. Wessel (Ed.): Mülheim entrepreneurs and pioneers in the 19th and 20th centuries. Klartext Verlag, Essen 2012, pp. 211–219.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Westdeutsche Luftwerbung Theodor Wüllenkemper GmbH & Co KG ( Memento of the original dated November 7, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. de.kompass.com, accessed November 6, 2017. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / de.kompass.com
  2. ^ Welt am Sonntag (May 17, 2009) WestLB soon only in Düsseldorf.
personal data
SURNAME Wüllenkemper, Theodor
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German aerospace operator
DATE OF BIRTH October 22, 1925
PLACE OF BIRTH eat
DATE OF DEATH February 6, 2012
Place of death Mülheim an der Ruhr