Waldemar Geest

Waldemar Geest (born April 20, 1879 in Berlin , † March 2, 1944 in Groitzsch ) was a German aircraft designer and doctor of medicine. The "Möwe" aircraft he developed contributed a lot to the development of German aviation before the First World War.

Life

Born in Berlin, Waldemar Geest grew up with four siblings in the Vosges, where his father, an officer, was stationed. Early on, he made observations about the flight behavior of birds and insects. He built his first model, a flying wing aircraft with a 30 centimeter wingspan, in 1896.

In 1902, Geest's father left the military and the family moved to Freiburg . Waldemar Geest began studying medicine there. In Freiburg he also married his wife Luise Geest, née Scheuerpflug.

In 1906 he built his first glider, which only made a few short jumps. In the spring of the following year he received his doctorate in medicine, but in the same year he decided to devote himself entirely to aviation. Also in 1907, Geest applied for the patent "wing-like wing for aircraft" for its Geest seagull wing, which was issued on October 31, 1911 with the number 240 268.
From 1908 to 1909 he lived in Munich and founded a small airline company with Alois Wolfmüller . In cooperation with the latter, a glider with a wing area of ​​eleven square meters was created at that time.
In 1908 the "Möwe", a Geest flying wing model with a wingspan of 2.50 meters, won a Munich gliding model competition and won the prize of 50 marks.

Geests "Seagull VI"

In the winter of 1909/10 he ordered a new glider from Gustav Lilienthal in Berlin, which he tested on Gollenberg near Stölln in May . This made a few flights, then the device was destroyed in a crash landing. Geest moved to Rathenow and shortly afterwards his last glider "Weih" was created, with which satisfactory results were achieved, so that Geest now turned to motorized aviation.

The "Seagull I". the first motorized aircraft designed by Geest was built in autumn 1910 at the Wietz car construction company, "Möwe II" in 1911 as a result of a short collaboration with the LVG in Berlin-Johannisthal .

In January 1912 Geest returned to Rathenow and had the "Möwe III", "IV" and "V" built by Wietz, with which he founded the Aviation School Geest in Johannisthal in 1913. Shortly before the outbreak of the First World War, the "Möwe VI", which was financed by the national flight donation with 35,000 marks and built by Karl Goetze KG in Berlin-Treptow, was created, several copies of which were built and used to train military pilots. It flew for the first time on June 17, 1914 and reached an altitude of 1000 meters with DVL pilot Herbert Kühn on July 11. The beginning of the war led to the termination of the experiments. Geest had the name “Möwe” patented in 1913.

In 1916, the last Geest construction at Automobil & Aviatik A. G. was the double-decker fighter plane "Doppel-Möwe", which however did not meet with interest from the military. After this failure, Geest entered the military as a doctor in a field hospital that same year. That was his departure from aviation. After the end of the war he opened a practice in Ballenstedt . In the twenties he practiced in Lucka before finally moving to Groitzsch in the mid-thirties. It was there that his last two flying wing models were made, which took part in competitions on the Wasserkuppe . One of them can be seen in the Museum of Transport and Technology in Berlin.

Waldemar Geest died on March 2, 1944. He is buried with his wife in Groitzsch.

literature

• Werner Schwipps: The "seagulls" of Dr. med. Waldemar Geest . In: Fliegerrevue . No. 6 , 1994.
• Günter Schmitt: When the classic cars flew . The history of the Johannisthal airfield. Transpress, Berlin 1980, ISBN 3-344-00129-9 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Karl-Dieter Seifert: With collective groschen on German air power . The national flight donation 1912–1914. Nora, Berlin 2014, ISBN 978-3-86557-351-3 , pp. 189 f .