Walter Reichel

This article deals with the engineer Walter Reichel. For the archaeologist, see Walther Reichel .

Emil Berthold Walter Reichel (born January 27, 1867 in Laurahütte , † May 23, 1937 in Berlin ) was a German engineer .

Life

Reichel was born as the son of the machine director Adolf Reichel and his wife Malvine, nee. Munscheid, born. His father died when Walter was only three years old. Shortly afterwards, his family moved to Dresden in 1870 . From 1881 he attended the lower secondary school of the Kreuzschule and received a scholarship from the Crucian Foundation in his last school year . In 1885 he graduated from school with the Abitur with the grade "good". In his testimony is noted that he initially intended Medicine study. But Reichel finally decided to study mechanical engineering at the Technical University of Berlin-Charlottenburgrecord. There he attends lectures by Adolf Slaby , whose research is supported by Werner von Siemens . In his free time, Reichel attended the university's Academic Gymnastics Club, which was founded in 1860, from the winter semester of 1885 . He completed his studies after nine semesters in 1889 with the exam to become a government building supervisor.

In the same year, on November 15, 1889, he started work as a designer for vehicles and contact line systems in the railway department at Siemens & Halske in Berlin , where in the same year he developed the hoop pantograph for electric railways - his first patent , which he obtained during his trial period developed. Subsequently, under the direction of Heinrich Schwieger, he initially worked on solving other questions relating to power supply, later he dealt with drive technology and developed motors for a two-pole magnet frame made of cast iron with worm gear . In the following years he managed the construction of electric railways in Genoa, Dresden and Berlin. In the meantime he married his wife Elisabeth Lange; Both had a son, Walter, in 1894. In January 1895, Reichel contracted typhoid and was unable to work for two months. The family bought a holiday home in Cínovec and used it to relax in March 1895. The second son, Martin, was born in 1896, followed by the daughters Erika in 1900 and Hildegard in 1902.

Eight years after joining the company, Reichel was appointed senior engineer in 1897. After an interim study trip to the USA in 1899, Reichel led the commissioning of the Berlin elevated and underground railway in 1902 . In the same year, Reichel passed the examination to become a qualified engineer at the Technical University of Berlin-Charlottenburg and received power of attorney as deputy head of the department for electrical railways at Siemens & Halske. The now six-member family moves into a new house built by their architect friend Walter Franz on Beethovenstrasse in Berlin-Lankwitz .

With the work considerations and experiments on the use of three-phase current for the operation of electric railways , Reichel became a Dr.-Ing. In 1903 with Alois Riedler with the assistance of Slaby . PhD with distinction. From 1903, Reichel was involved in the joint development of electric trains and the like within the study society for electric rapid transit systems . a. involved by Siemens and the AEG , in which speeds of up to 210 km / h were achieved on the test route in Berlin-Marienfelde with three-phase motor vehicles. In parallel to his industrial activities, he took on a full professorship for the newly created chair for electrical railways at the Technical University of Berlin-Charlottenburg from October 1904 . The separation of electrical engineering from mechanical engineering that he suggested leads to a rift with Slaby, who was described as “bitter hostility” in the “Paths of Life” series of the Siemens Historical Institute. His former teachers warn against “breeding” specialist technicians with “very limited horizons”. Reichel was initially unable to assert himself with his idea and only persuaded the university to set up an electrical engineering test field. As a result, he resigned his professorship in 1908 and returned to the company. During and after his university professorship, from 1908 he was department director of the Siemens Dynamowerk in Berlin and a member of the executive board. He influenced the construction of large electrical machines, including the first single-phase alternating current generators for the Walchensee power station and large motors for rolling mills . Together with his colleague Emmerich Frischmuth, he continues to be responsible for the electrical railways specialist area.

Reichel was also significantly involved in the design of the locomotives for the first electrified German main line from 1911 from Dessau to Bitterfeld, he also developed the electric locomotive of the DR class E 44 , which weighed 78 tons, only about half of a comparable locomotive at the time. Their universal applicability was regarded as a pioneering achievement for the time. Reichel helped to ensure that a uniform electricity system was introduced in the German Reich in November 1912 . When the First World War broke out , he was only able to have one ore railway built from a planned major project in Sweden . War goods are also increasingly being manufactured in his plant on Nonnendammallee . After the end of the war, Reichel resumed many of the research activities that had been started.

After his retirement in 1926 and leaving Siemens in 1932, Reichel continued to work for several years as an expert for electrical railways, among other things. In the era of National Socialism Reichel is not tried according to data from a series "life paths" of the Siemens Historical Institute is a "great distance". For example, a publication by Reichel appeared in the Gau newspaper Der attack . The series of publications also indicates that he was not interested in the “anti-modern tones”. Reichel died around four months after his 70th birthday after attending a sports festival in Berlin-Grunewald . The funeral will take place in the crematorium in Berlin-Wilmersdorf ; Carl Friedrich von Siemens held the funeral speech .

Patents

In 1901 Walter Reichel submitted several patent applications to the US Patent Office for the connection of the electrical systems of railway cars (Means for Electrically Connecting of Railway Cars) and for shaft bearings and other constructions.

Awards

• In 1916 Reichel was appointed a secret councilor.
• In 1916 he was awarded the Swedish Wasa Order and the Gold Medal at the 1904 World Exhibition in St. Louis, USA in 1904.

literature

• Privy Councilor Prof Dr Walter Reichel 70 years old. In: Newspaper of the Association of Central European Railway Administrations, Volume 77, No. 5 (February 4, 1937), p. 99.
• Kurt Jäger:  Reichel, Emil Berthold Walter. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 21, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2003, ISBN 3-428-11202-4 , p. 299 f. ( Digitized version ).
• Dr. Susanne Kill: Paths of Life: Walter Reichel. In: Siemens Historical Institute (ed.): Paths of life. Volume 7. Berlin 2018. online (PDF)
• Siemens Historical Institute (Ed.): Walter Reichel , Series of Life Paths, Volume 7, 2018, p. 74

Individual evidence

1. ↑ full name according to the German Biographical Encyclopedia
2. ↑ ^{a b c d e} German Biographical Encyclopedia
3. ↑ Basil Silcove: A Century of Traction. Electrical inspections. (PDF) 2010, p. 7 , accessed on November 2, 2012 (English). 
4. ↑ ^{a b} Put on the track - Siemens presents the world's first electric train . Siemens Historical Institute
5. ^ Walter Reichel - A Siemens engineer with courage and foresight. Siemens Historical Institute, accessed June 14, 2019 . 
6. ↑ ^{a b} Archive of the TU Berlin
7. ↑ patent description
8. ↑ Drawings for the patent applications
9. ↑ shaft bearings
10. ↑ Electrical system
11. ↑ Patent application for a tensioning system for overhead lines
12. ↑ Single axle drive gearbox mounting
13. ↑ Single axle drive gearbox mounting