Wilhelm Kirmser

Wilhelm Kirmser (born May 21, 1911 in Frankfurt-Heddernheim ; † February 15, 1995 in Bad Homburg vd Höhe ) was a German entrepreneur and patron .

Live and act

Wilhelm Kirmser was born in May 1911 as the son of the machine fitter Franz Kirmser in the north-western Frankfurt district of Heddernheim. From Easter 1917 to 1921 he attended elementary school, after which he went to higher school. From May 21, 1928 to March 31, 1930 he attended the drawing school (Oberrealschule) in the Eschersheim district of Frankfurt. After graduating from high school and a six-month internship, he began studying mechanical engineering at the TH Darmstadt in October 1930 . He completed the missing months of the compulsory internship at the Heddernheimer Kupferwerke founded by AF Hesse in 1892 , which - after various mergers with other metalworks - has been known as Vereinigte Deutsche Metallwerke AG (VDM) since 1930 . The main shareholder was the metal company . The company headquarters moved to Frankfurt / M in 1934. relocated. Wilhelm Kirmser was also employed by VDM during the semester break in 1931 and 1934.

In the autumn of 1932, Kirmser passed the pre-diploma examination. On October 23, 1935, he finished his studies with the grade very good and earned the title of graduate engineer. As early as December 1934, he was working as an assistant at the Technical University of Darmstadt with Wilhelm Wagenbach (1876–1945), who had held the professorship for hydropower machines and hydraulics since 1921 and headed the research institute for hydropower machines.

On March 1, 1936, he moved to the State Materials Testing Institute at the TH Darmstadt, which had been headed by August Thum since 1927 . During this time he published several papers on materials testing. In spring 1943 he did his doctorate with August Thum with the thesis Superimposed alternating stresses, their generation and their influence on the durability and stress development of transversely drilled shafts . After the buildings of the materials testing institute at the TH Darmstadt were almost completely destroyed by a heavy bombing attack on the night of September 11th to 12th, 1944, Kirmser moved to the VDM in Frankfurt-Heddernheim as an assistant director in October 1944.

As early as 1939, VDM had 21,000 employees. The number of employees increased due to the rearmament in the Nazi regime . During the Second World War , the entire VDM production was switched to armaments. Numerous forced laborers and Russian prisoners of war were also used to expand production . The company site was one of the main targets of the Allied air raids, so that almost all buildings and factories were destroyed. As a result, production practically came to a standstill. After the war, production was initially switched to civilian products. Wilhelm Kirmser played a decisive role in this, as he was appointed general representative of the company in January 1946. He held this position until he left on September 30, 1966. In the early 1950s, VDM was the world's largest manufacturer of raw, semi-finished and finished products made from non-ferrous metals and alloys. The number of employees had increased from 6,200 in October 1949 to 12,200 in October 1955. In addition to the economic recovery of Germany and Europe, the Korean War and the armament of the FRG also led to a demand for VDM products. The crisis year 1966/67 heralded the gradual economic decline of the company. On March 31, 1982 the plant in Frankfurt-Heddernheim was finally closed.

Wilhelm Kirmser had been with Marie Elisabethe born since the early 1940s. Kessler (1914–2009) married. She was the last descendant of the Hesse family, the founding family of Heddernheimer Kupferwerke. The marriage remained childless.

Works

• 1939: Test facility to determine the properties of rubber bodies. German Motor Research Interim Report 61
• 1940: Attempts to permanently stress rubber-metal connections under alternating tensile and compressive loads. , German Motor Research Interim Report 81.
• 1940: The behavior of samples made of natural rubber and Buna under pressure threshold stress. German Motor Research Interim Report 82
• 1940: Operational stresses on the rubber mounts of a diesel railcar engine. German Motor Research Interim Report 84.
• 1941: Damping properties of cylindrical Buna metal elements in the event of brief alternating tension-compression loads. RLM interim report.
• 1943: August Thum / Wilhelm Kirmser: Superimposed alternating loads, their generation and their influence on the permeability and stress development of transversely drilled shafts. VDI research booklet 419, VDI-Verlag, Berlin, dissertation.

Wilhelm and Maria Kirmser Foundation

At the request of Wilhelm Kirmser and his wife, the Wilhelm and Maria Kirmser Foundation, based in Bad Homburg vd Höhe, was established after their death. The foundation deed of December 19, 2012 was approved by the Darmstadt Regional Council at the end of 2012. The purposes of the statutes are realized through the promotion of particularly qualified students and doctoral candidates at the TU Darmstadt, the promotion of exceptionally talented children and young people and the research into viral diseases.

literature

• State Gazette for the State of Hesse, No. 3, January 14, 2013, p. 154.
• Thum and his school. A compilation of publications from 1922–1941. Darmstadt 1941.