Wilhelm Lenk von Wolfsberg

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Wilhelm Freiherr Lenk von Wolfsberg after 1866

Nikolaus Wilhelm Freiherr Lenk von Wolfsberg (born March 17, 1809 in Budweis ; † October 18, 1894 in Troppau ) was an Austrian military master , owner of the corps artillery regiment No. 4 and a scientist from the Lenk von Wolfsberg family .

Coat of arms of the barons of Lenk von Wolfsberg 1829
Wilhelm Freiherr Lenk von Wolfsberg around 1865

biography

The young Wilhelm was assented to the 4th Artillery Regiment in 1823 and from 1826 completed the higher course of his artillery training in the Austrian military training centers and in the Bombardier Corps , where he became a lieutenant in 1831 . In the following years he was in use as the commander of a bombardier detachment in the Mainz federal fortress . In 1839 he was first lieutenant in the 1st field artillery regiment , then in 1848 captain lieutenant in Prague , as captain in 1849 in the Peterwardeiner and in 1851 in the Viennese artillery and equipment administration district in the 2nd artillery regiment, finally at the end of that year as department head and major (1852) assigned to the general artillery division where he could devote himself entirely to his technical work in the field of technical chemistry.

On April 1, 1854, he was appointed lieutenant colonel and head of the 2nd division of the General Artillery Directorate (director of the gunpowder system), then in October 1857 he was made a colonel . He held this position until he was promoted to major general on February 19, 1861 , in addition to the rank tour , and was entrusted with the management of the artillery committee. In 1862 he was appointed State Artillery Director in Vienna.

In this function he became the second owner of the 1st Artillery Regiment "Kaiser Franz Joseph" on May 15, 1865 and earned great merit during the war of 1866 as the artillery chief of the fortified camp near Vienna by reinforcing the Floridsdorf bridgehead . This earned him the award of the Military Merit Cross and on November 9, 1867, with the rank of November 13 of that year, promotion to Lieutenant Field Marshal . In March 1871 he was appointed holder of Corps Artillery Regiment No. 4.

On the occasion of his 50th anniversary of service, he was decorated with the award of the Order of the Iron Crown 2nd class on October 12, 1872 and was appointed commander of the Olomouc Fortress , an office that he held until his retirement.

On April 1, 1877 he was appointed Feldzeugmeister with title and character and retired at his own request.

Technical services

From 1849, Lenk was engaged in technical work, especially intensively with the improvement and compression of gun cotton [trinitrocellulose]. He tried to use the gun cotton as a propellant in guns. In 1851, therefore, the KK ararian gunwool facility was established in Hirtenberg , a predecessor of the Hirtenberger AG armaments company that still exists today .

Already in its edition of March 27, 1852 the “Oesterreichischer Militärfreund” wrote with reference to a publication from the previous year: “The foreign newspapers have recently been full of reports about the experiments being made in Mainz with gun cotton for military purposes, which a kk artillery -Office so improved that his preparation, applied to both artillery and small rifles, gives the most brilliant results. By the way, what we are now experiencing is already known to our readers from number 41 of April 5, BC. J. of the "soldier friend" became known; only at that time we took the decency to name the inventor of this improved gun cotton, but at present we believe, since the name has already made its way into the public, that we will not commit an indiscretion if we mention it here. This is the Imperial and Royal Major of the second artillery regiment, Baron Lenk von Wolfsberg. "

The future Feldzeugmeister succeeded in producing a trinitrocellulose [C 12 H 7 (3NO 4 ) O 10 ], which met the military requirements for long durability, uniform combustion at high combustion rates and temperature insensitivity up to an ignition point above 136 ° C.

The process of controlled compression of the fibers in gun cotton was patented on June 4, 1864. He was therefore asked to give lectures in England and France. In France he was allowed to emperor Napoleon III. report personally and from his hand received the Commander's Cross of the Legion of Honor and a box richly decorated with diamonds bearing his initials.

However, production was prematurely abandoned in Austria because of two magazine explosions in 1865 for fear of spontaneous combustion.

Anastasius Grün wrote: “It was fatally premature that the method developed by Major General Lenk von Wolfsberg of using gun cotton as a propellant in guns was not pursued after the explosion of a depot. After all, it was precisely the Austrian artillery, whose officers graduated from the engineering academy, were the main victims of the defeat at Königgrätz: the battery of the dead ”.

Wilhelm also invented a well-proven percussion fuse , a grenade grenade , and collapsible tubes for mountain guns . He also supplied a construction of the so-called wedge pulls for rifled guns. The results were convincing, as a result of which 30 field batteries were fitted with them.

Another invention of the general, the "Lenksche friction fuze", was used in the 1863 introduced bow-train guns, which were to serve well in 1864 and 1866.

Feldzeugmeister Wilhelm Freiherr Lenk von Wolfsberg 1877

Performance from today's perspective

His research work has not been completely forgotten to this day.

Gerhard Freiherr von Ledebur writes in his book about the historical representation of the sea mine that Lenk had succeeded in producing a trinitrocellulose that met the military requirements for long durability and even combustion with high efficiency.

In the publication of the “European Association for Chemical and Molecular Sciences” under the heading “Inventions of 1849”, together with the names of Ebelman, Halliday, Max von Pettenkofer in the field of technical chemistry, that of Wilhelm Lenk von Wolfsberg.

Also in the commemorative publication of Hirtenberger AG (Serafin Keller until 1851) on the occasion of the 150th anniversary, which was built on the basis of Lenk's efforts, Wilhelm is mentioned as follows: “Gun cotton was produced here to use it as a propellant substitute for the then only known propellant To use black powder for the Austrian artillery. Behind this revolutionary idea was Captain Wilhelm Freiherr Lenk von Wolfsberg, who was supported by General Artillery Director Franz Ritter von Hausloh in this project. ”Furthermore, the aforementioned stopping of the project is mentioned because, as it was said, the time for it is not yet was ripe. The nitrocellulose powder was not to find its way into weapons and ammunition technology until 1890.

The (pre-) last mention comes from the Austrian Armed Forces 2010: “In 1860 the Austrian officer Wilhelm Lenk von Wolfsberg improved the gun cotton.” Furthermore, reference was made to the indispensable use of this material for the manufacture of torpedoes from the 1890s onwards.

Since 2014 - the 150th anniversary of the registration of Lenk'schen patent of "stabilized nitrocellulose" - now the Austrian leads Armaments and defense technology and the traditional name " Feldzeugmeister steering " and the command building belonging to this office shooting trial course Steinfeld the official name "Command building in Lenk".

Awards

Napoleon III

The officer received numerous awards including:

Eva Aloisia Schreher 1865
Berta Lenk von Wolfsberg 1865

family

Von Wolfsberg was the son of the colonel and Theresa Knight Jakob and half-brother of August . He married Eveline (Eva) Aloisia Schreher on June 24, 1833 in Mainz (born November 2, 1810 in Mainz, † January 7, 1871 in Graz ). From this connection the sons Rudolf and Eugen and three daughters (Eveline, Malwine and Berta) emerged. The latter, Susanne Friederike Bert (h) a Hermine (* December 28, 1848 in Mainz , † October 12, 1906 in Vienna) was with the Reichsrat, large land and brewery owner Freiherr Karl Borromäus Ferdinand Putz von Rolsberg (1852-1921), Malvine (* October 14, 1839 in Mainz; † September 23, 1866 in Opava) married Major General Constantin Buol von Wischenau (* November 19, 1822; † October 4, 1893).

The Lenk von Wolfsberg family (around 1865)

literature

Web links

Commons : Wilhelm Lenk von Wolfsberg  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b c Egger:  Lenk von Wolfsberg, Wilhelm. In: Austrian Biographical Lexicon 1815–1950 (ÖBL). Volume 5, Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna 1972, p. 136.
  2. ^ Kk Army Ordinance Sheet. No. 42 of July 24, 1854
  3. ↑ Allgemeine Zeitung. No. 301 of Wednesday, October 28, 1857, p. 4814
  4. ^ Army News No. 6, p. 39, March 15, 1861
  5. ↑ General military calendar for the year 1866. 6th vol., P. 46, Verlag von Chr. Winter, Frankfurt a. M. 1866.
  6. ↑ Constant von Wurzbach: Biographical Lexicon of the Austrian Empire. Verlag der kk Hof- und Staatsdruckerei, part 14, p. 362, Vienna 1865.
  7. ↑ General military calendar for the year 1866. Verlag Chr. Winter, Frankfurt am Main, p. 46.
  8. ↑ Innsbruck News. May 24, 1865, p. 3.
  9. ↑ Military schematism of the Austrian Empire. KK Hof- und Staatsdruckerei, Vienna 1868, p. 119.
  10. ^ Antonio Schmidt-Brentano: The kk or kuk generality 1816-1918. Austrian State Archives, 1907, p. 104.
  11. ^ Supplement to Allgemeine Zeitung. No. 44, Munich, February 13, 1862.
  12. ^ New Free Press. October 18, 1872, p. 1.
  13. ↑ Local-Anzeiger der "Presse". Supplement No. 288, Saturday, October 20, 1894, p. 1.
  14. ^ A b Constant von Wurzbach: Lenk von Wolfsberg, Wilhelm. in: Biographisches Lexikon des Kaiserthums Oesterreich. 14th part, Verlag der kk Hof- und Staatsdruckerei, Vienna 1865, pp. 361–363.
  15. ↑ J. Hirtenfeld (ed.): Oesterreichischer Soldierfreund. Military Interests Journal. Volume 5, No. 38, of March 27, 1852, Verlag Carl Gerold und Sohn, Vienna 1852, p. 160.
  16. ↑ Gerhard Freiherr von Ledebur: Die Seemine: historical representation of the development of the sea mines and the anti-mine defense including the anti-mine vehicles with examples from the mine war and a mine law consideration. Volume 16 of Defense Science Reports, Verlag JF Lehmann, Munich 1977, p. 39.
  17. ↑ http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/baron-von-lenks-gun-cotton-patented/
  18. ↑ a b Meyers Konversationslexikon. Volume 18. 1890, p. 579.
  19. ↑ Dietmar Scharmitzer: Anastasius Grün (1808-1876), life and work. Böhlau Verlag Vienna / Cologne / Weimar 2010, p. 351.
  20. ^ Gerhard von Pelet-Narbonne (Ed.): Löbell's annual reports on the army and warfare. Volume 21, ES Mittler & Sohn , Berlin 1894, p. 568.
  21. ^ Gerhard Freiherr von Ledebur, "Die Seemine", Verlag JJ Lehmann, Munich 1977
  22. ^ European Association for Chemical and Molecular Sciences, website
  23. ↑ Hirtenberger AG (ed.): Hirtenberger AG. The first 150 years. Festschrift on the occasion of the company anniversary. Hirtenberger AG, Hirtenberg 2010, p. 19
  24. ↑ Austria's Armed Forces - Troop Service - Edition 6/2010
  25. ↑ Address by the head of the Office for Armaments and Defense Technology, Bgdr Michael Janisch: " 160 Years of Structured Defense Technology ", on June 26, 2014
  26. ^ Kk Army Ordinance Sheet. No. 46 of August 12, 1854, p. 141.
  27. ↑ Schematism for the imperial and royal army and for the imperial and royal navy. KK Hof- und Staatsdruckerei, Vienna, December 1859, p. 64.
  28. ^ Kk Army Ordinance Sheet. No. 40, p.137 on October 10, 1861
  29. ^ Army News. Supplement to the military magazine No. 20, p. 145, dated October 15, 1861
  30. ↑ Hof- u. State manual of the Kgr. Bavaria. Munich 1867.
  31. ↑ Streffleur's Austrian Military Journal. Volume VII, Volume 3, Issue VIII, Verlag Carl Gerold's Sohn, Vienna 1866, p. 193
  32. ^ Maximilian Mayerhoffer, family tree and evidence of nobility of the Putz von Rolsberg family, Tannheim 1951.
  33. ↑ Swiss Gender Book. Almanac généalogique suisse. Volume 3, Genealogical Institute Zwicky, 1910, p. 90.
personal data
SURNAME Lenk from Wolfsberg, Wilhelm
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Lenk von Wolfsberg, Nikolaus Wilhelm Freiherr (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian officer and scientist
DATE OF BIRTH March 17, 1809
PLACE OF BIRTH Ceske Budejovice
DATE OF DEATH October 18, 1894
Place of death Troppau