Abstract
This last excursion chapter deals with two leading turbojet engineers in Germany, Fig. 9.1, and their—in parts associated—war-time activities. Especially for Reuter, this will be a view on the quality of his and his team’s early achievements without precedence,—but commonly in the ‘rollercoaster’ transition period and thereafter,—a view on lasting post-war industrial impact, based on engineering versatility and adaptability to new circumstances.
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Notes
- 1.
The indicated examples—for air, by the advanced axial compressor development for the BMW 109-003 C/D versions will be addressed in this chapter,—for land applications has been outlined already in the foregoing tank gas turbine Sect. 8.3.4, and—for sea, by illustrating Reuter’s installation design of a Bristol Rolls-Royce Olympus TM1a on a 700 t gunboat of the Finnish Navy, also in the present chapter.
- 2.
This special part of Oestrich’s vita will be outlined in Sect. 10.4.
- 3.
See Wikipedia ‘Friedrich Engels’ in English. In 1936, the Gymnasium Elberfeld was named after Wilhelm Dörpfeld (1853–1940), archaeologist and excavator of Troja, to prevent a threatening naming by the NS-regime as ‘Langemarck-Schule’,—see Wikipedia ‘Langemark’ in English. The name of the scholar and social-revolutionist Engels certainly would have been a rightful candidate as well, however, as communist he was not acceptable for the reigning ‘national-socialists’ then.
- 4.
Data (Sign. 22008_461 and 21011_923), courtesy of Judith Käpplinger, KIT Archive, 17 Jan. 2022.
- 5.
See Sect. 7.4, most remarkably the request was not initiated out of H. Schelp’s responsibility, but followed a suggestion from the RLM Technical Office’s airframe section GL/C-E2.
- 6.
Letter of late BBC Chairman of the Board, Herbert Gassert (1929–2011)—see Wikipedia, ‘Herbert Gassert’ in German, to MTU board member Karl-Adolf Müller, dated 1 Feb.1971, which Gassert forwarded to the author on 8 Dec. 2008.
- 7.
See Sect. 8.1.1 in the context of Jumo 004 A.
- 8.
- 9.
TLUK/ Ve—with some probability standing for ‘Turbine-Luftfahrt-Konstruktion/ Verdichter (Turbine-aviation-construction/ compressor)’. Other department members were identified in—see Wikipedia, ‘Operation Lusty’ in English, standing for ‘LUftwaffe Secret TechnologY’, post-war personnel tabulations: Willy Horni(n)g (35), Lohmeir or Lohmeyer, Hermann Henke (21), Gunter Casper (34), and in addition Karl Fickert, Waldemar Hryniszak and Ivo Dane (33), of which the latter Dipl.-Ing. I. Dane achieved some prominence with his Wilhelmshaven engineering office, and in ~1982 as co-founder of DGW Deutsche Gesellschaft für Windenergie (German society for wind energy). Hans Roskopf, though originally member of the BBC team, headed very soon Oestrich’s group of mechanical designers, first at BMW, and thereafter also at SNECMA. Head of BBC Mannheim’s industrial compressor department was Max Schattschneider, mostly known for the corresponding equipment for engine altitude test facilities, and wind tunnels like—see Eckardt, Gas Turbine Powerhouse, p. 122 f., and—see Eckardt, The 1x1 m hypersonic wind tunnel Kochel/ Tullahoma 1940–1960.
- 10.
See Kay, German Jet Engine, p. 125.
- 11.
Ulrich Senger should have established contacts to TH Stuttgart and the renowned FKFS under Prof. Wunibald Kamm latest in 1936, when BBC delivered—as mentioned before—the 3rd NI altitude test facility to this prospering Institute,—with then up to 650 employees.
- 12.
Since 1941 C.A. Leuze supported the search for alternative cotton sources, especially from Ukraine and Crimea.
- 13.
DKF Deutsche Kraftfahr Forschung (German automotive research), VDI Verein Deutscher Ingenieure (Assoc. of German Engineers), here both as publishers.
- 14.
See Eckert, Das Kuehlgeblaese (1940), with the DKF and VDI thesis extra versions. On top there appeared several short versions,—see Eckert, Kuehlgeblaese (MTZ, 1940) and—Kraftfahrzeug-Kuehlgeblaese (1942–1943).
- 15.
See Eckert, Axialkompressoren.
- 16.
Today, HFI Hermann-Foettinger-Institute for Fluid Mechanics at TU Berlin. Weinig’s first profess-sional task was to optimise the shape of torpedo hulls by means of Foettinger’s Vector Integrator on behalf of TVA (TorpedoVersuchsAnstalt/torpedo test facility) Eckernfoerde, where Weinig was responsible for the numerical calculations. On 7 July 1929 he earned his doctorate with a thesis ‘Über die graphische Berechnung der Strömungsverhältnisse und der Leistungsaufnahme in einem gegebenen Turbinenrad (On the graphical determination of flow conditions and power consumption in a turbine wheel)’,—followed by his habilitation;—see Hager, Hydraulicians (Weinig).
- 17.
Under the latter aspect, F. Weinig belongs to the earliest pioneers of this discipline in Germany, summarised for the first time in his 1935 book,—see Weinig, Die Stroemung um die Schaufeln, followed e.g. by W. Traupel’s doctoral thesis of 1942 (dedicated to Joh. Seb. Bach)—see Traupel, Neue allgemeine Theorie. It appears that the foundations—also here—were laid in England by the Momentum or Actuator Disk Theory, connected with W.J.M. Rankine (1865), A.G. Greenhill (1888), and R.E. Froude (1889), and supplemented by BET Blade Element Theory of W. Froude (1878), D.W. Taylor (1893) and the Polish inventor S. Drzewiecki, otherwise known for building the first e-battery-powered submarine in 1884. The author suggests a corresponding historic sketch of the early numerical techniques for fluid mechanics, turbomachinery flow calculations and their interrelations, as a kind of scientific pedigree to comprehend, teach and apply advanced present-day methods.
- 18.
Mainly based on the spreading reputation of his translated propeller book,—see Weinig, Aerodyna-mik der Luftschraube, Weinig came to work in the USA, first up to 1951 for the Air Material Command, Wright Field, Oh, thereafter for GE Aircraft Engines at Cincinnati, Oh, where he instructed designers to use his theory derived from thin circular-arc profiles with small camber up to 1958. The late Leroy H. Smith, jr. wrote in a private communication in Nov. 2008: ‘By the time I arrived at GE in 1954, Dr. Weinig’s ‘deviation angle method’—see Smith, Axial Compressor Aerodesign Evolution—was no longer being used. Personally, he was set in his analytic ways and hard to communicate with. Our design methods had moved on, and he had trouble accepting that.’ The communication problem meant he was not very effective as a consultant. In ~1960 he left the USA, returning to relatives at Leinsweiler, 30 km west of Karlsruhe. He built a house with a grand view to near—see Wikipedia, ‘Trifels Castle’ in English, known as the site where Richard the Lionheart, King of England (36) was imprisoned in 1193. Information on Weinig’s last years, courtesy of Maja Theisinger and Thomas Stuebinger, Leinsweiler, 24. Jan. 2022.
- 19.
The faded BBC drawing original TLUK-Ve, K10021 was found on the wall behind U. Senger’s desk at TH Stuttgart, with the hand-written inset, containing the date of issue 8 Oct. 1942, forwarded to the author,—courtesy of Senger’s former assistant H. Gassert, 8 Dec. 2008. In contact with (H. Reuter?) BBC Mannheim, Antony Kay must have received a copy which was used for a re-drawing with English labels in—see Kay, German Jet Engine, p. 126, Fig. 2.100.
- 20.
See Kay, German Jet Engine, p. 126.
- 21.
See Sect. 8.2.3.
- 22.
See US Navy Dept, Interrogation Report; the printed, first date 22 Oct. 1945 in para 1 of this report is apparently a typing error,—and should read 26 Oct. 1945, also Cam(p)bell’s typed signature is misspelled.
- 23.
See Eckert, Erinnerungen, p. 75 f., who at that time acc. to his memoirs ran an engineering office and consequently, was fully paid for one year by the US Navy, issuing e.g.—see Eckert, Series of Articles (containing ~100 measured compressor maps), including extras like a Volkswagen ‘Kübel’ (jeep) to bridge the daily 10 km transfer from Kirchheim/Teck, where he lived, to the Unterlenningen FKFS outpost. To Eckert’s amusement, the Navy all-round carefree package for the (air-cooled) Volkswagen comprised several hundred litres of gas, and 100 l water-glycol cooling liquid (!).
- 24.
In 1952, Eckert returned to Germany and commenced work at Daimler-Benz AG Stuttgart-Untertuerkheim, where he became Director, Head of the Department of Fluidmachinery—with responsibility, mainly for (automotive) gas turbines, and after 1969 for the newly founded MTU Motoren- und Turbinen-Union Muenchen GmbH (today MTU Aero Engines), a merger of the post-war turbojet activities of DB, BMW and MAN. After his retiring he wrote his ‘Erinnerungen’ (biography) which represent a rather rare witness report especially of the early German turbojet developments from an engineer’s perspective.
- 25.
See Eckardt, Gas Turbine Powerhouse, p. 146 f.
- 26.
See Wikipedia, ‘Junkers Ju 287’ in English.
- 27.
See Kay, German Jet Engine, p.131 f.
- 28.
This typical double-wall structure is also visible on the related design of—see Wikipedia ‘Pirna 014’ in English, especially at the depicted exhibition model at Deutsches Museum Munich.
- 29.
See Kay, German Jet Engine, p.135, Fig. 2.106—with the caption: ‘An allied technician examining the (destroyed) compressor, apparently exploded with an internal charge which split open the casing and stator rings’.
- 30.
See C.I.O.S, Gas Turbine and Wind Tunnel Activity Brown Boveri(e) Cie. Name corrections in [..].
- 31.
The C.I.O.S. report lists: Schneider, Waldmann, Krauss, Hornig, Henke, Dane, Casper; not mentioned Hraniczek, responsible for the GT103 regenerator, who was also part of the KTL tank team.
- 32.
There is some mis-information: As described already in Sect. 8.3.4, the KTL evacuation in early 1945 went from St. Aegyd to Sülzhayn/ Ellrich, with living quarters for SS personnel, approximately 9 km north-west of the huge underground Mittelbau-Dora production facilities (and not as wrongly spelled ‘Sulzheim’). Of mixed-up dates, Mon 26 March, and Fri 6 April, 1945 are more likely (than the also quoted 28 March and 8 April). The target of the 50 truck KTL convoy was ‘Camp Schlatt’ in Austria, some 60 km south-east of Passau, where also Max Adolf Mueller went to US captivity, and not the BMW dispersal point Kolbermoor near Rosenheim, where also Hans von Ohain was found at war’s end,—see Conner, Hans von Ohain, p. 144. ‘Kahla’—the name of a Thuringian porcelain since 1844—as code name for Kolbermoor near Rosenheim—had apparently been picked with special subtlety, per se a brandmark of Oestrich, since it could be easily mixed-up with ‘KALAG’, code name of Oestrich’s related underground facilities of former BMW Berlin-Spandau at Neu-Stassfurt, 500 km north of Kolbermoor, Sect. 9.2, and named after an unrelated salt mine ‘Kaliwerk Löderburg AG’. In the 1940s Kahla had several manufacturing sites spread all-over Germany, one of these small plants was at the ‘Alte Spinnerei’ (Old cotton spinning mill) building at Kolbermoor, today practically a suburb in the west of Rosenheim, some 50 km south-east of Munich. Even today there is Mahlwerck Porzellan GmbH, so there is high probability that Senger’s ‘Kahla’ near Rosenheim, refers to this site. When finally in spring 1946 Reuter after a—what he called in his CV—involuntary 6 months stay at Parsons, Newcastle (presumably with the remainder of the KTL group) returned to the Brown Boveri headquarters at Heidelberg, his actual route back home was not reconstructed, so that the question from which of the interrogation camps he was finally released (Kolbermoor, Schlatt or Newcastle), has to remain unanswered.
- 33.
These investigations have been carried out by Drs.sc.techn.ETH—see Wikipedia, ‘Georges Bernard Bridel’ in German, and Marc Immer, ALR Aerospace Project Development Group Zurich, —see Wikipedia, ‘ALR Piranha’ in English.
- 34.
In German: Reuter had the ‘Lehrstuhl für Allgemeine Maschinenkonstruktionslehre’ at IPEK between 1967 and 1976.
- 35.
The Olympus Mk 200 had a 16,000 lbf take-off thrust and was used for the first Avro Vulcan B2 bomber. The initial design of this second generation ‘Olympus 6’ began in 1952, a major redesign with five lp and seven hp compressor stages and a ‘canullar combustor’ with eight interconnected flame tubes. In spite of a much greater mass flow, the size and weight was little different to earlier models. Best known was the Rolls-Royce/ SNECMA Olympus 593, a reheated version of the Olympus which powered the supersonic airliner Concorde that was started in 1964. BSEL and Snecma Moteurs of France were to share the project. Acquiring BSEL in 1966, Rolls-Royce continued as the British partner. See Wikipedia, ‘Rolls-Royce/Snecma Olympus 593’ in English.
- 36.
See BBN, Schiffs-Gasturbine (author H. Reuter).
- 37.
Beginning its sea trials in early 1968, the ‘Turunmaa’ was the first Olympus-powered warship to enter service, some 6 months before ‘HMS Exmouth’, the first British ship which had been refitted to trial the propulsion system for the Royal Navy and in due course, the first warship entirely propelled by gas turbines.
- 38.
See Wikipedia, ‘Turunmaa-class gunboat’ in English.
- 39.
See Wikipedia, ‘Hermann Oestrich’, and—see ‘Beeckerwerth’ for Oestrich’s birthplace, both in English.
- 40.
See Wikipedia ‘August Thyssen’ in English. Actually in 1906, ‘Oestrichshof’ was acquired completely by Thyssen’s mining organization—see Wikipedia, ‘Gewerkschaft Deutscher Kaiser’ in German, and Oestrich’s father decided thereafter to terminate as farmer—apparently under satisfying terms; information, courtesy of Michael Kanther, Stadtarchiv Duisburg, 16 Feb, 2022.
- 41.
Final certificate for university qualification, courtesy of Yvonne Kurzeja, Stadtarchiv Muelheim a.d. Ruhr, 19 Aug. 1921; deviating was only his ‘Turnen’ (gymnastics) and ‘Handschrift’ (hand writing); the right column ‘Schlußurteil’ (final comment) carries the entry ‘Reif befreit’, so that he had not to undergo an oral examination. Today the gymnasium carries the name ‘Otto-Pankok-Schule’, after a local painter.
- 42.
The limestone mine Wittring(en) had two code named underground areas ‘Kalk (chalk) I’, 35,000 m2, in reserve for army purposes, and ‘Kalk II’, 30,000 m2 for BMW 003-0 and -A series production preparation; in addition,—see Kay, German Jet Engine, p. 97, there were also turbojet development departments allocated there. In Oestrich’s memories, however,—see Mouton, Hermann Oestrich—the development team stayed together at Spandau up to the end of 1944, before the transfer to Neu-Stassfurt was accomplished—questionably late in Feb. 1945.
- 43.
Kalag was the designation of the BMW section, while the complete industrial compound at Neu-Stassfurt was code-named ‘Reh (Deer)’.
- 44.
See Nouzille, La folle histoire.
- 45.
See Uziel, Arming the Luftwaffe, p. 131.
- 46.
This comment appears to underline that the meeting participants were not too familiar with the BBC Mannheim preconditions and difficulties at that time, there is even doubt that BBC had a compressor facility of the required power ready for tests at all. It appears that all known BBC compressor tests for the Hermso projects were run or planned to be run at GHH GuteHoffnungsHuette Oberhausen. Mittelwerke G.m.b.H is as an SS industry somewhat identical with Mittelbau-Dora near Nordhausen, Harz Mts., where the underground production of A4/V-2 rockets was concentrated since Aug. 1943, maintained by 60,000 prisoners from the Buchenwald Concentration Camp, of which est. 20,000 lost their lives. According to J.-Ch. Wagner, present head of the Buchenwald Memorial, the compressor test facility cannot be located, however, one can presume that the described activities were part of a work relocation to Mittelwerke underground production for the He 162 ‘Volksjaeger’ with BMW-003 A engine. For the same reason, i.e. to stabilise production against bombing impact on industrial surface sites, the manufacturing of the so-called ‘Rudermaschine (steering unit)’ for the A4/V-2 rocket had been transferred before already from BBC Saarbruecken to Mittelwerke as well. See Wagner, Produktion des Todes, p. 205, and Allen, The Business of Genocide.
- 47.
See Wikipedia, ‘Hans-Georg Münzberg’ in English, was a member of Oestrich’s design team till 1956, thereafter in parallel to his continuing SNECMA occupation Professor for Turbojet Propulsion at TU Berlin, after 1964 full-time professor at TU Munich.
- 48.
See Kay, Turbojet, Vol. II, p. 182; Oestrich in his memoirs—see Mouton, Hermann Oestrich, —remembers that 3–4 autobuses were rented from German entrepreneurs(?) for the transport ‘en autoroute’ to Munich, which under the given circumstances is rather unlikely, and may be owed to the fact that he wrote these memoirs in ~1960. Acc. to a 3rd version, in a meeting on 3 June 1945 Oestrich pointed out to US officers the immediate threat of a Russian occupation of the area, and that a safe evacuation of his core team with families and some materials would require four trucks only. See Werner, Kriegswirtschaft, p. 353, and BMW Archive UA 704/1.
- 49.
As Oestrich remembered—see Mouton, Hermann Oestrich, Fedden, accompanied by Dr. Stern as translator,—see Chap. 2, <Sep. 1920>—had met him already on Tue 19 June 1945 still at the Neu-Stassfurt underground facility.
- 50.
Present—see Wikipedia, ‘Directorate-General for External Security’ in English, abbreviated DGSE, dates back to the 1944 ‘Direction Générale des études et recherches’ DGER, which in itself had to be substantially reformed end of 1945, when 8300 of 10,000 full-time intelligence workers were fired.
- 51.
Up to 1957, Kurt Donath (1902–1971) was Technical Director of BMW AG; Franz Popp (1886–1954), who had been with BMW since the beginning, had departed in 1942 and was replaced by Kurt Donath at that time. Donath had come to BMW through Bramo, and he would be tasked with leading BMW out of the post-war woods. At the time of the Paris trip together with Oestrich he represented BMW alone, and besides providing support by encouraging Oestrich and renewing old Gnome & Rhone connections, he might have had—in the end futile—ideas to get also BMW involved into the coming ‘Groupe O’ project.
- 52.
On Popp’s initiative a copy of the Blvd. Kellermann ‘Blockhaus’ was planned at the BMW Munich-Allach plant (today MTU Aero Engines) after that visit,—see Fig. 9.14 (l). However, the realisation of that two-storey bunker with 32,000 m2 floor space (17 m high, 160 × 35 m, 2 m wall thickness) under the code name ‘Walnuss (walnut)’ was delayed up to 1945, when only 65% of that building were finished,—see Werner, Kriegswirtschaft, pp. 173–177.
- 53.
See Uziel, Arming the Luftwaffe, p. 46.
- 54.
See Albrecht, Rüstungsfragen, p. 98.
- 55.
In this context, England was completely disinterested and believed strongly in its own resources. Consequently, the USAAF, relying on General Arnold’s US-UK technology acquisition agreement followed only half-heartedly. Only the US Navy, in permanent competition with USAAF, started at Heinkel-Hirth, Stuttgart-Zuffenhausen, a small-scale series production of HeS 011 turbojet engines, for which Hans von Ohain was brought back from Kolbermoor.
- 56.
See Ebert, Willy Messerschmitt, p. 293, reporting that the advancing 1st French Army led by General Jean de Lattre de Tassigny violated several times the agreed US zone, and captured near Wertach/ Allgäu, ~ 40 km in the west of Messerschmitt’s Oberammergau site, a complete set of drawings for Messerschmitt’s swept wing fighter prototype P.1101, and in addition the project docu-mentation for P.1102—P.1112. Materials which had to be handed back to the Americans on 9 June 1945 only, see also Sect. 10.2.2.
- 57.
See Bodemer, L’ATAR, p. 63.
- 58.
See Wikipedia, ‘Guy du Merle’ in English.
- 59.
The final agreement between the French Government and Hermann Oestrich, installing him as Technical Director for five years, was signed on 25 April 1946.
- 60.
See Bodemer, L’ATAR, p. 63, footnote 1.
- 61.
For a rare photo of the convoy during daylight,—see André, Les Turboréacteurs, p. 4. H. Oestrich in a typed ~1960/1961 account in German describes a dangerous border crossing to the French Zone during ‘night and fog’. Report, courtesy of P. Mouton, 31 Jan. 2022.
- 62.
See Gimbel, Science, p. 31.
- 63.
The correct terminology of this phenomenon—out of Oestrich’s perspective—is called ‘reproduction rights’, according to his ‘contrat de licence et de collaboration technique’ which H. Oestrich, in person, attributes on the basis of his patents to the French Air Ministry for the ATAR production, and for which he is compensated by royalties, which largely remain deposited in the company Hermos S.A., Casablanca, Morocco, up to his leave in 1960,—see Sect. 10.4, and—see Bodemer, L’ATAR, p. 78.
- 64.
Hermos S.A. (Société Anonyme) had been founded at Casablanca still under Sherifien legislation in 1950, which officially represented an aero engine repair shop with some 170 employees in 1959.
- 65.
This is apparently the official SNECMA version—see Bodemer, L’ATAR, p. 63, while Kay, Turbojet, Vol. 2, p. 182 has wrongly ‘Atelier Technique Aéronautique Rickenbach’.
- 66.
For the complexity of ATAR interpretations,—see Wikipedia, ‘Atar’ in English, especially the sub-section on ‘The cult of fire’; in the present Persian-Zoroastrian calendar both the 9th day and the 9th month carry the name ‘adar’, and the 5th Aryan godhood after Sky, Water, Sun, and Moon—is Fire/Atar.
- 67.
See Wikipedia, ‘Friedrich Nietzsche’, ‘Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche’, ‘Thus Spoke Zarathustra’, and ‘Zoroastrianism’, all in English.
- 68.
See Albrecht, Rüstungsfragen, p. 107.
- 69.
Kressbronn was officially the naval base of the ‘Fottille du Lac de Constance’, which comprised some 40 mostly smaller units (‘vedettes’), manned by 9 officers, 45 sergeants, 159 privates and sailors, and 19 gendarmes. The history of one boat is well documented: In 1938 the Fishing Control Boat Lachs (Salmon) was registered at Ziegenort/Trzebież, in Fig. 8.20 (r) on the west bank of River Oder opposite of Gasierzyno/Ganserin, in 1940 it was stationed as Motorboat C 109 of the German Navy at Calais in preparation of Operation Sea Lion, in 1942 it was attached to the Fishery Office Bregenz on Lake Constance, where in 1945 it was confiscated by the French Navy, and again registered as Vedette Héron (B4), in 1950 handed over to the Water Police Lindau as Zander, and in 1960 finally sold to a private owner. From US perspective, Kressbronn has a special technical landmark by a small, 72 m long suspension bridge across the creek Argen, built in 1896/7, and—unconfirmed—young Othmar Ammann (1879–1965) on the spot, later known as designer of New York’s, 20-times longer GWB George-Washington-Bridge (1931), see also Chap. 7.
- 70.
This is the official French explanation; in addition the—see Wikipedia, ‘Allied Control Council’ in English, at Berlin, the governing body of the Allied Occupation Zones in Germany and Allied-occupied Austria after the end of WW II decreed in April 1946 that all armament-related studies or productions in Germany had to be brought to an end. Consequently, preparations for leaving Rickenbach started in May 1946.
- 71.
The Rickenbach plant was handed back to Dornier in 1948—empty, in this respect presumably copying the retreating Wehrmacht. The German-French exchange of military booty is best document-ed for—see Wikipedia, ‘Greif cannon’ in English, which was set-up at Ehrenbreitstein Fortress on the River Rhine, opposite Koblenz, in 1524. In 1799 the French brought it to Metz, and in 1866 to the Musée de l’Armée in the Hôtel des Invalides, Paris. In 1940 the Germans sent it back to Koblenz, where the French removed it again in 1946. It was only as part of the Franco-German reconciliation, that French President François Mitterand signed in 1984 with German Chancellor Helmut Kohl an agreement for permanently ‘lending’ it to the fortress Ehrenbreitstein.
- 72.
See Wikipedia, ‘Jacques Duclos’ in English.
- 73.
In French: ‘Ceux qui critiqueraient l’installation des Allemands à Decize ne pouvaient être que des collaborateurs,’—see Carlier, Les débuts.
- 74.
Today, Gendarmerie Nationale, 105 Av. de Verdun, Decize.
- 75.
See Eggers, Professor Gerhard Eggers (1912–1998). PoW—prisoner of war.
- 76.
See Bodemer, L’ATAR, p. 65.
- 77.
See Kruschik, Die Gasturbine, 2nd ed., p. 158.
- 78.
One can assume that this unusually early acceptance of Oestrich’s request for French citizenship was a precondition for the favourable agreement on his patent royalties/ production rights settlement scheme with the French government,—see Sect. 10.4.
- 79.
See Wikipedia, ‘Legion of Honor’ in English.
- 80.
See Bodemer, L’ATAR, p. 78.
- 81.
However, returning engineers had to change their field of work, since Allied restrictions prevented aeronautical activities in Germany up to 1955.
- 82.
See Sect. 10.4 for comparison. Information, courtesy of Air & Cosmos, No. 1267, 13 Jan. 1990.
- 83.
See the following Sect. 9.4.
- 84.
See Wikipedia, ‘Melun Villaroche Aérodrome‘in English. The airport with 1975 and 1300 m long runways, situated 35 km south-east of Paris city centre, saw over time with the various occupants numerous aircraft types, first at the beginning of WW II, e.g. heavy French fighters Potez 631—with 2× 700 hp Gnome et Rhone GR 14M piston engines, thereafter Luftwaffe bombers like Junkers Ju 88A, Heinkel He111H, and Dornier Do217E, followed by the 9th USAF Douglas A-26 and A-20 bombers, which after war’s end were more and more replaced by DC-3/C-47 transport aircrafts.
- 85.
See Bodemer, L’ATAR, p. 79.
- 86.
The 5000 built ATAR engines correspond roughly to 1500 built fighter aircraft from Dassault.
- 87.
See Wikipedia, ‘Charles Tillon’ in English.
- 88.
See Wikipedia, ‘François Christophe de Kellermann’ in English. Kellermann’s family came from Saxony; the—see Wikipedia, ‘Battle of Valmy’ in English, on 20 Sep. 1792 was a strategically rather insignificant battle between Prussian coalition troops and the newly formed French revolutionary army under Kellermann, best known in German curriculum by Goethe’s attendance as visiting ‘battle stroller (Schlachtenbummler)’, and his pathetic after-remark to Prussian officers ‘From here and today a new era has begun, and you can say, you were part of it.’
- 89.
In the drawing of Fig. 9.14 (l), the present Rue Cacheux branches off to the north in the lower left corner. During WW I some 25,000 G&R radial engines were produced here, and another 75,000 from G&R licensees. Also Manfred von Richthofen, in the Red Baron’s famous tri-decker Fokker Dr.I, flew with the Oberursel Ur.II an—in 1916 un-licensed—clone of the Le Rhone 9J, a 110 hp rotary engine.
- 90.
On 11 April 1918, after the battery—positioned between Fourdray and Crépy-en-Laonnois in the Forêt de Compiègne, 120 km in the north-east had been set-up since 23 March 1918, one (of three) Krupp 37 m long barrel—see Wikipedia, ‘Paris-Geschütz’ in German, sent a calibre 21 cm, 106 kg grenade over a distance of ~120 km which hit the Usine Kellermann; with a muzzle velocity of up to 1645 m/s, the flight time was about 3 min, so that an allowance of ~60 m for earth rotation had to be considered. The gun was manned by 60–80 soldiers of the German Navy, familiar with the big calibre ammunition.
- 91.
See Wikipedia, ‘Paul-Louis Weiller’ in English. Weiller, himself a flight ace during WW I, was born to a rich Jewish Alsation family, who rose to prominence in business, finance, and politics during the nineteenth century. In 1908, his mother Alice Weiller-Javal (1869–1943) was the second passenger woman on board of Wilbur Wright’s double decker at Le Mans; she was murdered at Auschwitz.
- 92.
The German ‘Blockhaus’ is used in French synonymously for bunker/ casemate; interestingly at Dresden exists still today the—see Wikipedia, ‘Blockhaus (Dresden)’ in German, across the River Elbe, and opposite of the ‘Golden Rider’ monument of August, the Strong on horseback; this cubic building replaced in 1732–1737, planned by the French architect Zacharias Longuelune, a foregoing wooden toll station.
- 93.
See Werner, Kriegswirtschaft, p. 287. Constanze Werner talks about a ‘trustful relationship without technology exchange’ between BMW and G&R. For her, it is striking that only G&R was accused for ‘collaboration’, while all other law suits at the Cour de Justice de la Seine, including the ‘Case Renault’ ended with a ‘non-lieu (suspension)’; the corresponding files are protected under French archive law with a 100 year ‘blocking period’.
- 94.
See Chouat-Hugonnet, Le Comité d’entreprise, para 24, footnote 15.
- 95.
In French: ‘… présider les usines françaises par des nazis mal blanchis comme cet Ostreich (!) qu’il met à la tête de la grande usine parisienne.’
- 96.
On the left pillar, the placard reads ‘Bureau d’em boche’, with a certain double-meaning with ‘boche—German’,—see the comprehensive Wikipedia, ‘List of terms used for Germans’ in English, and ‘empocher—on the gravy train (“absahnen” in German)’.
- 97.
The ATAR engine family kept this feature roughly up to the ~1970 M53 series, or the capability of sustained supersonic flight, when the higher thermal loads prevented the further use of casing half-shells and its inherent ‘omega-deformation’.
- 98.
The cast ATAR 101 V split casing was either from NF A-U4N (France) or Mg-Zr alloy ZRE 1,—see Kruschik, Die Gasturbine, 2nd ed., p. 157.
- 99.
See Kay, German Jet Engine, p. 108.
- 100.
Information, courtesy of Robert Marmelic, 1 Nov. 2016.
- 101.
See Wikipedia, ‘Hiduminium’ in English, a pre-WW II Rolls-Royce development, with the abbreviation for HIgh DUty AluMINIUM.
- 102.
The conference with nearly 4000 attendants took place at the State Opera House (‘Krolloper’), opposite of the ‘Reichstag’ (parliament building); information, courtesy of E. Blocher, Siemens Comm., 9 Feb. 2022. It was hosted by Siemens; Albert Einstein (1879–1955) lectured on ‘The Space, Field and Ether Problem in Physics’. Sir Arthur Eddington (1882–1944)—a distinguished astrophysicist who first explained Einstein’s Theory of Relativity in English and led the first expedition to confirm it—said in his address that, in the future, ‘subatomic energy would provide the plain diet for engines previously pampered with delicacies like coal and oil’. As a society highlight the ‘Weltkraftfest’ was celebrated in Berlin’s ‘Sportpalast’ on 18 June evening, 650 waiters served 500 kg turtles (as soup), flushed by 2000 bottles of champagne, and 4000 of exquisite whites and reds.
- 103.
See Stodola, Technisch-wirtschaftliche Fortschritte. In addition, explicitly mentioned were the broadened disk rims and the forged shaft stubs on the outer discs.
- 104.
Prof. H. Triebnigg (1896–1969): 1949–1955 at TU Berlin, Institute for machine elements, 1955–1967 TH Darmstadt, chair for combustion engines and flight motors.
- 105.
In German ‘Fügetechnik’.
- 106.
Information, as described in the relevant BBC patents, courtesy of the late Fredy Häusermann (16 May 1942—16 Nov. 2016), 31 Oct. 2016.
- 107.
See Wikipedia, ‘Gas tungsten arc welding‘, and ‘Gas metal arc welding’, both in English.
- 108.
- 109.
This development was reversed in 2018, when on initiative of—see Wikipedia, ‘Wolfgang Reitzle’ the German Linde AG and US company Praxair Inc. were merged to Linde plc., Dublin.
- 110.
Patent GB593,536 ‘Improvements in and relating to welding’ by Wilber B. Miller for Linde Air Products Co., NY, with priority 14 June 1944, required to disperse/ reduce the isolating alumina layers. Information, courtesy of Peter Adam, 7 Nov. 2016.
- 111.
See Wikipedia, ‘Atomic hydrogen welding’ in English, replaced after WW II by ‘GMAW Gas metal-arc welding’, mainly because of the availability of inexpensive inert gases.
- 112.
SAF, majority-owned since 1929 by Air Liquide.
- 113.
It must remain open, if based on own developments or by technology transfer, most entertaining would have been by a 1943 GE training movie, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZwYMyHlWXk
- 114.
P. Mouton, born in 1939, was a student at ETAVA École Téchnique Aéronautique de Ville d’Avray (today IUT Institut Universitaire de Technologie), 8 km west of Eiffel Tower, from 1954 to 1959. The school was created in 1946 for staffing the renewal of the French aeronautical industry; information, courtesy of P. Mouton, 7 Feb. 2022. See Mouton, Junkers Jumo 004, p. 27.
- 115.
- 116.
Patents for A. Stieglitz et al.: FR1,391,769 and US3,312,057, ‘Regulator device for gas-turbine engines and rotary like units’, with priority 29 Nov. 1963, where the idea of a temperature-based burner control had been already part of a foregoing Junkers patent DE898,699 for S. Decher et al., with priority 6 March 1943. Most remarkably, the Jumo 004 speed controller (later in ATAR engines) contained a ‘Fliehpendel’ as a stand-alone feature, the 1:1 implementation of Watt-Boulton’s ‘fly-ball governor’ of 1788. In the 1960s, Decher, who belonged to the Jumo turbojet team of A. Franz between 1938–1945, thereafter to the ‘Groupe O’, had joined again A. Franz, now at Avco Lycoming.
- 117.
Information, courtesy of Pierre Mouton, 21 and 27 Jan. 2022. W. Jurisch returned to Daimler Benz, Stuttgart in ~1959, filing there some 25 verifiable patents in his name, before he moved on to MTU Munich in ~1970, to contribute to the newly emerging controls department in the following decade.
- 118.
See Oestrich, Entwurf und Ausreifung, p. 109 f. The paper, dating from 1946, was presented in 1989 in Munich at the DGLR-Symposium ‘50 years of turbojet flight’, presumably administered by K. von Gersdorff, in ‘Groupe O’ responsible for Technical Documentation. The 15 p. presentation is illustrated by nine slides (#22–25, and #29–33), of which Fig. 9.18 (l, m) depicts #32, Fig. 9.18 (r)—see Bodemer, L’ATAR p. 72, indicating the switch to a larger original volume flow; all slides carry the ATAR logo, remarkably with bi-lingual captions in German and Spanish.
- 119.
Patent US2,297,446 ‘Hollow blade for exhaust gas turbine rotors’, with priority 3 Dec. 1938. Gustav Zellbeck (1913–2011) was the uncle of Prof. em. Hans Zellbeck, MTU Friedrichshafen and TU Dresden; Alfred Mueller was addressed at length in Sect. 8.3.4. Interestingly, this design was heavily criticised by H. Schelp after the war,—see C.I.O.S., Interrogation, especially the ‘root fastening, which puts a high concentrated load on the neck above the root which has resulted in a great number of blade failures.’
- 120.
Manufactured at BMW on the basis of conically rolled plates from P. Leistritz GmbH, Nuremberg.
- 121.
See Schubert, Turbine, p. 249, the cooling air insert could be traced back to a BMW employee Sonntag; for the circumstances of the later patenting of this and other ideas, here for H. Oestrich and H. Rosskopf in US2,559,131, with priority 22 April 1948, see also Sect. 10.4.
- 122.
See Schubert, Turbine, p. 250.
- 123.
As a development milestone, the 500 h test was accomplished with a single stage, air-cooled turbine with 53 blades with inserts (2% compressor mass flow), limited to ~800 °C, 0.797 m diameter (340 m/s tip speed), Fig. 9.18 (r), from 14% Ni and 16% Cr alloy SIRIUS HT of Sociètè Holzer,—see Bodemer, L’ATAR, p. 73.
- 124.
Solid turbine blades from PER 2 of Société Aubert & Duval, similar to Nimonic 75,—see Bodemer, L’ATAR, p. 85.
- 125.
See Münzberg, Konzeptionsentscheidungen, p. 69 f.
- 126.
A fact, which Münzberg admitted,—even appreciated, certainly also out of Oestrich’s perspective,—see Münzberg, Konzeptionsentscheidungen, p. 71.
- 127.
Already ATAR 101 A with a new set of IGVs, and correspondingly improved compressor front loading; for 101 B an increased number of compressor vanes allowed to increase pressure ratio and mass flow. Finally, 101 C and D had higher rotational speeds with IGV modifications, and an all new last compressor stage.The introduction of an eight-stage compressor configuration in 101 E (1954) improved mass flow and pressure ratio by ~15 percent,—see Bodemer, L’ATAR, p. 98.
- 128.
See Gersdorff, Flugmotoren, p. 329.
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Eckardt, D. (2022). Excursion IV: Hermann Reuter (1911–1981) and Hermann Oestrich (1903–1973). In: Jet Web. Springer, Wiesbaden. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-38531-6_9
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