Hermann Ganswindt

Hermann Ganswindt ( born June 12, 1856 in Voigtshof at Seeburg, Warmia, † October 25, 1934 in Berlin) was a German inventor and rocket pioneer whose apparatus ( steerable airship, helicopter, explosion engine ) were ahead of his time.

Youth

He was a son of the mill owner Carl Florian goose Windt and his wife Euphrosine born Dost. Ganswindt fell in early youth on by his interest in the art. While still a student he developed a freewheel for bicycles, which he in Berlin -Schöneberg also later produced themselves. At the insistence of his parents he took in Zurich and Leipzig to study law; after military service, he enrolled at the University of Berlin, where he was expelled because he did not attend any lectures.

Proposals for space

After 1880 Ganswindt developed concepts for a spacecraft, which should be driven by the reaction principle by dynamite explosions. He envisaged a two-stage approach; the spacecraft was to be towed by a vehicle in the air. He developed in 1884 a helicopter.

On May 27 1891 he gave at the Berlin Philharmonie a public lecture in which he presented his concept of world vehicle. In July 1901, the first flight of his helicopter took place in Berlin -Schöneberg, the first powered flight by man was probably at all. A film of the brothers Skladanowsky is lost. Ganswindt had a safety bar installed and therefore was accused in 1902 of fraud and taken for eight weeks in custody. He was released after a flight demonstration in view of its proven innocence, crashed through the accusations but still in the business of business.

Historical location

Ganswindt was a Farsighted, which seems to have been born a few decades too early. His contemporaries could not yet realize the importance of his ideas. In his old age he was still in contact with the rocket pioneer Hermann Oberth, who is also aware of Robert Goddard gave him work. Even with Max Valier he was still in contact.

Honors and continued operation

In Berlin -Schöneberg since 1976 reminds the Hermann- Ganswindt Bridge at Goose Windt. The International Astronomical Union named the moon crater Ganswindt in his honor. Goose Windts enthusiasm for space travel was passed on to one of his sons, who has worked with Wernher von Braun at the American moon flight program. His daughter was the physicist Isolde Hausser.

Publications

• The steerability of the aerostatic ship: gemeinfaßlich shown with detailed calculations and drawings. Gsellius, Berlin 1884.
• The Last Judgment. Inventions of Hermann Ganswindt. 2nd enlarged edition with illustrations and advice. Self- Verlag, Berlin Schöneberg in 1899.