Kurt Schiffler (6 April 1896 - 25 February 1986) was a German engineer, entrepreneur, inventor and amateur geometer. Schiffler's father was an elementary school teacher and his grandfather was a toy manufacturer. Schiffler was born in

Gotha Gotha () is the fifth-largest city in Thuringia, Germany, west of Erfurt and east of Eisenach with a population of 44,000. The city is the capital of the district of Gotha and was also a residence of the Ernestine Wettins from 1640 until the ...

Thuringia Thuringia (; german: Thüringen ), officially the Free State of Thuringia ( ), is a state of central Germany, covering , the sixth smallest of the sixteen German states. It has a population of about 2.1 million. Erfurt is the capital and larg ...

, where he grew up as well. He had just completed the local gymnasium (high-school) in 1914, when he was drafted as a soldier in

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

. After the war Schiffler studied first at the

Freiberg University of Mining and Technology The Technische Universität Bergakademie Freiberg (abbreviation: TU Bergakademie Freiberg, TUBAF) is a public university of technology with currently 3655 students in the city of Freiberg, Saxony, Germany. Its focus is on exploration, mining & ...

and later at the

University of Stuttgart The University of Stuttgart (german: Universität Stuttgart) is a leading research university located in Stuttgart, Germany. It was founded in 1829 and is organized into 10 faculties. It is one of the oldest technical universities in Germany wit ...

, which awarded him an engineering degree. Then he worked as an engineer for a machine factory in Esslingen.Lore Thier-Schröter und Hellmut Thier: ''Kurt Schiffler zum 100. Geburtstag. Gründer der Dusyma-Werkstätten.'' L. Schiffler-Betz, Schorndorf-Miedelsbach 1996, pp. 8-9,15-17, 23-24, 29-33(German) Steckbaustein dusyma

In 1925 he founded his own company called Dusyma, which produced educational toys and musical instrument made of wood. The instruments that Dusyma produced comprised an improved version of the Stoessel lute and the

Mandolute The Weymann Mandolute was one of the products sold under Weymann, the Philadelphia-based brand of Weymann and Sons, established 1864. The 'mandolutes' were actually mandolins with eight strings and tuned exactly the same. The scale length is als ...

. In 1937 Schiffler invented a special building block with cogs as a basic element for construction kits of wood pieces allowing to construct various toy buildings and structures. Dusyma produced not only toys but also children's furniture and other supplies needed in

kindergarten Kindergarten is a preschool educational approach based on playing, singing, practical activities such as drawing, and social interaction as part of the transition from home to school. Such institutions were originally made in the late 18th cent ...

s. Many of the educational toys Dusyma produced were inspired by the

Froebel gifts The Froebel gifts (german: Fröbelgaben) are educational play materials for young children, originally designed by Friedrich Fröbel for the first kindergarten at Bad Blankenburg. Playing with Froebel gifts, singing, dancing, and growing plants we ...

. Schiffler collaborated with Erika Hoffman, a professor of pedagogics and expert on Friedrich Froebel, and the Kindergarten teacher Christine Uhl, who designed one of the construction kits produced by Dusyma. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

Schiffler was again drafted as a soldier and his company was reorganized to produce material needed for the war effort. After the war Dusyma went back to manufacture educational toys and various kindergarten supplies. In addition to wood now plastic was used as construction material as well. In 1971 Schiffler was awarded the

Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany The Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany (german: Verdienstorden der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, or , BVO) is the only federal decoration of Germany. It is awarded for special achievements in political, economic, cultural, intellect ...

. In 1978 he asked his daughter Lulu Schiffler-Betz to join Dusyma to prepare her for leading the company later on. 1981 Schiffler retired and passed on Dusyma's management to his daughter. Schifflerpunkt

Schiffler had in interest in geometry and discovered that if you partition a triangle into 3 subtriangle with the incenter as a common point, then the

Euler line In geometry, the Euler line, named after Leonhard Euler (), is a line determined from any triangle that is not equilateral. It is a central line of the triangle, and it passes through several important points determined from the triangle, inclu ...

s of those subtriangles and the original triangle intersect in a common point. This property became later known as Schiffler's theorem and that common point as

Schiffler point In geometry, the Schiffler point of a triangle is a triangle center, a point defined from the triangle that is equivariant under Euclidean transformations of the triangle. This point was first defined and investigated by Schiffler et al. (1985). ...

. Schiffler published his discovery in 1985 in the form of a problem in the Canadian journal

Crux Mathematicorum ''Crux Mathematicorum'' is a scientific journal of mathematics published by the Canadian Mathematical Society. It contains mathematical problems for secondary school and undergraduate students. , its editor-in-chief is Kseniya Garaschuk. The journ ...

.Kurt Schiffler: ''Problem 1018''. In: Crux Mathematicorum, volume 11, no 2, February 1985, p. 51
online copy
; G. R. Veldkamp, W. A. van der Spek: ''Solutions to Problem 1018''. Crux Mathematicorum, volume 12, no 6, June 1986, p. 151
online copy
Schiffler was married twice. From his first marriage he had one daughter and from his second marriage four daughters and one son.

References and further reading

* ''Kurt Schiffler''. In: ''Gitarre & Laute'' 7, 1985, Heft 5, p. 10, 12 (German) * Lore Thier-Schröter und Hellmut Thier: ''Kurt Schiffler zum 100. Geburtstag. Gründer der Dusyma-Werkstätten.'' L. Schiffler-Betz, Schorndorf-Miedelsbach 1996 (German)

External links

profile
at www.dusyma.de (German)

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Schiffler, Kurt 1896 births 1986 deaths Recipients of the Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany