Erich Bachem (12 August 1906, in
Mülheim an der Ruhr
Mülheim, officially Mülheim an der Ruhr () and also described as ''"City on the River"'', is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia in Germany. It is located in the Ruhr Area between Duisburg, Essen, Oberhausen and Ratingen. It is home to many compa ...
– 25 March 1960) was a German engineer.
In the 1930s Erich Bachem designed the ''Aero-Sport'' camping
trailer built from plywood by the
glider
Glider may refer to:
Aircraft and transport Aircraft
* Glider (aircraft), heavier-than-air aircraft primarily intended for unpowered flight
** Glider (sailplane), a rigid-winged glider aircraft with an undercarriage, used in the sport of gliding
...
company
Wolf Hirth in
Kirchheim unter Teck. Until 1942 Bachem served as technical director for the aircraft manufacturer
Fieseler. In February 1942 he founded Bachem-Werke GmbH, a supplier of spare parts for the aircraft industry, in
Waldsee,
Baden-Württemberg
Baden-Württemberg (; ), commonly shortened to BW or BaWü, is a German state () in Southwest Germany, east of the Rhine, which forms the southern part of Germany's western border with France. With more than 11.07 million inhabitants across a ...
.
In 1944, he designed for the
SS the vertical take-off manned
rocket plane Bachem Ba 349 ''Natter''. The only manned test flight on 1 March 1945 ended with pilot
Lothar Sieber
Lothar Sieber (7 April 1922 – 1 March 1945) was a German test pilot who was killed in the first vertical take-off manned rocket flight, in a Bachem Ba 349 "Natter".
Before he became a test pilot for Bachem, he piloted an Arado Ar 232 in hig ...
being killed.
In 1947/48 Erich Bachem left Germany through Denmark and Sweden in order to settle in Argentina. Possibly he wished to escape US agents who planned to send him to the USA with Wernher von Braun's group as part of
Operation Overcast. In Argentina, among other things, he constructed a factory for guitars with interchangeable bottoms.
In 1952 Bachem returned to Germany to become technical director for the company of his father-in-law Heinrich Wilhelm Schwarz, Ruhrthaler Maschinenfabrik Schwarz & Dyckerhoff GmbH, in
Mülheim. There he developed the modern streamlined mine locomotive ''Ruhrthaler Vollsicht'' along with various other pieces of mining machinery and long-distance diesel locomotives. He occupied this position until his untimely death.
From 1957, together with
Erwin Hymer at
Hymer, he designed camping
trailers sold as
Eriba (Erich Bachem, or possibly Erika Bachem after his wife) with names like ''
Troll
A troll is a being in Nordic folklore, including Norse mythology. In Old Norse sources, beings described as trolls dwell in isolated areas of rocks, mountains, or caves, live together in small family units, and are rarely helpful to human ...
'', ''
Puck'', ''Touring'', ''
Nova
A nova (plural novae or novas) is a transient astronomical event that causes the sudden appearance of a bright, apparently "new" star (hence the name "nova", which is Latin for "new") that slowly fades over weeks or months. Causes of the dramat ...
''.
Publications
* ''Die Praxis des Leistungs-Segelfliegens.'' Berlin: Volckmann 1932, 2. Auflage 1936
* ''Das Problem des Schnellstfluges.'' Stuttgart: Franckh 1933
* Beitrag in: ''Probleme aus der astronautischen Grundlagenforschung'', hrsg. v.
Heinz H. Koelle, 1952
References
Bibliography
*Gooden, Brett. ''Natter: Manned Missile of the Third Reich: Historic Step to Human Spaceflight''. Rundle Mall, Australia: Brett Gooden, 2019.
* Nachrufartikel in:
Wissenschaftliche Gesellschaft für Luft- und Raumfahrt: ''Jahrbuch'', Jg. 1960, S. 479
* Volker Hammermeister, ''Die Legende lebt'', in: Caravaning, Heft 2/2007, S. 12f (auc
online
External links
Eriba France
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bachem, Erich
Bachem aircraft
Aircraft designers
Engineers from North Rhine-Westphalia
1906 births
1960 deaths
People from Mülheim