Heinrich Lübbe (; 12 January 1884 in Nienburg,

Province of Hanover The Province of Hanover () was a Provinces of Prussia, province of the Kingdom of Prussia and the Free State of Prussia from 1866 to 1946. During the Austro-Prussian War, the Kingdom of Hanover had attempted to maintain a neutral position, alo ...

– 14 March 1940 in

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

) was a

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...

engineer working for Dutch aircraft designer

Anthony Fokker Anton Herman Gerard "Anthony" Fokker (6 April 1890 – 23 December 1939) was a Dutch aviation pioneer, aviation entrepreneur, aircraft designer, and aircraft manufacturer. He produced fighter aircraft in Germany during the First World War such ...

during the

First World War World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

. He devised the pioneering ''Stangensteuerung'' gun synchronizer which enabled a machine gun to fire through the arc of a fighter aircraft's

propeller A propeller (often called a screw if on a ship or an airscrew if on an aircraft) is a device with a rotating hub and radiating blades that are set at a pitch to form a helical spiral which, when rotated, exerts linear thrust upon a working flu ...

without the bullets striking the propeller's blades. It was first fitted to ''Leutnant'' Otto Parschau's Fokker A.III bearing

IdFlieg The Idflieg (''Inspektion der Fliegertruppen'' - "Inspectorate of Flying Troops") was the bureau of the German Empire that oversaw German military aviation prior to and during World War I. Founded in 1911, the Idflieg was part of the ''Fliegert ...

military serial number A.16/15 in the late spring of 1915, to create the prototype of the entire line of

Fokker Eindecker The Fokker ''Eindecker'' fighters were a series of German World War I monoplane single-seat fighter aircraft designed by Netherlands, Dutch engineer Anthony Fokker.Boyne 1988 Developed in April 1915, the first ''Eindecker'' ("Monoplane") was the ...

single-seat fighters to come. In late 1925 Lübbe invested 135,000 Reichmarks in the

Rostock Rostock (; Polabian language, Polabian: ''Roztoc''), officially the Hanseatic and University City of Rostock (), is the largest city in the German States of Germany, state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and lies in the Mecklenburgian part of the sta ...

branch of the wartime company which had been renamed earlier that year. Historian Volker Koos believes that Lübbe or some of the other investors probably served as

straw men A straw man fallacy (sometimes written as strawman) is the informal fallacy of refuting an argument different from the one actually under discussion, while not recognizing or acknowledging the distinction. One who engages in this fallacy is said ...

for the

Reich Ministry of Transport The Reich Ministry of Transport (, ''RVM'') was a cabinet-level agency of the Germany, German government from 1919 until 1945, operating during the Weimar Republic and Nazi Germany. Formed from the Prussian Ministry of Public Works after the end o ...

which kept the company alive with small orders until 1933.Koos, pp. 13–17 His refusal to join the

Nazi Party The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party ( or NSDAP), was a far-right politics, far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that created and supported the ideology of Nazism. Its precursor ...

in 1936 led to his removal when Arado was

nationalized Nationalization (nationalisation in British English) is the process of transforming privately owned assets into public assets by bringing them under the public ownership of a national government or state. Nationalization contrasts with priv ...

Citations

Bibliography

* 1884 births 1940 deaths People from Nienburg, Lower Saxony People from the Province of Hanover Engineers from Lower Saxony 20th-century German inventors {{Germany-engineer-stub