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Herman Potočnik
(pseudonym Hermann Noordung)
December 22, 1892 - August 27, 1929
Slovenian pioneer of astronautics, and rocket
engineer.
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Potočnik was born
in Pola, southern Istria (now Pula, Croatia). His family
originates from Slovenj Gradec and Vitanje, Slovenia.
His father Jožef was born in 1841 in Razbor near Slovenj Gradec
and at the time of Herman's birth he served as a doctor and high
navy officer in the Austro-Hungarian navy harbour of Pola. His
mother Minka was born February 7 1854. She was a descendant of
Czech immigrants, manufacturers of melting-pots for glass and a
daughter of a well known wine merchant and a councillor Jožef
Kokošinek from Maribor, Slovenija.
Father died in 1894 and his widow moved with four children to
Maribor. Herman had two brothers Adolf and Gustav (who were both
navy officers), and a sister
Franci. |
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In Maribor Potočnik
attended primary school. Afterward he went to the military
secondary schools in Fischau and Hranice (Mährisch-Weißkirchen)
in Moravia. He had an uncle Heinrich, who was a major general
and he probably enabled him schooling at Austrian military
schools. From 1910 to 1913 he studied at the technical military
academy in Mödling in Lower Austria (Niederösterreich)
near Vienna and graduated as an engineers second lieutenant. His
specialization was building of railways and bridges.
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During the 1st World War he served in Galicia, Serbia and Bosnia and
in 1915 he was promoted to the rank of a first lieutenant
(Oberleutnant). He was assigned to the southwestern front of
the Soča battlefield and there he experienced a breakthrough of
Austrian army to the river Piava and its retreat. In 1919 he was
pensioned off from the Austrian military with the rank of
captain because of tuberculosis, he got during the war. |
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He started to study electrical
engineering in the mechanical engineering department of the
University of Technology in Vienna. Becoming an engineer, specialist
in a rocket technics in 1925 he entirely devoted himself to the
problems of rocket science and space technology. Owing to hard
illness he did not find a job or married but he stayed with his
brother Adolf in Vienna.
Potočnik died of pneumonia in great poverty at the age of 36 in
Vienna, Austria and was buried there. An obituary notice about his
death was printed in one Maribor daily newspaper, mentioning his
ranks (engineers and captain), his illness and nothing about his
work about space. Two streets in Ljubljana (Slovenia) and Graz (Austria) now bear his name.
(Source: Wikipedia) |
