29 Facts About Brunolf Baade

Brunolf Baade was a German aeronautical engineer.

Brunolf Baade led the team that developed the Baade 152.

Brunolf Baade was born in and grew up on the southern edge of Rixdorf, a densely populated district then just outside the northern perimeter of Berlin.

Brunolf Baade's father was employed in a small electronics company, later rising to the position of assembly and technical worker.

Brunolf Baade's mother contributed to the household budget by running a small shop.

Baade's father came from farming stock, but his mother's ancestry included teachers and artisans, along with the popular 19th-century poet Hofmann von Fallersleben, an ancestor of whom Brunolf Baade was particularly proud.

Brunolf Baade then studied at the Technische Hochschule in Berlin.

Brunolf Baade combined his time as a student with an internship at Blohm + Voss in Hamburg, reflecting his ambition at that time to make his career in the booming ship-building industry.

Brunolf Baade joined the crew as a coal trimmer, and then took the opportunity to explore South America, discovering its people and customs.

Brunolf Baade joined the Academic Flying League and started to construct gliders, as production and operation of powered aircraft in Germany had been restricted under the provisions of the 1919 Treaty of Versailles.

Brunolf Baade learned to fly and participated in the annual glider competitions at the Wasserkuppe.

Brunolf Baade then spent a year at the Technische Hochschule Munchen, concluding his undergraduate studies in 1929, finally obtaining a degree in mechanical engineering.

In 1930, Brunolf Baade traveled to the United States, sent by BFW to hand over some production licenses to American firms.

Some ambiguity remains as to whether, at this stage, the couple had expected to stay in Germany, but on 1 October 1936, Brunolf Baade took a job to the south of Berlin, at Dessau with Junkers.

World War II ended in May 1945, but the previous month, Brunolf Baade had been arrested by an advance party of US soldiers who had surprised him at the outsourced Junkers design office at Raguhn.

Brunolf Baade had been a member of the German Nazi Party since 1937, and was held prisoner by the Americans in Bad Hersfeld for a few months.

Brunolf Baade later recalled emphatic assurances received at this time from US officers that Germany would be radically deindustrialised and certainly not permitted an aircraft industry for many decades.

Brunolf Baade said this persuaded him to support a German future determined by the Soviet Union.

In fall 1945, Brunolf Baade was mandated by the Soviet Military Administration to reconstruct the Junkers research facilities, using whatever remained of the wreckage in Dessau factory.

Whether Brunolf Baade was one of those abruptly transported or whether he was already in the Soviet Union is unclear.

Unlike the other German engineers in Podberezye, Brunolf Baade was apparently allowed to move freely, and was even seen, early in 1947, on holiday in the Crimea, while the other Germans aircraft specialists had no choice but to shiver through the coldest winter the Moscow region had known for many years.

Under Brunolf Baade, work continued on developing the Junkers Ju 287 jet bomber with its characteristic "forward-swept" wings, now renamed as the OKB-1 EF 131, although progress was hampered by the Soviet refusal to allow the German engineers near the military airfield used to test the prototypes.

Brunolf Baade had been forced to leave key technical documentation behind, and never passed over: whether this resulted from overlapping bureaucratic structures in the Soviet system or from some high level decision was never entirely clear.

In March 1961, Brunolf Baade became director of the newly founded Institute for Lightweight construction and the economical use of Materials, based in Dresden-Klotzsche.

Brunolf Baade had previously held a position, since 1955, as a lecturer at what was at the time the Faculty for Aeronautical Engineering at the Dresden University of Technology.

Brunolf Baade retired from the Institute when he reached 65, in March 1969.

Brunolf Baade died on 5 November 1969 in a Berlin hospital or in Dresden, from complications caused by stomach cancer.

Brunolf Baade is buried at Eichwalde on the edge of Berlin.

Brunolf Baade was an imposing man, capable of great achievements when supported by good technicians and economists.