Georg Weinblum Foundation

Georg Weinblum

This section presents a portrait of Georg Weinblum, both the scientist and the person. In addition to a short academic biography, you can find a comprehensive list of Weinblum's publications, a selection of photographs and videos as well as personal memories and impressions conveyed by friends and colleagues, you can find a comprehensive list of Weinblum's publications, an extended overview of his fields of research, a selection of photographs and videos as well as personal memories and impressions conveyed by friends and colleagues.

The academic biography, which can be read below, is taken from a text written by Harald Keil on the occasion of Weinblum's centenary [1], which was celebrated in a colloquium. An extensive treatise on Georg Weinblum with a strong focus on his research and engineering activities [4] has been written by Horst Nowacki. Additionally, Alfred Kracht has contributed an essay about Georg Weinblum as seen from the students' and assistants' point of view [5].

Biography of Georg Weinblum (* 22.01.1897; † 04.04.1974) – Part I

The son of Karl Weinblum, a forestry inspector, and his wife, Paul Georg Weinblum was born on January 22^nd, 1897 in Neu-Kalzenau, Livonia. Following his secondary school graduation in classical subjects, he began his studies in shipbuilding at the Polytechnical University in St. Petersburg, Russia in 1914. This was a particularly formative time for him, as he attended the lectures of the world-famous Alexei Krylov from 1914 until 1917. Following the Russian Revolution, Weinblum continued his studies at the Gdańsk University of Technology in 1920, where he received a graduate engineering degree in 1923. He subsequently worked as a research assistant for six years under Professor Erbach in the Department of Ship and Shipbuilding Theory, where he completed his doctorate in engineering with a dissertation entitled "Anwendung der Michellschen Widerstandstheorie" (Application of the Michellian Theory of Resistance). His first publication, “Reibfestigkeit der Nietverbindungen” (Frictional Resistance of Riveted Joints), addresses practical shipbuilding. This, however, would also be his last in this field of research.

In 1929, he began work as a research engineer at the Preußische Versuchsanstalt für Wasserbau und Schiffbau (VWS; Prussian Ship Model Basin for Hydraulic Engineering and Shipbuilding) in Berlin. He was conferred the Habilitation degree at the Technische Hochschule Charlottenburg (formerly the Technical University of Charlottenburg, now merged with the Technical University of Berlin) two years later, where he taught ship theory as a privatdozent and then as a professor beginning in 1936. The volume Geschichte der VWS (History of the VWS) writes this about Weinblum [2]:

In the shipbuilding sector, the last 25 years of VWS’s 50-year history have been mostly characterised by the name G. Weinblum. In 1929, he presented his application of the Michellian theory of resistance to the Schiffbautechnischen Gesellschaft (The German Society for Maritime Technology), he mathematically developed optimal hull lines based on the condition of wave resistance, he theoretically treated the ship in sea way, he developed a hydrodynamic antithesis to Hans Detlef Kray’s hydraulic concept regarding the blockage effect, and he defined the interactions to be expected when ships encounter each other.

Simultaneously with Wigley, but independently of him, he published a theory of the bulbous bow in 1936. In 1939, Weinblum turned to the theory of the hydrofoil and joined Sachsenberg AG in Dessau-Roßlau as its research manager and technical director. Working with Schertellian ideas [3], it is here that Weinblum ushered in the era of German-built hydrofoil crafts. He further took the position of full professor of ship theory at the Technical University of Danzig in 1943, in addition to carrying out his duties at Sachsenberg.

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