Hans Amtmann facts for kids

Hans H. Amtmann (born in 1906, died in 2007) was a talented German aircraft designer. He is famous for his work at a company called Blohm & Voss. There, he led new projects during World War II. After the war, he moved to the United States as part of a special program called Operation Paperclip. In the US, he continued to work on many interesting projects.

Hans Amtmann's Early Life and Education

Hans Amtmann was born in October 1906 in a town called Sande, which is close to Hamburg in Germany. He was the second of two brothers. When he was nine years old, he started attending the Hansa School. During these years, he learned to play the violin.

Later, he went to the State Technical College in Hamburg. There, he studied naval architecture, which is about designing ships. In his last term, he also took a course in aeronautics, which is the science of designing and flying aircraft.

Becoming an Aircraft Designer in Germany

After working as a naval architect for just one month, Amtmann got an exciting job offer. He was asked to become an aircraft designer at a company called Junkers in Dessau.

At Junkers, he worked on important parts of large metal transport planes. These included the wings of the G 38 and the Ju 52. He also helped with new ideas like in-flight refuelling (filling up planes with fuel while they are flying) and rocket-assisted take-off (using rockets to help planes get into the air faster). While at Junkers, he met Hermann Pohlmann, who later designed the famous Ju 87 Stuka dive-bomber.

In 1933, Amtmann moved to another aircraft company called Heinkel in Warnemünde, near the Baltic Sea. There, he worked on the body of the He 70 transport plane. Soon, he was back to working on new and exciting aircraft designs.

Amtmann wanted to return to Hamburg. So, in early 1934, he found a job at a new company called Hamburger Flugzeugbau. This company was led by the talented designer Richard Vogt. Amtmann was one of Vogt's first new team members and quickly became the Head of Preliminary Design.

He stayed at this company, which later became part of Blohm & Voss, until the end of World War II in 1945. He worked on many of Vogt's unique and clever aircraft ideas. His old colleague, Pohlmann, also joined Blohm & Voss later as Deputy Chief Designer.

On October 10, 1934, Hans Amtmann married Margret, whom he had known for a long time. They had four children together: three boys and one girl.

In 1941, Amtmann received the War Merit Cross award for his excellent work in aircraft design.

Amtmann became the project engineer for a planned dive-bomber attack aircraft called the Blohm & Voss BV 237. He also led the design of a large passenger flying boat project, the P 200, for Deutsche Luft Hansa. This plane was meant to be built after the war. He also gained experience with a special pilot position (lying down) from the BV 40 interceptor glider. This experience would be useful later in his career.

After the war ended, the Blohm & Voss factory closed. However, a small team of designers, including Amtmann, continued to work in rented rooms. When the money ran out, Amtmann took a job as a teacher.

Working in America: Operation Paperclip

In October 1946, Hans Amtmann left his teaching job. He was chosen to work in the United States as part of Operation Paperclip. This was a special program that brought German scientists and engineers to the US after World War II. Richard Vogt, his former boss, also came to the US, but Pohlmann stayed in Germany.

Amtmann was sent to Wright Field, an important air force base. There, he continued his work on a special pilot bed where the pilot would lie down. He developed a control system for this bed, and it was tested in a Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress bomber and later in a Lockheed F-80E Shooting Star jet fighter. During this time, he also invented a protective shield for a pilot's helmet during emergency ejection, which was widely used.

Another invention was a flying fuel tank system. This system involved a fuel tank that could glide and was attached to the wing tips of a plane. By chance, his old boss, Richard Vogt, also came up with a similar idea at Wright Field and got the patent first!

Amtmann's family was finally able to join him from Germany in early 1948. He officially became a legal immigrant to the US on January 1, 1949. To complete their immigration papers, the "Operation Paperclip" migrants were taken in groups across the Canadian border at Niagara Falls. They then walked back over the bridge into the US to sign their papers. Amtmann signed his US citizenship papers in March. He helped the rest of his family do the same a few months later, and they received their papers in 1950.

In 1951, Amtmann left his US Government job. He went to work for Consolidated Vultee in San Diego, California. He returned to his old role of preliminary design. He worked on the Atlas ICBM, which was a very powerful missile system.

After the company split into different divisions, he worked for the new company, Convair. There, he developed the P6Y flying boat for the US Navy. He also worked on Convair's series of supersonic delta-winged jets. He even suggested his own design for a four-engined seaplane, which was similar to, but larger than, the Convair F2Y Sea Dart.

In 1961, he joined General Atomic. He worked on the Orion space propulsion system. This amazing project suggested using controlled nuclear explosions to push a spacecraft through space! He also worked on gas turbines powered by atomic energy.

In 1980, he moved to a smaller company that worked on nuclear fusion power. He stayed there until the company closed in 1984.

Retirement and Later Years

Amtmann retired in 1984 after the nuclear fusion company closed.

While living in California, he joined a small orchestra and once again played his violin.

He wrote his life story, which was published in 1988 as The Vanishing Paperclips: America's Aerospace Secret – a Personal Account.

He also appeared in a TV documentary film in 1995 called The Last Days of World War II.

Hans Amtmann passed away on February 20, 2007, at the age of 100.