1868-1957 (German Pilot's Licence No. 1)
August Heinrich Euler* was born in Oelde in Westphalia on
November 20th, 1868. He started a graphics education, but didn't
finish it and instead studied mathematics, philosophy and commercial
law on his own. He was a keen sportsman all through his life, racing
bicycles and later on cars and practising many other sports. In 1883,
after the end of his three-year military service he started working as
a technical tradesman, travelling to many towns in Germany and abroad.
From 1898 to 1904 he worked in the automobile industry in Frankfurt and
Dresden. In 1904 he started his own business as agent and wholesale
dealer of automobile equipment for the industry, cooperating with Bosch
and several other big manufacturers.
It was natural that an entrepreneur like Euler should become interested
in the emerging aviation industry. In October 1908 he founded the
Euler-Werke in Frankfurt and managed to negotiate a license agreement
with the Voisin brothers. He leased a part of the Griesheim exercise
field outside Darmstadt, where he built an airfield and factory in
early 1909 and made his first flights. The first few machines built
were similar to Voisins, but Euler was not pleased with the original
design and soon started to modify the construction, for example by
lightening it, redesigning the landing gear and introducing ailerons.
Euler's first public flights were performed at the ILA exhibition
at Frankfurt and he participated in the 1909 Frankfurt meeting. He
started a flying school in Griesheim, where more than 40 pilots were
trained without major accidents and several flying displays were
arranged. On October 25th, 1910 he made a flight of 3 h 06:18, a new
German endurance record. In 1912 the activities had outgrown the
Griesheim field and Euler moved to a new factory and airfield outside
Frankfurt. Before World War 1 around 100 machines of several types were
built, among them the famous "Gelber Hund" ("Yellow
Dog"), which made Germany's first mail flight.
During the war Euler-Werke built many prototypes, but production
contracts were mainly for Nieuport-copy fighters and license-built LVG
two-seaters. After building around 350 airplanes during the war the
Euler-Werke was taken over by French occupation forces and closed. The
innovative Euler had filed around 120 patent and utility model
applications, the most important perhaps the 1910 patent for fixed
fuselage mounting of a forward-firing machine-gun, which earned him
considerable license fees during the war.
In December 1918 Euler was appointed "Unterstaatssekretär" of
the Reichsluftamt with the task of developing civil aviation, but the
restrictions of the Versailles Treaty made this impossible. When the
treaty was ratified in 1920 the frustrated Euler retired. He built a
house in Feldberg in Schwarzwald, where he lived the rest of his life,
still involved in sports and in several German motoring and aviation
associations. He died there on July 1st, 1957.
Euler qualified for German pilot's licence No. 1 on December 31st,
1909.
August Euler participated in the following air race
meetings:
- Frankfurt 1909
* He was born as August Heinrich Reith, but later took his mother's maiden name.