Gustav Pielstick was born on 25 January 1890 in Sillenstede,

Friesland Friesland (, ; official fry, Fryslân ), historically and traditionally known as Frisia, is a province of the Netherlands located in the country's northern part. It is situated west of Groningen, northwest of Drenthe and Overijssel, north of ...

, Germany and died on 11 March 1961 in Zurich, Switzerland. He was a ship engine designer who developed a series of particularly powerful

diesel engine The diesel engine, named after Rudolf Diesel, is an internal combustion engine in which ignition of the fuel is caused by the elevated temperature of the air in the cylinder due to mechanical compression; thus, the diesel engine is a so-ca ...

Life

Pielstick was born in 1890 on the Warfreihe estate near Sillenstede. After attending the upper secondary school in

Wilhelmshaven Wilhelmshaven (, ''Wilhelm's Harbour''; Northern Low Saxon: ''Willemshaven'') is a coastal town in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is situated on the western side of the Jade Bight, a bay of the North Sea, and has a population of 76,089. Wilhelms ...

, he began an internship at the Wilhelmshaven Imperial Shipyard. Afterwards he attended the higher ship and mechanical engineering school in

Kiel Kiel () is the capital and most populous city in the northern German state of Schleswig-Holstein, with a population of 246,243 (2021). Kiel lies approximately north of Hamburg. Due to its geographic location in the southeast of the Jutland pe ...

. In October 1911, Pielstick joined

MAN A man is an adult male human. Prior to adulthood, a male human is referred to as a boy (a male child or adolescent). Like most other male mammals, a man's genome usually inherits an X chromosome from the mother and a Y chrom ...

as a design engineer in

Augsburg Augsburg (; bar , Augschburg , links=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swabian_German , label=Swabian German, , ) is a city in Swabia, Bavaria, Germany, around west of Bavarian capital Munich. It is a university town and regional seat of the '' ...

, where he worked on the development of submarine engines. During the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fig ...

, he was promoted to Chief Engineer and, after the war, he was involved in the development of the first MAN

four-stroke A four-stroke (also four-cycle) engine is an internal combustion (IC) engine in which the piston completes four separate strokes while turning the crankshaft. A stroke refers to the full travel of the piston along the cylinder, in either direct ...

crosshead engines for commercial shipping. At the end of the 1920s, the Reich Navy demanded a line of high-performance diesel engines with a power to weight ratio of six kilograms per horsepower. This had not previously been achieved anywhere in the world. Up to 1931, MAN and Pielstick developed engines to meet the specification. The first was tested in the German training ship Bremse and later versions were used in the construction of the

German cruiser Admiral Scheer ''Admiral Scheer'' was a heavy cruiser (often termed a pocket battleship) which served with the (War Navy) of Nazi Germany during World War II. The vessel was named after Admiral Reinhard Scheer, German commander in the Battle of Jutland. Sh ...

and the

German cruiser Admiral Graf Spee ''Admiral Graf Spee'' was a "''Panzerschiff''" (armored ship), nicknamed a "pocket battleship" by the British, which served with the Kriegsmarine of Nazi Germany during World War II. The vessel was named after World War I Admiral Maximilian vo ...

. In 1934 Pielstick was appointed director of the

department of MAN. Under his leadership diesel engines emerged for ships, locomotives and stationary work. Pielstick paid particular attention to the development of engines with ever higher power density, based on the turbocharged submarine engine. The head of the design office of the naval high command, Heinrich Waas, stated: "Never before has the German Navy relied on a company and its chief designer, as it did then on M.A.N. and Pielstick".Johannes Bähr, Ralf Banken, Thomas Flemming: ''Die MAN: eine deutsche Industriegeschichte'', C.H. Beck, 2008, , S. 319. After

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

Pielstick had to leave his post with the MAN at the behest of the victorious powers. From 1946, he worked with some former employees in

La Courneuve La Courneuve () is a commune in Seine-Saint-Denis, France. It is located from the center of Paris. History Inhabited since pre-Roman times, the area is thought to have been a small village up through the Middle Ages. With its proximity to Pa ...

, France and founded the design office for diesel engines Société d’Etudes des Machines Thermiques (SEMT). Pielstick's work as director of the office was so successful that its designs were licensed in numerous countries, including Germany, and the company was named SEMT Pielstick. In the late 1950s, Pielstick retired from professional life and spent his old age in

Lugano Lugano (, , ; lmo, label=Ticinese dialect, Ticinese, Lugan ) is a city and municipality in Switzerland, part of the Lugano District in the canton of Ticino. It is the largest city of both Ticino and the Italian-speaking southern Switzerland. Luga ...

, Switzerland. Gustav Pielstick died in Zurich in 1961.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Pielstick, Gustav 1890 births 1961 deaths German mechanical engineers People from Friesland (district) Engineers from Lower Saxony