Hermann Lattemann (September 14, 1852, Gebhardshagen near

Braunschweig Braunschweig () or Brunswick ( ; from Low German , local dialect: ) is a List of cities and towns in Germany, city in Lower Saxony, Germany, north of the Harz Mountains at the farthest navigable point of the river Oker, which connects it to the ...

– June 17, 1894,

Krefeld Krefeld ( , ; ), also spelled Crefeld until 1925 (though the spelling was still being used in British papers throughout the Second World War), is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, in western Germany. It is located northwest of Düsseldorf, its c ...

) was a

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...

balloon pilot and inventor who experimented with an early prototype of a

parachute A parachute is a device designed to slow an object's descent through an atmosphere by creating Drag (physics), drag or aerodynamic Lift (force), lift. It is primarily used to safely support people exiting aircraft at height, but also serves va ...

. Together with his wife Käthe Paulus, Lattemann designed a parachute prototype in an attempt to make

balloon A balloon is a flexible membrane bag that can be inflated with a gas, such as helium, hydrogen, nitrous oxide, oxygen, or air. For special purposes, balloons can be filled with smoke, liquid water, granular media (e.g. sand, flour or rice), ...

flights safer. The main invention was to have parachutes folded and packed in bags. Lattemann died during a test.Soden, Garrett (2005). ''Defying Gravity: Land Divers, Roller Coasters, Gravity Bums, and the Human Obsession With Falling'', New York: W. W. Norton & Company. At age 42, his parachute failed to open, although his wife's parachute did open, when they both jumped out of a balloon named "Fin de Siècle", and she watched his fall in horror. Little or no money was made from this invention following his death, but during

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

improvements made by his wife and sold as ''Paula's parachute'', made her a fortune, lost later on due to

inflation In economics, inflation is an increase in the average price of goods and services in terms of money. This increase is measured using a price index, typically a consumer price index (CPI). When the general price level rises, each unit of curre ...

.Early Parachutes
including images of the ''Paula's Parachute''. She had patented the improvements in 1910, and in 1912 opened a company in Berlin manufacturing 7000 parachutes. (South African Military History website)

References

External links

History of parachute mentioning Lattemann's work

(German) include
an image of Lattemann
an
a depiction of the accident
in the newspapers of the time.
Hermann Lattemann at German Wikipedia
(in German) 1852 births 1894 deaths People from Salzgitter Parachuting German balloonists {{Germany-engineer-stub