Hermann Lattemann
German engineer
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| Intro | German engineer | |
| Places | Germany | |
| was | Engineer Acrobat Balloonist | |
| Work field | Engineering | |
| Gender |
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| Birth | 14 September 1852, Gebhardshagen, Salzgitter, Lower Saxony, Germany | |
| Death | 14 September 1894Krefeld, Düsseldorf Government Region, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany (aged 42 years) |
The details
Biography
Hermann Lattemann (September 14, 1852, Gebhardshagen near Braunschweig - June 17, 1894, Krefeld) was a German balloon pilot and inventor who experimented with an early prototype of a parachute.
Together with his wife Käthe Paulus, Lattemann designed a parachute prototype in an attempt to make balloon flights safer. The main invention was to have parachutes folded and packed in bags.
Lattemann died during a test. 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 improvements made by his wife and sold as Paula's parachute, made her a fortune, lost later on due to inflation.