Friedrich Wilhelm Sander

Friedrich Wilhelm Sander (25 August 1885 in Glatz (Kłodzko) – 15 September 1938) was a German pyrotechnics and rocket technology engineer as well as manufacturer remembered for his contributions to rocket-powered flight as key protagonist of the Opel-RAK program.^[1]

Sander was the son of a professional soldier. He went to school in Uslar on the southwestern edge of the Solling and then learned to be a mechanical engineer. At the Technikum Strelitz in Altstrelitz in Mecklenburg he became an engineer around 1908/09. In 1909 Sander moved to Bremerhaven. Here he worked in various areas. In 1920 he took over the company of master gunsmith H. G. Cordes in Bremerhaven, who had existed from 1853 and was known as the inventor of the whaling cannon. Sander soon expanded the factory's products to include signal rockets.

From 1925, the Sander line-throwing rocket pistols designed by him for the rescue of shipwrecked people belonged to the equipment of the rescue stations and boats of the German Society for the Rescue of Shipwrecked People and many similar organizations around the world. In 1925, Sander bought the Schultz ship telegraph factory in Bremerhaven, which gave him a larger, two-story factory building at Fährstrasse No. 26 as a prerequisite for accepting development contracts offered by the Navy.

In 1928, he was approached by Max Valier, on behalf of Fritz von Opel to provide rockets to propel cars and aircraft as a means of popularizing the use of rockets for propulsion and for promoting the Opel company. Their joint projects within Opel-RAK, the world's first large-scale rocket program, involved the creation of the world's first rocket car, the Opel RAK.1 and the first rocket glider, the Ente, and the world's first purpose-built rocket plane Opel RAK.1.^[2]

He was married to Cäcilie Sander and had three boys: Hans HW (1918-1998), Bruno (1918-1983) and Herbert (1920-?).