The apprentice and the gear

Regens­burg, 4 Novem­ber 1929, 10 a.m.

“I can’t believe nobody’s man­aged it!” exclaimed Dr. Bern­hard Jansen, crum­pling up the let­ter from yet anoth­er met­al­work­ing shop. The gear still lay on the table. A gear with a drilled hole which the young engi­neer from Hanover stared at angri­ly. That con­found­ed hole! Why couldn’t any­one make one that wasn’t drilled, he won­dered.

Jansen stood up, walked to the door and looked into the out­er office.
“Miss Egel­hofer, would you be so kind as to make me a cup of tea?”
“Of course, sir. Are you feel­ing alright?”
“Well, we’ve just had a ’no’ from the Niekisch shop this morn­ing. That’s the sixth one now. I’m start­ing to wor­ry that we just won’t be able to build these pro­to­types. It’s all per­fect­ly clear on paper, but try as I might I can’t find a com­pe­tent met­al­work­er any­where around here. Any­way, I don’t want to both­er you with all this. I’d like chamomile with plen­ty of sug­ar, please.”

Jansen closed the door again and went to the win­dow. The work­ing day out on the streets was in full swing. Horse-drawn carts bear­ing tim­ber and crates of apples rum­bled past Jansen’s office. Out of the cor­ner of his eye, he noticed May­or Hipp’s car turn off. His was the only green car in the whole of Regens­burg. Jansen’s gaze rest­ed on the sooty smoke ris­ing from the chim­ney of the Bavar­i­an sug­ar fac­to­ry, the largest in the area. They, too, were hun­gry for Jansen’s elec­tric­i­ty.

Jansen was the tech­ni­cal direc­tor of Oberp­falzw­erke, a region­al util­i­ty com­pa­ny sup­ply­ing pow­er to Regens­burg and the sur­round­ing areas. His rep­u­ta­tion as a tal­ent­ed, even bril­liant inven­tor had helped him secure this man­age­ment-board posi­tion in Bavaria, despite being just 29 years old at the time. That was over a year ago now. Dur­ing his appli­ca­tion for the post he impressed his future employ­ers with the patent he held for a tap chang­er that could switch trans­form­ers at full load with­out inter­rupt­ing the pow­er sup­ply. This could be a solu­tion to an increas­ing­ly urgent issue: How could pow­er plants pro­vide homes with elec­tric­i­ty at a con­stant volt­age? With the increas­ing num­ber of fac­to­ries and plants requir­ing elec­tric­i­ty, there was sud­den­ly a huge num­ber of con­sumers con­nect­ed to, and severe­ly affect­ing, the pow­er grid. Each time they start­ed up or shut down, there were pow­er out­ages. Jansen’s idea could change the pow­er sup­ply land­scape.

But what use was a patent if he couldn’t find some­one to build his tap chang­er? Jansen went back to his desk and looked through the rest of yesterday’s cor­re­spon­dence. It was a drea­ry day so he switched on his desk lamp.

He knew that every­one want­ed pow­er these days, and his job as direc­tor of Oberp­falzw­erke was to give them what they want­ed.

In fact, the chal­lenge went far beyond his indi­vid­ual role as a direc­tor. Elec­tric­i­ty for all was the future. Jansen had been a firm believ­er of this for many years. Yet it seemed like every­thing had reached a dead end. There had been no tech­ni­cal progress and nobody knew how to extend the pow­er grids with­out los­ing con­trol over them. Jansen, who
believed he had an answer to this very issue, was fail­ing at the first hur­dle because nobody could even build his gear.

His office door opened. It was Miss Egel­hofer with his tea, with his engi­neer Lan­dauer in tow. From the look on Landauer’s face, Jansen knew it wasn’t good news.

“Thank you, Miss Egel­hofer. Mr. Lan­dauer, what’s trou­bling you?”
“Good morn­ing, sir. AEG has sent a let­ter. You might want to take a look.”

Lan­dauer hand­ed him an open enve­lope and stood wait­ing at the desk with his arms fold­ed. Was he plan­ning to watch while Jansen read the let­ter?

Appar­ent­ly so. AEG – the gen­er­al elec­tric­i­ty com­pa­ny in Berlin – was Jansen’s most impor­tant part­ner. Some time ago, he had signed a lucra­tive license agree­ment with them. AEG want­ed to build his tap chang­er on a large scale and install it in their trans­form­ers. If it worked, Jansen looked set to become a wealthy man. Yet first he had to deliv­er a pro­to­type to prove that his switch would deliv­er on his promis­es. Jansen read the let­ter.

Dear Sirs,

With regard to your let­ter dat­ed 3 Octo­ber 1929, we here­by take the lib­er­ty of request­ing fur­ther infor­ma­tion: When might we expect deliv­ery of the “tap chang­er” inven­tion as per Impe­r­i­al Patent Office num­bers 467560, 474613, and 496564? You will for­give us for expect­ing a firm com­mit­ment from you as soon as pos­si­ble.

Respect­ful­ly yours, Dr. Kon­rad Blenkle

“We’re in a real fix now, Lan­dauer. They’re los­ing patience in Berlin.”
“With respect, sir, have we real­ly tried absolute­ly every­thing in our pow­er?”

“Well what do you think I’ve been doing all this time? Read­ing the news­pa­per? I sim­ply can’t find a met­al­work­ing shop that can make this blast­ed gear, not to men­tion all the rest of it!” said Jansen, slump­ing in his seat and shak­ing his head in exas­per­a­tion. “It’s get­ting ridicu­lous.”
“I might know some­one else who could help: Kare Scheubeck from Rein­hausen, a friend of mine.”

“Kare?”
“Well, his full name is Oskar. He has a met­al­work­ing shop with his broth­er and makes all sorts of things. He’s a clever fel­low.”
“Very well then, why not. In the worst case he’ll just be the sev­enth per­son who can’t do it. I’ll go and see him in per­son. Let your friend know I’ll be com­ing first thing tomor­row at nine.”
“I’ll take care of it, sir.”

Rein­hausen, 5 Novem­ber 1929, 8:30 a.m.

Oskar Scheubeck rubbed his tem­ples. This headache was dri­ving him to dis­trac­tion. He had bare­ly slept for days. He won­dered which would come first: bank­rupt­cy or a rest­ful night.

Scheubeck didn’t know much about either pol­i­tics or the nation­al econ­o­my, but he under­stood that some­thing cru­cial had hap­pened a few days ago when the New York Stock Exchange had crashed. Nor­mal­ly this would not have both­ered him, but cir­cum­stances had been unusu­al for some time. The Berlin gov­ern­ment changed almost year­ly, and there were con­stant dis­putes about war repa­ra­tions to the vic­tors of the World War. Now there was this new Young Plan. The Nazis were march­ing in the streets more and more often, chant­i­ng their slo­gans. The Com­mu­nists had even start­ed appear­ing. Here in Catholic Regens­burg, they had nev­er gained a foothold before. It must have been down to all the unem­ploy­ment. Mean­while, some­one turned up almost every day ask­ing Scheubeck for work at his shop. He turned them down near­ly every time.

And now, to top it all off, there was this cri­sis at the stock exchange all the way over in Amer­i­ca. Scheubeck knew that a lot of Amer­i­can mon­ey was keep­ing the Reich run­ning. If even Amer­i­ca was in trou­ble now, then God have mer­cy.
“Jansen from Oberp­falzw­erke is com­ing today, isn’t he?”

Richard’s voice inter­rupt­ed his thoughts. “Yes that’s right; he’ll be here soon.”
“Will you talk to him? I have to go to the bank with father soon to ask for a repay­ment defer­ral.”
“Will do.”

“Oskar, lis­ten. This is very seri­ous. Even if the bank accom­mo­dates our request, it’s only a mat­ter of time. We need some­thing new. Some­thing that works, prefer­ably for the long term. Maybe Jansen can give us some­thing like that. Be polite and help­ful, under­stood? And remem­ber: it’s Doc­tor Jansen. Doc­tor – don’t for­get. That’s impor­tant to a Pruss­ian.”

Richard threw on his coat and went out of the work­shop into the morn­ing driz­zle. Mean­while, Oskar Scheubeck drank a sip of his pure bean cof­fee. It was the only lux­u­ry they could still indulge in these days.

Apart from his broth­er Richard and Oskar him­self, just ten peo­ple remained at the once proud Maschi­nen­fab­rik Rein­hausen, which had belonged to their father. Until just recent­ly, they had still been mak­ing cleav­ing frame saws, the ori­gin of the “Maschi­nen­fab­rik” (machine fac­to­ry) part of their com­pa­ny name. Yet since the end of the war, the tim­ber side of the busi­ness had slowed down and the new, much faster band saws had over­tak­en their mod­el. In the spring they had decid­ed to dis­con­tin­ue pro­duc­tion. Since then, the met­al­work­ers had been mak­ing a bit of every­thing, work­ing on what­ev­er would earn them some mon­ey includ­ing bicy­cle parts, fit­tings, and win­dow frames for rail cars. In the sum­mer they had staked every­thing they had and built a small air­plane. Any inven­tor worth his salt was build­ing air­planes. After all, Lind­bergh had just com­plet­ed the first transat­lantic flight. But the Scheubeck broth­ers’ pro­to­type crashed, and with it, they lost the last of their sav­ings.

Scheubeck took anoth­er sip of cof­fee. His headaches were ter­ri­ble.
There was a knock on the door.
“Please come in!”

A tall man in a well-cut suit entered the work­shop. Quite young for a direc­tor.
“You must be Oskar Scheubeck? I’m Dr. Jansen, direc­tor of Oberp­falzw­erke. Mr. Lan­dauer, my engi­neer, rec­om­mend­ed you.”
“Yes, he came to see me yes­ter­day. Do come over, Mr. Jansen. How can I help you? It would be an hon­or.”
Con­found it, he had for­got­ten to say “Doc­tor”! Richard would be furi­ous.

Jansen pulled some papers out of his bag and spread them out on the work­bench. Scheubeck looked at the set of com­plex con­struc­tion draw­ings.
“It’s this one here,” said Jansen, point­ing to a gear. “Very sim­ple as a con­cept. Can you
make this for me, with exact­ly these pro­por­tions? I need it as soon as pos­si­ble. The most impor­tant thing is that you stick exact­ly to the spec­i­fi­ca­tion. And I mean exact­ly.”
“What is the part for?”
“I’m using it to build a tap chang­er for trans­form­ers.”
“Nev­er heard of that.”
“It doesn’t mat­ter. The main thing is that you make this gear for me. Can I count on you?”
“Of course, Doc­tor!”
“Good. Let me know when you’ve done it. Good day to you, Mr. Scheubeck.”
“Good­bye, Doc­tor Jansen!”
Off he went. An odd fel­low. Scheubeck took his time look­ing at the draw­ing.
This awful headache!

That same day, at 10 a.m.

Franz Xaver Bauer was whistling The Gyp­sy Baron. The young appren­tice had had the tune in his head since his week­end vis­it to the Strauss operetta at the city hall. The song and Ottilie. What an evening. After the music they had tak­en a long night-time walk to Ottilie’s house. Despite the cold, he had felt warm inside.

He had final­ly expe­ri­enced some­thing beau­ti­ful again. Here at the work­shop, peo­ple bare­ly smiled any more. Since the Scheubecks’ air­plane had crashed, when­ev­er he saw the broth­ers around the build­ing they had long faces. Bauer sus­pect­ed that the machine fac­to­ry was on its last legs. One cowork­er after anoth­er had been leav­ing. Some stayed near­by, while oth­ers went as far as Munich. Peo­ple were say­ing that there was still a lot of work there for dili­gent met­al­work­ers. Should he fol­low suit? But what about Ottilie?

Xaver laid out his tools and began fil­ing. It would be ter­ri­ble if the machine fac­to­ry closed down! His moth­er had been so hap­py when Xaver had found such a good appren­tice­ship. Met­al – peo­ple would always need met­al. Xaver’s father had been lost in action around that time; he was buried some­where in France. Xaver could bare­ly remem­ber him. His pic­ture was hang­ing in the liv­ing room. Xaver’s moth­er still dec­o­rat­ed it with fresh flow­ers every week. In the pic­ture, he was the same age as Xaver was now. His moth­er was almost always away doing laun­dry work, but now he could final­ly sup­port her with his appren­tice wage.

“Xaver, come here a moment.” The young Mr. Scheubeck had called him over.
“Yes, Mr. Scheubeck.” He approached Oskar Scheubeck’s work­bench, notic­ing that he was star­ing at a cou­ple of sheets of paper. His boss looked even more morose than he had over the last few days.
“Look, Xaver, we have a new order. The direc­tor from the pow­er plant wants us to make this gear and he’s in a hur­ry to make it hap­pen. Think about how you’d make some­thing like this.”
“Of course, Mr. Scheubeck. Shall I work on it alone?”
“Yes please, my headaches might yet be the death of me. I’m going upstairs to lie down for a while. Richard will be back from the bank soon. You can ask him if you’re strug­gling with it.”
“Under­stood, sir.”
“One more thing, Xaver. Make sure you work hard on this. You nev­er know, the direc­tor might send more orders our way after­ward. You know how much we need this. Tell me lat­er what you’ve come up with, alright?”
“Absolute­ly.”

Young Scheubeck clapped him on the shoul­der and head­ed for the stairs. Xaver Bauer looked at the draw­ing. It was cer­tain­ly com­pli­cat­ed. He could bare­ly deci­pher the hand­writ­ten dimen­sions. He stood look­ing at it for 20 min­utes. Then he decid­ed to just get start­ed.

6 p.m that evening

Bern­hard Jansen knocked on the work­shop door. He had heard from Lan­dauer that the Scheubecks had already made the gear. Could this real­ly be true?
“Please come in!” Jansen stepped inside.
“Good evening, gen­tle­men.”

Jansen looked at Oskar Scheubeck stand­ing at the work­bench, with a young lad beside him wear­ing a hat. A gear lay on the bench. His gear. Jansen went straight up to him and shook his hand.
“Astound­ing! That looks very good!”

Jansen weighed the part in his hands and inspect­ed it from every side. He took a yard stick and caliper from his bag and mea­sured all the impor­tant dimen­sions. They were per­fect.

“And you man­aged this in just a sin­gle day, Mr. Scheubeck? Unbe­liev­able.”

“Yes, Doc­tor. I mean, no. It wasn’t me who did it – it was my young appren­tice here, Xaver. I actu­al­ly just want­ed him to think about it, but then he went ahead and made it and has just shown it to me.”

“Excuse me? It took you just a day to make some­thing that six met­al­work­ing shops in Regens­burg haven’t man­aged in weeks? How did you even do it?”

The young man flushed red.
“I couldn’t say, Doc­tor. I just start­ed and then… I can’t even explain it.”
Jansen couldn’t help but laugh.
“Well you’ve real­ly impressed me, Xaver!”

Scheubeck grinned at his appren­tice. The teacher was proud of his accom­plished stu­dent. And with good rea­son. It was a tru­ly extra­or­di­nary achieve­ment.
Jansen put out his hand toward Xaver, who grasped it and flushed red again.
“Well done, young man!”
Then Jansen went to shake Scheubeck’s hand.
“Do you know what, Mr. Scheubeck? If your appren­tices are already smarter than the experts else­where, I think I’ve found the right met­al­work­ing shop. I would like you to make more parts for me. Do you agree?”
“We would be tru­ly delight­ed, Doc­tor.”

“I have some oth­er draw­ings here,” Jansen said, pulling a few oth­er pages out of his bag and plac­ing them on the work­bench. Scheubeck stood to his left, and the appren­tice to his right.

Jansen began to explain.
“Right, so this is the tap chang­er.”

— THE END –