Felix Wankel

Felix Heinrich Wankel was a German mechanical engineer and inventor, born on 13 August 1902 in Lahr in the Grand Duchy of Baden and died on 9 October 1988. He was the only son of Gerty Wankel and Rudolf Wankel, a forest assessor who died in the First World War, after which the family moved to Heidelberg. He left school without the Abitur in 1921 and taught himself technical subjects, having been interested in machines and combustion engines since childhood, and from 1924 he ran an unofficial machine shop in a backyard shed in Heidelberg with friends. He is the engineer after whom the Wankel engine was named.