About Kurt Tank
Kurt Waldemar Tank was a German aeronautical engineer and test pilot who led the design department at Focke-Wulf from 1931 to 1945. He was responsible for the creation of several important Luftwaffe aircraft of World War II, including the Fw 190 fighter aircraft, the Ta 152 fighter-interceptor and the Fw 200 Condor airliner. After the war, Tank spent two decades designing aircraft abroad, working first in Argentina and then in India, before returning to West Germany in the late 1960s to work as a consultant for Messerschmitt-Bölkow-Blohm (MBB). He had won the Iron Cross 1st and 2nd Class of 1914, the Ehrenkreuz Schwarzburg-Sondershausen and the Ehrenkreuz für Frontkämpfer. These eight students had created a workshop at the university's loft, where they started building two gliders while learning aeronautics from professors Emil Everling and Hans Reissner. There, they met Robert Thelen, then an aviation world record holder who was a director at the company.
Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.