Physicist and engineer, born in Berlin, Germany. As a leading employee of the Zeiss works in Jena, he developed its projection planetarium and made discoveries in the fields of cinematics, photogrammetry, and applied mechanics.
Walther Bauersfeld (January 23, 1879 in Berlin–October 28, 1959 in Heidenheim an der Brenz) was a German engineer, employed by the Zeiss Corporation, on a suggestion by the German astronomer Wolf, started work on the first projection planetarium in 1912. Bauersfeld completed the first planetarium, known as the Zeiss I model in 1923, and it was initially placed on the roof of a Zeiss building in the corporate headquarters town of Jena. The Duesseldorf planetarium did not survive the war, not from military action, but was removed by the Nazi government because it had been a donation of a Jewish businessman. Bauersfeld remained with the core firm in Jena, East Germany, where after 1953 he developed the ZKP-1 (Zeisskleinplanetarium=Zeiss Small Planetarium #1). This was intended for small dome planetariums, and while it had latitude change capabilities, the operator had to turn a hand crank to accomplish this.
A monthly newsletter named in Walther Bauersfeld's honor, "Bauersfeld's Folly", was circulated to mostly North American planetariums 1973 to 1983.
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