Hütter’s Heritage: The Stuttgart School - Wind Power for the World: The Rise of Modern Wind Energy - page 404

When the wind energy boom started also in the north of
Germany, it was the end of the great times of wind energy research
in the region of Swabia. Ulrich Hütter, whose name was inseparably
tied to it, and whose philosophy vitally influenced the develop-
ment of wind turbines in Germany, unfortunately did not live to
see the industrial breakthrough of wind energy in his home country.
He died in 1990.
For Heiner Dörner the time to pass on the relay baton to
younger hands came in the autumn of 2004. He retired after having
introduced more than 1 000 students through three decades to
the scientific principles of the design of wind turbines and the
aerodynamics of rotor blades.
When Dörner looks back on his professional career he also
recaptures the development on the field of wind energy. The
technological breakthrough, Dörner resumes, came with the serial
production of wind turbines. The Stuttgart scientists and engineers
however had built the foundations on which, thirty years after the
oil price shock, the big modern wind turbines were an alternative
technology for power generation to counteract the once more
rising oil and gas prices. The vital impulses for system development
are coming from the industry. Still Heiner Dörner proudly reminds
us: “The academic roots for the modern use of wind energy in
Germany are embedded in the research institutes for aviation in
Stuttgart.”