Walking on Trodden Paths

The inspiring story of two brothers and inventors who turned their revolutionary visions into reality.

When Otto Lilienthal made his first successful landings in 1891 at Derwitzer Mühlenberg near Potsdam with a glider he had built himself, a new era began: the dawn of human flight. Two years earlier, he had published his findings in a book on the fundamentals of aviation, based on numerous experiments he had conducted with his brother Gustav.

The history of flight is also the story of two very different brothers. Otto and Gustav Lilienthal grew up in Anklam, Pomerania, in northern Germany. Fatherless from an early age, they were a creative team from childhood: eager to experiment, willing to take risks, both artists and engineers. Rising from poverty, they became successful Berlin entrepreneurs and pioneers of technical progress. Their path reflects Germany’s emergence into modernity and its belief in the wonders of technology.

But their influence extends far beyond aviation. From gliders to employee profit-sharing and the “Freie Scholle” housing cooperative, the Lilienthal brothers made history with their ingenious ideas and visionary designs. In this biography, Manuela Runge and Bernd Lukasch tell a story of courage, inventiveness, and a new beginning that changed the world.