Artur Fischer, Inventor with More Patents Than Edison, Dies at 96

It's interesting to realize that seemingly commonplace objects had a sole inventor. I've used dozens of drywall anchors in my house that look identical to the one in the picture (albeit a little smaller).

And a survivor from the losing side of the Battle of Stalingrad. With respect to both sides, that's a rare membership.

> Adolf Hitler paid a surprise Christmas visit in 1939. “I had made a model airplane to give my mother as a Christmas present,” Mr. Fischer told Der Spiegel. “Then my commanding officer said that I was the best mechanic and I should give the plane to Hitler. It was a horrible time.”

He also came up with FischerTechnik, which is a superb building-block system far sturdier than Lego.

http://www.fischertechnik.de/en/Home.aspx

Had a lot of fun with this in my childhood.

A classic example of Germany's Wirtschaftswunder. Today you would be hard pressed to find a home where his company's wall plugs are not used somewhere — at least in Europe.

Comparing number of patents is like comparing number of lines of code.