Abraham Esau

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Abraham Esau during his time at the Jena Technical and Physical Institute

Abraham Robert Esau (born June 7, 1884 in Tiegenhagen , Marienburg district in West Prussia (now Poland ), † May 12, 1955 in Düsseldorf ) was a German physicist and a pioneer of the German movement of radio amateurs .

Studies, military service and first professional steps

After attending the St. Petri and Pauli secondary school in Gdansk , Esau studied physics at the University of Berlin and at the TH Gdansk . There he was assistant to the physicist Max Wien from 1906 to 1909 . Esau was awarded Dr. phil. nat. PhD.

In 1909/10 Esau was a one-year volunteer in the radio department of Telegraph Battalion No. 1 in Berlin.

After moving from university to the Society for Wireless Telegraphy, System Telefunken in Berlin in 1912, Esau devoted himself to questions of radio reception. On behalf of Telefunken he set up the Kamina radio station in Togo in 1913 as part of the construction of a radio communications network between the German colonies and Germany. The reserve officer Esau was surprised by the outbreak of World War I in 1914 and was taken prisoner by the French until 1919.

After the First World War, Esau dealt with questions of overseas reception and developed a double frame reception system, which was built in Geltow near Potsdam for wireless overseas traffic. In 1925 he carried out the world's first VHF transmission between Jena and Kahla .

On July 28, 1925, the first national German amateur radio association , the Deutsche Funktechnische Verband e. V. (DFTV) founded. Abraham Esau was the first president of the association, his amateur radio call sign was EK4AAL.

Professorship at the University of Jena

In 1925 he was appointed associate professor for "Technical Physics" at the University of Jena and appointed head of the Technical and Physical Institute. In 1928 he was appointed full professor. The title of his inaugural lecture was "The Earth's Energy Resources and Their Technical Exploitation". Esau was very popular with both lecturers and students.

Since 1928 he worked together with Erwin Schliephake on the possibility of using shortwave in medicine, especially in the treatment of cancer patients. Together they developed shortwave therapy ( diathermy ). Although healing successes were recorded even in inoperable patients, the method did not find its way into conventional medicine at first, but is now widespread. In 1929 he became a member of the Erfurt Academy of Charitable Sciences.

In 1930 he began to investigate the possible uses of ultra-short waves .

From March 1932 to March 1935 Esau was rector of the University of Jena. On May 1, 1933, he joined the NSDAP (membership number 2,907,651). From November 1937 to March 1939 Esau took over the office of rector of the University of Jena again. In 1939 he was replaced by the race researcher Karl Astel .

In the opinion of Max von Laue , Esau acted as "the main representative of National Socialism among German physicists".

From 1939

From 1939 Esau was president of the Physikalisch-Technische Reichsanstalt (PTR) in Berlin and professor for military technology at the TH Berlin.

In April 1939, Esau organized the first meeting of the "Uranium Association" as head of the physics division in the Reich Research Council . With the beginning of the Second World War, the Heereswaffenamt in conjunction with Esau in the Reich Research Council brought together Germany's leading researchers in the field of nuclear fission in the "uranium project" and distributed the work to various institutes. In 1942 Esau became "the Reichsmarschall's authorized representative for all questions of nuclear physics" and from the beginning of 1944 as the successor of Johannes Plendl "authorized representative for high frequency research". Esau conducted research in the field of radio measurement, in particular the development of the centimeter wave range. With a magnetron he developed , he achieved wavelengths of less than two millimeters. He was a member of the Rotterdam working group .

After the Second World War

After Germany surrendered , the work of Esau was confiscated and analyzed by the Americans as part of the Alsos missions . The Alsos missions took place between late 1943 and late 1945 as part of the United States' Manhattan Project . The aim was to disclose and prevent possible German efforts to build an atomic bomb .

Abraham Esau was arrested in 1945 and imprisoned in France and Germany. He was transferred to the Netherlands, where he was brought to justice for his co-responsibility for the pillage of the Philips plants. He remained in custody until 1948. At the end of 1948 he was acquitted of the charge of economic war crimes and deported to Germany, where he was de facto "de-Nazified" by the Rendsburg Chamber .

He no longer held his office as president of the PTR, but with the support of Leo Brandt, he became honorary professor for shortwave technology at the TH Aachen in 1949 and head of the Institute for High Frequency Technology in Mülheim an der Ruhr, a department of the German Research Institute for Aviation . He carried out pioneering investigations into the use of electrical and acoustic waves ( radar and sonar ) for localization, navigation and weather observation as well as the use of ultrasound in materials testing.

Memberships, offices and honors

literature

  • Peter Kaupp : Esau, Abraham Robert. In: From Aldenhoven to Zittler. Members of the Arminia fraternity on the Burgkeller-Jena who have emerged in public life over the past 100 years. Dieburg 2000.
  • Michael Grüttner : Biographical Lexicon on National Socialist Science Policy (= Studies on Science and University History. Volume 6). Synchron, Heidelberg 2004, ISBN 3-935025-68-8 , p. 45.
  • Dieter Hoffmann , Rüdiger Stutz : Crossing the border in science: Abraham Esau as industrial physicist, university rector and research manager in "Combative Science" studies at the University of Jena under National Socialism , Uwe Hoßfeld , Jürgen John, Oliver Lemuth, Rüdiger Stutz (ed.), Böhlau-Verlag , Cologne, 2003, ISBN 3-412-04102-5 - online
  • Ulrich Kern: Research and Precision Measurement - The Physikalisch-Technische Reichsanstalt between 1918 and 1948 , VCH, Weinheim, 1992
  • Fritz Schröter :  Esau, Abraham. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 4, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1959, ISBN 3-428-00185-0 , p. 640 f. ( Digitized version ).
  • Esau, Abraham. In: Robert Volz: Reich manual of the German society . The handbook of personalities in words and pictures. Volume 1: A-K. Deutscher Wirtschaftsverlag, Berlin 1930, DNB 453960286 , p. 402.

Works

  • Abraham Esau: "Positioning with electric and ultrasonic waves in technology and nature" in the working group for research of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia , issue 15, Leo Brandt (ed.), Westdeutscher Verlag, Cologne, 1951

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Publications of the working group for amateur radio television AGAV ( Memento from June 27, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
  2. ↑ Uwe Hossfeld : Combative Science. Studies at the University of Jena under National Socialism Böhlau Verlag Köln Weimar, 2003, ISBN 3412041025 , page 149
  3. ↑ Cf. Michael Grüttner: Biographical Lexicon for National Socialist Science Policy , Heidelberg 2004, p. 45.
  4. ↑ http://www.nobelprize.org/nomination/archive/show.php?id=7232 >
personal data
SURNAME Esau, Abraham
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Esau, Abraham Robert
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German physicist
DATE OF BIRTH June 7, 1884
PLACE OF BIRTH Tiegenhagen , West Prussia , Malbork District
DATE OF DEATH May 12, 1955
Place of death Dusseldorf