August Thum

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August Thum (born July 16, 1881 in Marktoffingen ; † January 6, 1957 in Zollikon ) was a German engineer whose research and teaching focused on materials science , which he consciously oriented towards the requirements of construction .

Live and act

August Thum was born in Marktoffingen near Nördlingen in 1881 as the son of the farmer Sebastian Thum and his wife Kreszenzia Meyer. After graduating from high school, which he obtained at a grammar school in Augsburg, he studied in Munich. He completed his studies in electrical engineering at the Technical University of Munich in 1904 as a graduate engineer . After a brief period in industry at Siemens-Schuckertwerke in Berlin , Thum moved to Zurich University as an assistant in 1905 . There he received his doctorate from the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences in 1906. The title of his dissertation was: "Investigations into the dependence of the specific heat of sodium and lithium on the temperature and determination of the coefficient of thermal expansion, the melting point and the latent heat of fusion of lithium". After completing his doctorate, he took up a career at Brown, Boveri & Cie. In 1906 . on. He worked there as a calculation engineer in Baden (Switzerland) and was promoted to deputy head of department in 1910. In 1915 he did military service in an infantry regiment and was wounded in the same year. Then he moved to the BBC plant in Mannheim . From 1918 to 1927 Thum was director of the research institute of the BBC company. From April 1, 1925 to March 31, 1927 he was head of the materials testing institute in Mannheim.

On April 1, 1927, Thum moved to the first German chair for materials science at the TH Darmstadt and succeeded Otto Berndt as head of the State Materials Testing Institute (MPA) in Darmstadt.

After the Darmstadt professor Georg Wilhelm Köhler died in Darmstadt as a result of an operation, Thum was also appointed the new state examination commissioner of the Friedberg Polytechnic . Until the end of 1938 Thum held this function of the examination commissioner.

As early as 1930, he was given the office of dean of the mechanical, paper and gas engineering department for two years. From October 23, 1932 to November 24, 1933 he was rector of the TH Darmstadt. His term of office was marked by violent disputes between different groups as a result of the Nazi takeover of power in the people's state of Hesse. Thum acted unsuccessfully and could not prevent the function of a chancellor as a counterweight to the rector being established for the first time. The first cleansing of the teaching staff at the TH Darmstadt also took place during his rector's time. In 1933 August Thum became chairman of the National Socialist Teachers' Association (NSLB) at the TH Darmstadt. In 1934 he joined the NSDAP. Its membership was postponed to 1933 due to the membership ban. He was also a member of the National Socialist German Lecturer Association (NSDDB) and, along with Karl Lieser , Friedrich List (lawyer) and Hugo Stintzing, was one of the main pillars of the NS regime at the TH Darmstadt and confidante of Gauleiter Jakob Sprenger (politician) .

On November 24, 1933, Thum was elected chairman of the Ernst-Ludwig-Hochschulgesellschaft - Association of Friends of the Technical University of Darmstadt . He thus succeeded Hans Rau (physicist) . Thum held this honorary position until 1948.

In the period from 1941 to 1944/45, August Thum, along with numerous other Darmstadt professors , was employed in the Peenemünde Army Research Institute.

August Thum developed an extremely productive teaching and research concept during his time in Darmstadt. In the period from 1927 to 1944/45, over 500 publications, 56 dissertations and a habilitation were written under his leadership. The heavy air raids from September 11th to 12th 1944 caused considerable damage in the MPA located in the "west wing" of the main building. The MPA facilities were almost completely destroyed.

When the Americans marched into Darmstadt on March 25, 1945, Thum was in Switzerland. At the end of October 1945 he was dismissed from civil service for "political reasons". Despite numerous requests from his colleagues, he did not return to the TH Darmstadt until 1948 . For health reasons, August Thum no longer actively participated in the rebuilding of the chair and the MPA after the Second World War. In 1950 Thum retired. He died in January 1957 in Zollikon, Switzerland.

Honors

literature

  • Michael Grüttner : Biographical lexicon on National Socialist science policy . Synchron Publishers, Heidelberg 2004, ISBN 3-935025-68-8 .
  • Manfred Hampe / Gerhard Pahl: On the history of mechanical engineering at the Technical University of Darmstadt , VDI-Verlag, Düsseldorf 2008.
  • Melanie Hanel: The Technical University of Darmstadt in the "Third Reich" , dissertation, Darmstadt 2013.
  • Thomas Petrasch, Klaus-Dieter Rack: From the commercial academy to the technical university - Friedberg university history (1901–2011). In: Wetterauer Geschichtsblätter, Volume 62. Verlag der Buchhandlung Bindernagel, Friedberg (Hessen) 2013, ISSN  0508-6213 .
  • Christa Wolf and Marianne Viefhaus: Directory of professors at TH Darmstadt , Darmstadt 1977, p. 207.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Erich Kothe : On becoming and working of the VDI . In: VDI-Z. tape 98 , no. 14 , May 11, 1956, pp. 664 .
personal data
SURNAME Thum, August
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German engineer
DATE OF BIRTH July 16, 1881
PLACE OF BIRTH Marktoffingen
DATE OF DEATH January 6, 1957
Place of death Zollikon