Franz Maria Feldhaus

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Honorary doctorate from RWTH Aachen University in 1924, the honorary doctorate was withdrawn again during the Nazi era

Franz Maria Feldhaus , also Franz Feldhaus (born April 26, 1874 in Neuss , † May 22, 1957 in Wilhelmshaven ; pseudonym: Franz Marius ) was a German technical historian and scientific writer.

Life

Feldhaus was the only descendant from the second marriage of Peter Ferdinand Feldhaus, the founder of the Novesia chocolate factory . From his father's first marriage, he had twelve half-siblings, with whom Franz Maria Feldhaus, however, had an early argument. After his parents tried to find a place for him with the Jesuits , he got by with inventions and odd jobs without graduating from school. According to his own statement, he began to be interested in the history of technology in 1900 when lightning struck next to him in the Rheinfelden power station , where he worked in the control room, which temporarily paralyzed him on one side. In his Mannheim workshop for precision mechanics, he described himself as an engineer - this designation was still unprotected at the time. As a guest he later attended lectures by Theodor Beck in Darmstadt, who published on the history of mechanical engineering and who bequeathed his estate to Feldhaus.

After moving to Heidelberg in 1904, he intensified his research, benefiting from the nearby university library. Five years later he set up a private institute and company in Berlin called “Source research on the history of technology and the natural sciences”, which also carried out research for patent procedures. The seat was in Berlin-Tempelhof and the initial funding of 120,000 Reichsmarks came from his patron Carl Graf Klinckerstroem (1884–1969). Both relied on the enthusiasm for technology at the time and the good reputation that Feldhaus still had at that time. His Historia-Photo GmbH , which has existed since 1908, is likely to have been the first commercial picture archive in Germany (it went to his wife after his divorce, but he set up a new photo archive).

In the course of the 1920s, he had made so many enemies as a critic of his contemporary colleagues in the history of technology and especially at the VDI that his company ran into problems. After the Great Depression, it finally went bankrupt in 1930. His criticism was directed primarily against VDI director Conrad Matschoss , especially against his work Men of Technology , published in 1925 . A biographical manual . Feldhaus accused the author of having produced many deficiencies in terms of content with reference to his own collection of files. Matschoss was a leading historian of technology and had been enemies with Feldhaus since 1911 because he had turned down one of his articles for the VDI magazine on the grounds that Feldhaus was mixing up science and commerce too much through his work on behalf of companies. The high point of Feldhaus's career was the award of an honorary doctorate by RWTH Aachen University on the occasion of his 50th birthday in 1924 . Just a few years later, attempts began to persuade the university to withdraw the honor. Above all, Kurt Wiesinger (1879–1965), professor at the ETH Zurich and NSDAP member, did everything in his power to have the title revoked. Wiesinger was unsuccessful in his legal priority dispute with Franz Kruckenberg over the rail zeppelin as a result of an expertise from Feldhaus. After the National Socialists came to power, the doctoral degree regulations were changed accordingly and the dismissal requested by Matschoss and Wiesinger from the Berlin Nazi Ministry was pronounced by a committee in 1936. For this purpose, an extensive dossier had been created on his alleged moral and legal misconduct, which has been preserved in the RWTH Aachen University Archives. After the war, due to the vote of the then reporter Franz Krauss, the RWTH held on to the withdrawal and also spoke out vehemently against the award of the Federal Cross of Merit. In 1934 Feldhaus was also excluded from the Reichsschrifttumskammer , which was equivalent to a professional ban for him.

After the bankruptcy of his company, Feldhaus and his financier Klinckerstroem tried to sell the extensive Feldhaus library and initially tried unsuccessfully to bring it to the German Labor Front . Through a contact with the technology historian Paul Adolf Kirchvogel from the later Hessisches Landesmuseum Kassel , Feldhaus succeeded in obtaining a takeover by the state, where it was to become the basis of a state office for the cultural history of technology to be founded. In 1938 he transferred his collection to Kassel and officially donated it to the state, subject to certain conditions (so his wife should be employed there). It was part of the State Office for the History of Technology, founded in 1939, and the library was attached to the State Library after the Hessian State Library in the Museum Fridericianum was destroyed by bombing (September 1941) and relocated to Ziegenhain. After the war, Feldhaus tried to regain possession of the collection and library. While the files were awarded to him after a legal dispute in 1951 (the state had no interest in it), the state kept the private library (Feldhaus had concealed that he had pledged it and the land had to buy itself out of the claim in a settlement after the war) .

Immediately after the end of the war, Feldhaus was director of the State Museum and the State Library in Neustrelitz from 1945 to 1946 . From 1948 he lived in Wilhelmshaven .

Feldhaus was married four times and had nine children, including the writer Eva Zeller .

Work and later reception

He has written 52 books and over 3800 essays and articles. Feldhaus systematically evaluated sources, collected photos and documents and collected the information obtained using standardized index cards. On this basis he wrote many books and articles on the history of technology. His work was mainly financed by fees from entrepreneurs or the like, for whom he carried out research tasks, which made him suspect of partiality during his lifetime.

The scientific value of Feldhaus’s work on the history of technology is controversial - some of his popular scientific publications are now also controversial because they are obviously in error. An example of this is his inglorious role in research into the life and work of the German-Austrian automobile pioneer Siegfried Marcus . His information on Marcus in Ruhmesblätter der Technik (1910), Deutsche Techniker und Ingenieure (1912), etc. are, unlike otherwise without references to the source, incorrect in many important places and add much to the confusion about Siegfried Marcus' contribution to the "invention" of the automobile . The merits of Feldhaus, who despite all criticism is considered one of the pioneers in the history of technology, are increasingly seen today in the field of information organization, in which he used the most advanced technologies at the time. Axel Halle, however, criticized the lack of source criticism in the Feldhaus and Aufbau index, especially as an aid for his many popular scientific publications. Some of his popular science books were reprinted in the 1970s.

Posthumously Feldhaus received the Diesel Medal in gold from the German Inventors' Association.

Archives and Library

Today the Feldhaus Archive is owned by the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation and is now part of the Historical Archive in the German Museum of Technology in Berlin .

According to Feldhaus, who continued it in Wilhelmshaven, at the time of its return in 1954, it consisted of:

  • 68,000 index cards each with a technical event
  • 24,000 person cards
  • 15,000 annual index cards
  • 21,000 index cards for current events
  • 12,650 files on 7,950 topics
  • 16,300 images as well
  • Index cards on the content of numerous medieval manuscripts.

The library of around 9,500 titles in around 11,000 volumes remained in Kassel and has been run as the "Feldhaus Collection" since 1976 at the Kassel University Library . It was scientifically cataloged from the end of the 1990s after its technical and historical value had been confirmed by several reports (including by Ulrich Troitzsch).

Publications (selection)

  • Lexicon of inventions and discoveries in the fields of natural sciences and technology. Heidelberg 1904.
  • Feldhaus' Book of Inventions. Entertaining teachings from the history of technology , Oestergaard, Berlin 1907.
  • The technology. A lexicon of prehistoric times, historical times and indigenous peoples. A handbook for archaeologists and historians, museums and collectors, art dealers and antiquarians. Engelmann, Leipzig / Berlin 1914, digitizedhttp: //vorlage_digitalisat.test/1%3D~GB%3D~IA%3Ddietechnikdervo01feldgoog~MDZ%3D%0A~SZ%3D~doppelseiten%3D~LT%3D~PUR%3D ; Reprint 1970.
  • Glory sheets of technology, from the original inventions to the present. 2 volumes. 2nd edition Leipzig 1926.
  • The children's shoes of the new means of transport. Leipzig 1927.
  • Cultural history of technology: sketches. I – II, Berlin 1928 (= mathematical, scientific and technical library , 20–21).
  • The technology of antiquity and the Middle Ages. , Athenaion, Potsdam 1931 (= Museum of World History […] ).
  • The striking pocket watch. A discovery about the cultural history of Nuremberg. In: Franconian courier. No. 252, (November 9th) 1933.
  • Men of German action. Steinhaus, Munich, probably 1934.
  • The way into technology. A book to look and think. Leipzig 1935.

Posthumous editions:

  • History of technical drawing . 2. advanced and verb. Edition, edited by E. Schruff, Wilhelmshaven 1959
  • The technology. An encyclopedia of prehistoric times, historical times and indigenous peoples , reprint of the 1914 edition, 2nd edition Munich 1965 (with the addition of later original contributions by the author), reprint Munich 1970
  • The technology of antiquity and the Middle Ages , reprint of the 1931 edition, Hildesheim 1971
  • Cultural history of technology I and II, reprint of the 1928 edition, Hildesheim 1980.

literature

  • Markus Krajewski : Complete absence. World projects around 1900. Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2006
  • Markus Krajewski: Tools and strategies of technical history writing. Or: How can you simply record "everything"? In: Zeitblicke 10, No. 1, [9. August 2011], http://www.zeitenblicke.de/2011/1/Krajewski/index_html , URN: urn: nbn: de: 0009-9-30527
  • Hans-Erhard Lessing : Franz Maria Feldhaus. Can you make a living from the history of technology? In: Peter Blum (ed.): Pioneers from technology and economy in Heidelberg. Shaker, Aachen 2000, ISBN 3-8265-6544-4 , pp. 80-93
  • Marcus Popplow: Franz Maria Feldhaus. The world history of technology on index cards . In: cut and paste around 1900 (= Kaleidoskopien 2002; H. 4), pp. 100–114
  • Axel Halle: Library and archive as the basis of research, Franz Maria Feldhaus and his collection , in: Wolfgang König, Hellmuth Schneider (Ed.), Research in the history of technology in Germany from 1800 to the present, Kassel University Press 2007, p. 117
  • I. Mieck: Comments on the Feldhaus-Archiv , Der Archivar, Volume 22, 1969, pp. 285–290
  • Editor:  Feldhaus, Franz Maria. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 5, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1961, ISBN 3-428-00186-9 , p. 68 ( digitized version ).
  • Markus Krajewski : Franz Maria Feldhaus (1874–1957) . In: Technikgeschichte, Vol. 76, (2009), H. 4, pp. 339-345.

Web links

Wikisource: Franz Maria Feldhaus  - Sources and full texts
Commons : Franz Maria Feldhaus  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Markus Krajewski: Restlessness. World projects around 1900. Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2006, p. 144.
  2. ↑ Markus Krajewski: Restlessness. World projects around 1900. Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2006, p. 145.
  3. ↑ Markus Krajewski: Restlessness. World projects around 1900. Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2006, p. 148.
  4. ↑ Markus Krajewski: Restlessness. World projects around 1900. Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2006, p. 146.
  5. ^ Axel Halle, library and archive as the basis of research, Franz Maria Feldhaus and his collection, in: Wolfgang König, Hellmuth Schneider (ed.), Die technikhistorische research in Germany from 1800 to the present, Kassel University Press 2007, p. 118 After Axel Halle, the collection began in earnest during his time in Heidelberg from 1904, although he later dated the beginning back to 1900 in company brochures.
  6. ↑ Markus Krajewski: Restlessness. World projects around 1900. Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2006, pp. 149f.
  7. ↑ Axel Halle, Library and Archive as a Basis for Research, 2007, p. 119.
  8. ↑ On the Matschoss-Feldhaus controversy, also W. König in the introduction to the reprint by Matschoss Men of Technology , Düsseldorf 1985.
  9. ↑ Markus Krajewski: Restlessness. World projects around 1900. Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2006, p. 149.
  10. ↑ Axel Halle, 2007, p. 120.
  11. ↑ Axel Halle, 2007, p. 120.
  12. ↑ Axel Halle, 2007, p. 121.
  13. ↑ At that time a branch of the State Museum Schwerin ; after almost complete loss of the collection due to fire at the end of the war, it was later dissolved.
  14. ↑ Axel Halle 2007, p. 123, he quotes Miek there.
  15. ↑ Markus Krajewski: Restlessness. World projects around 1900. Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2006, pp. 160f.
  16. ^ Horst Hardenberg: Siegfried Marcus. Myth and Reality (Scientific Series of the DaimlerChrysler Corporate Archives; Vol. 3). Delius & Klasing Verlag, Bielefeld 2000, pages 333ff, 354ff.
  17. ↑ Axel Halle 2007, p. 126.
  18. ↑ Axel Halle, 2007, p. 125f, showing the structure according to Miek.
  19. ↑ According to his own information, he had collected over 14,000 books since 1900, Axel Halle, 2007, p. 125.
  20. ↑ Axel Halle, 2007, p. 127.
personal data
SURNAME Feldhaus, Franz Maria
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Feldhaus, Franz; Marius, Franz (pseudonym)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Self-taught, German electrical engineer, technical historian and scientific writer
DATE OF BIRTH April 26, 1874
PLACE OF BIRTH Neuss
DATE OF DEATH May 22, 1957
Place of death Wilhelmshaven