Hans-Karl von Willisen

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Hans-Karl Herman Edwin Heinrich Freiherr von Willisen (born April 19, 1906 in Charlottenburg ; † January 26, 1966 in Wuppertal ) was a German pioneer of radio measurement technology . He was significantly involved in the development of the German radar system and later devoted himself to the development and construction of radio equipment and broadcast technology .

Family (see also Willisen )

Hans-Karl was the son of the Prussian officer and politician Friedrich Wilhelm Freiherr von Willisen . His grandfather was the Prussian general and governor of Berlin Karl Georg Gustav Freiherr von Willisen , his great-grand-uncles were the barons Wilhelm and Friedrich Adolf von Willisen .

Hans-Karl remained unmarried and had no children.

Life

Childhood and youth

Willisen spent his childhood in Charlottenburg. At the age of 12 he attended a secondary school in Potsdam , where he met his future business partner Paul-Günther Erbslöh (1905-2002). Both friendship was based on a keen interest in technical issues, especially in the field of wireless transmission in telegraphy and telephony . Neglecting their school duties, the friends devoted themselves to research into radio technology . Through self-studies and field tests, they acquired a high level of expertise in this area. Willisen and Erbslöh soon cooperated with the Heinrich Hertz Institute and became consultants to the Berlin VOX house . With their ideas they contributed to the improvement of the transmission quality of radio programs.

Deutsche Ultraphon AG / Tonographie GmbH

Around 1926, Willisen and Erbslöh were employed by Friedrich Trautwein as electrical engineers in the newly established recording studio of the Berlin University of Music , which was headed by Herbert Grenzebach . Here they developed their own method for the electrical recording of records, which in a test proved to be superior to the method used by the Deutsche Grammophon Gesellschaft at the time. In 1929 they set up the first recording studio for Deutsche Ultraphon AG. The records made there are considered technically outstanding for the time. Until the bankruptcy of the company in early 1932, they worked there as sound engineers and supervised several thousand recordings. Subsequently, in February 1932, Erbslöh and von Willisen became managing directors of Tonographie GmbH in Berlin-Wilmersdorf. Here they successfully produced advertising records and made contract recordings for record companies.

Foundation of GEMA

In 1932 the military became aware of the two developers. Willisen was used for acoustic experiments for recordings of muzzle and bullet bangs as a means of determining the time difference and location. The Army Weapons Office then recommended Willisen and Erbslöh to the naval intelligence research institute in Kiel . Together with the physicist Rudolf Kühnhold they were working on new ideas for tracking of ships by reflection of underwater sound and radio waves . Willisen and Erbslöh succeeded in proving the technical possibility of locating ships using bundled radio waves. It was now a matter of building the world's first functioning location system.

Smiled at by the big German companies, Willisen and Erbslöh founded the Gesellschaft für elektroacoustic and mechanical apparatus mbH , GEMA for short, on January 1st, 1934 , which soon had significant developments to show. The navy supported the project with grants so that Willisen could hire another 50 engineers to improve and further develop its location systems. In 1935 GEMA was able to demonstrate the first operational device to the German naval command. Willisen, who wanted to develop his technology primarily for civil aviation , coastal protection and merchant shipping , was urged by the Reichswehr to use the top-secret project exclusively for military purposes. Independently of the British research of the physicist Robert Watson-Watt , Willisen and Freya succeeded in developing a radar for monitoring the airspace. Other types of device were called Calais , Mammut or Aquarius .

With the outbreak of the Second World War , GEMA was used for war production. The company with its 3000 employees and the production sites in Köpenick , Jüterbog , Luckenwalde , Woltersdorf and Wahlstatt had developed from the birthplace of German waterborne sound and radio location technology to a radar industry. It provided the key technology that revolutionized strategic warfare planning. In the last months of the war, parts of the production were outsourced from Silesia to Schleswig-Holstein .

On May 16 and 17, 1945, the British occupation troops blew up the development models and prototypes that had been laboriously rescued from Lensahn - to the annoyance of the British Secret Service , which would have liked to take them over. On May 31, 1945, the British finally liquidated GEMA, which had been classified as an armaments company.

Founding of the company MWL and WILAG

In 1945 Willisen opened the Mechanische Werkstätten Lensahn (MWL) with the radar specialists who had become unemployed . Due to the strict requirements imposed by the Allies , the repair of small electrical appliances and agricultural machines was initially limited. After the loosening of the regulations, Willisen was able to devote himself more to the development and construction of radios , microphones, amplifiers and high- voltage systems. In 1948 his company already had 400 employees. In the same year the MWL was renamed Willisen-Apparatebau-Gesellschaft mbH (WILAG). The currency reform led to a collapse in orders as well as supply and spare parts bottlenecks. In addition, large companies such as Siemens , Telefunken and AEG increasingly entered the market in this sector. In 1949 WILAG had to file for bankruptcy.

Relocation to Wuppertal

Willisen now moved to Wuppertal near the West German radio . Again he gathered former employees from radio and amplifier technology around himself and founded his fourth company, which he Tonographie Apparatebau v. Willisen & Co. Wuppertal-Elberfeld (TAB). With it he succeeded in developing classics of radio and studio technology. They were expelled all over the world. Willisen was only managing director of the successful company for ten years. He died shortly before the age of 60. The company's history ended in 1990.

Works

  • Hans-Karl von Willisen: History of the German radio measurement technology. Copy of a tape recording around 1952, GEMA 1988.

literature

  • Hansfried Sieben: Herbert Grenzebach: a life for the record . Düsseldorf: Seven 1991
  • Harry von Kroge: GEMA - Berlin. Birthplace of German active waterborne sound and radio location technology. Self-published, Hamburg 1998.
  • Monika Wersche: The three lives of Hans-Karl von Willisen. In: Funkstunde. Music-technology-time culture.
  • Uwe Stock: Converted. Radios made in Lensahn. In: one day. Contemporary stories on SPIEGELonline. June 26, 2008.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Genealogical handbook of the nobility . Volume 127: Baronial Houses. Volume 22, Starke Verlag , Limburg an der Lahn 2002, p. 621.
  2. ↑ http://grammophon-platten.de/e107_plugins/forum/forum_viewtopic.php?413
  3. ^ Memories of Erbslöh in: Hansfried Sieben: Herbert Grenzebach . Düsseldorf: Sieben 1991, pp. 15-16
  4. ↑ Oliver Wurl: Ultraphon reflects the tone: the rise and fall of an enterprising record company . In: Classical recordings quarterly . Issue 63, Winter 2010, pp. 37–40. ISSN  2045-6247
  5. ↑ Uwe Stock: Converted. Radios made in Lensahn. In: one day. Contemporary stories on SPIEGELonline. published June 26, 2008.
personal data
SURNAME Willisen, Hans-Karl von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Willisen, Hans-Karl Herman Edwin Heinrich Freiherr von (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German pioneer of radio measurement technology, inventor, designer
DATE OF BIRTH April 19, 1906
PLACE OF BIRTH Charlottenburg
DATE OF DEATH January 26, 1966
Place of death Wuppertal