Herbert Freundlich

Herbert (Max Finlay) Freundlich (born January 28, 1880 in Charlottenburg , today Berlin; † March 30, 1941 in Minneapolis , Minnesota , USA ) was a leading researcher in basic research in colloid chemistry .

Life

Freundlich's mother, Ellen Elizabeth Finlayson, was Scottish, his father Friedrich Philipp Ernst Freundlich ran an iron foundry in Wiesbaden , where he grew up. The eldest child of seven siblings was friendly. His brother Erwin Finlay Freundlich (1885–1964) became an astrophysicist and head of the Einstein Tower in Potsdam . The mother came from a family of musicians and encouraged Herbert Freundlich to play music and also to compose. He was also interested in the animal world and butterflies as well as Greek literature . After graduating from high school in 1898, his piano playing almost reached concert maturity. He was able to study piano and composition with Max Reger and also played the organ. At that time, Freundlich mainly composed chamber music and songs. At first, Freundlich toyed with the idea of ​​becoming a pianist. But after a meeting with the music teacher Josef Gabriel Rheinberger , he decided to study natural sciences, since Rheinberger expected a pianist to practice eight hours a day and travel a lot, and from a composer the quality of Brahms .

First he went in 1898 for a year after Munich, he became a student of renowned chemist Wilhelm Ostwald in Leipzig , where he in 1903 with the work over the precipitation of colloidal solutions of electrolytes doctorate . There he completed his habilitation in physical and inorganic chemistry in 1906 . In 1911 he became a professor at the Technical University of Braunschweig . Fritz Haber became aware of the young scientist's talent and in 1916 offered him a position at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physical Chemistry and Electrochemistry in Berlin-Dahlem , today the Fritz Haber Institute of the Max Planck Society . As early as 1919 he became deputy director of the institute. From 1923 he also taught as an honorary professor at the University of Berlin and, from 1925, at the Technical University . He also became a board member of the German colloid society . In 1932 he was elected a member of the Leopoldina .

The transfer of power to the National Socialists in 1933 put an end to Freundlich's successful research work in Germany. Because of the Jewish origin of his paternal grandmother, he was henceforth considered to be a “non- Aryan ” and fell under Section 3 of the “Professional Civil Servants Act ” . Like Fritz Haber, he refused to dismiss his non-Aryan employees; both resigned from their offices and emigrated to England. In December 1933 his teaching license was revoked. In late 1933 he accepted the offer of a visiting professorship at University College London .

The British and Americans had set up an agency in Linkstrasse on Potsdamer Platz especially for scientists who were banned from working . Freundlich emigrated to England with his entire department. The shipping of equipment that had been purchased with funds from the Rockefeller Foundation was not stopped by the interim director Otto Hahn . The Rockefeller Foundation returned the favor in 1937 by participating in financing another physics institute. The involvement of the oil industry in colloid chemistry is no coincidence, as the viscosity of petroleum , bitumen , tar, etc. is one of the main problems in oil production. After Freundlich's emigration, the KWI for Physical Chemistry was once again converted into a military research institute for poison gas research .

In order to end the exodus of its best researchers, German industry sent Privy Councilor Max Planck to meet Hitler . The explosive stupidity of his answer already anticipated the annihilations that would soon follow: “Yes, what does it matter if Germany has no leading physicists for a generation? Bigger things are important to me, Privy Councilor, German racial unity is important to me! "

In 1938 Freundlich accepted a position at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, USA . There he died in 1941 as an uprooted and broken man.

In his honor, the German Rheological Society dedicated its 4th conference in 1954 in Berlin as the Herbert Freundlich Memorial Congress, where a Herbert Freundlich Medal was also given to Dr. George Blair was awarded.

research

Freundlich's research area covered the entire field of colloids , and he was particularly interested in the colloidal dispersion states of sols and gels . He introduced the term thixotropy in the sense of thickening to describe the behavior of gels. The deflection of light from scattered particles was a research topic, as was the electrical charge, which he considered to be decisive for the scattering behavior of the particles. He also researched the properties of viscosity and elasticity and the behavior of certain substances such as concrete under the influence of mechanical forces. One result of these studies has been the development of non-drip paints. The Freundlich adsorption isotherm is named after him.

Employee

Two of his PhD students also made a name for themselves in other ways apart from colloid chemistry:

• Robert Havemann and
• Friedrich Rogowski.

KPD member Havemann was also politically active after 1933 in the resistance group " New Beginning " and became a highly respected colloid chemist in the GDR. He later made headlines with internal party criticism and was finally banned from working. In the summer of 1933, Havemann denounced Freundlich's plan to have Fritz Haber and Max Planck send some of the devices at the KWIcPh that had been purchased with funds from the Rockefeller Foundation to their exile in London. This delayed the project.
Rogowski, on the other hand, went through an inconspicuous, traditional academic career. But shortly before his retirement, he discovered a trigonometric surveying system from ancient Greece.

Another doctoral student was Morton Masius , who later translated Planck's lectures on the theory of thermal radiation into English. He became professor of physics at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute (USA).

literature

• Frederick George Donnan : Herbert Freundlich 1880-1941. in: Obituary Notices of Fellows of the Royal Society . Vol. 4, No. 11, November 1942, pp. 27-50. ( Introduction ).
• American Jewish Year Book. Vol. 43, 1941-1942, ( Necrology, p. 357 , PDF file; 486 kB).
• Josef Reitstötter: Kindly  , Herbert Max Finlay. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 5, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1961, ISBN 3-428-00186-9 , p. 413 f. ( Digitized version ).
• Wilfried Heller: Herbert Freundlich. A biographical essay in commemoration of his 100th birthday. Detroit: Great Lakes Conference of Polymer and Colloid Science. 63 pages, 1980 (in Germany only at the University of Mainz).
• "Some interruptions were really unnecessary", conversation with Alfred Sohn-Rethel. in: Mathias Greffrath : The Destruction of a Future. Talks with emigrated social scientists. Frankfurt a. M. 1989, Campus, 213-262, pp. 229f.
• Alfred Sohn-Rethel : Industry and National Socialism. Notes from the "Central European Business Day". Berlin 1992, Wagenbach, pp. 57 and 171.
• Ruth Lewin Sime : Otto Hahn and the Max Planck Society. Between the past and memory. Edited by Carola Sachse on behalf of the Presidential Commission of the Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science e. V. 2004, ( online file , PDF file; 484 kB), 72 pages.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Page no longer available , search in web archives: “Did you know that the scientist Herbert Freundlich was also a composer?” Herbert-freund.com, 2008.
2. ↑ Biographies, publications and academic family tree of Herbert Max Finlay Freundlich at academictree.org, accessed on February 6, 2018.
3. ^ ^{A b} Alfred Sohn-Rethel : Industry and National Socialism. Notes from the "Central European Business Day". Ed. And incorporated. by Carl Freytag. Wagenbach, Berlin 1992, p. 57.
4. ↑ Ruth Lewin Sime: Otto Hahn and the Max Planck Society. Between the past and memory. Research program "History of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society under National Socialism", 2004, p. 14f., ( Online , PDF file, 72 pages; 484 kB)
5. ↑ Ruth Lewin Sime: 2004, p. 15.
6. ^ Margit Szöllösi-Janze: Fritz Haber 1868-1934. Eine Biographie, Munich 1998, p. 670ff.
7. ↑ Fritz Rogowski: " Tennen and stone circles in Greece". Announcements from the Technical University Carolo-Wilhelmina in Braunschweig VIII, Issue II, 3–16., 1973.

Web links

• Literature by and about Herbert Freundlich in the catalog of the German National Library
• Overview of Herbert Freundlich's courses at the University of Leipzig (summer semester 1907 to winter semester 1911)
• Lothar Jaenicke : Herbert Max Freundlich's souvenir picture . BIOspektrum June 2009, pp. 697–698.
• Otto Hahn's role as interim director of the KWI for Physical Chemistry and Electrochemistry in 1933. A preprint from the research program “History of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society under National Socialism” (PDF file; 484 kB)