Hermann Behnken

Hermann Behnken (born September 30, 1889 in Hamburg , † April 1945 in or near Berlin ) was a German physicist.

Behnken attended the Johanneum in Hamburg with his Abitur in 1908 and studied first theology and then mathematics and physics (and other natural sciences) in Hamburg, Jena and Berlin, where he received his doctorate summa cum laude under Heinrich Rubens in 1913 ( On the polarization of short Hertzian Waves through metallic grids ). He then worked at the Physikalisch-Technische Reichsanstalt (PTR) in Berlin-Charlottenburg, where he became a member and head of the X-ray laboratory from 1925. In 1935 he became a senior councilor. He was wounded in the First World War and was drafted as a reserve officer from 1940 and was active at the front and later in research. He was lost in the Battle of Berlin in 1945.

At the PTR he developed an ionization chamber ( barrel chamber ) for the precise measurement of the dose of X-ray machines, whereupon the X-ray unit was introduced in Germany in 1924. Behnken then successfully sought international recognition for the unit (Radiology Congress in Stockholm in 1928).

In 1928 he became an honorary member of the American College of Radiology. In 1939 he was chairman of the German Radiological Society.

He wrote several articles in the Handbook of Physics on X-rays.

Web links

• Hermann Behnken-Berger-Foundation with biography of Behnken by Dieter Hoffmann