Hugo Theodor Horwitz

Hugo Theodor Horwitz (born February 27, 1882 in Vienna , † probably July 1942 near Minsk ) was an Austrian engineer , cultural and technical historian .

Life

Hugo Horwitz grew up as the son of a wealthy Jewish businessman in Vienna and was to study law or medicine, if his father wanted. However, after he had to switch from grammar school to secondary school, he decided to study mechanical engineering at the Technical University of Vienna with a guest semester at the Technical University of Berlin-Charlottenburg . After completing his studies in 1905, Horwitz worked for the Austrian Fiat works , but he soon decided to switch to scientific work. After he had published several articles in various journals, he moved from Vienna to Berlin in 1911 to do his doctorate with Conrad Matschoss , the holder of the first chair in technology history in Germany. In order not to endanger his aspired academic career, he converted to Catholicism and took on the middle name Theodor.

In the next few years Horwitz, now Dr.-Ing. , countless articles on various topics of the history of technology and culture, especially in the "history sheets for technology, industry and trade" by Franz Maria Feldhaus , as well as in the "contributions to the history of technology and industry" Matschoss'. In 1916 he was drafted into the KuK army; However, he was transferred to the Vienna Army Museum and did not have to go to the front. At the age of 37, he married Marianne Ehrmann, who was eleven years his junior in 1920; Their son Anselm was born in 1921. Despite the difficult conditions in post-war Austria, Horwitz managed to support his small family. In the 1920s, he published several articles in the journal “Technik und Kultur” of the Association of German Graduated Engineers, particularly on the methodology of the still young discipline of the history of technology . In 1932 Horwitz submitted his habilitation thesis to the Technical University of Vienna under the title “ On the law of change of use and the development principles for simple technical structures ”, but this was rejected due to its focus on ancient and medieval technologies.

With the seizure of power by the National Socialists in Germany, Horwitz lost a large part of his publication opportunities and thus his income; after the annexation of Austria into the Reich Horwitz was allowed to visit more because of his Jewish ancestry no libraries and museums and was thus no longer able to continue his scientific work. For unexplained reasons, the Horwitz couple refrained from using an opportunity to leave the country towards the end of the 1930s (unlike their son Anselm Horwitz). In November 1941 Hugo and Marianne Horwitz were deported to Minsk in occupied Belarus and came to the local ghetto ; with the mass shootings there in July 1942 their trail is lost.

Aftermath

Despite the large number of articles that Horwitz published and despite its importance also recognized by his contemporaries, Hugo Theodor Horwitz was largely forgotten after the Second World War. Inspired by the mention of Horwitz 'in two essays by the British historian Lynn White jr. From the 1970s onwards, the German technical historian Ulrich Troitzsch dealt with Horwitz's biography, albeit without much hope of finding out much about him. However, this changed with the Austrian Art Restitution Act of 1998, in the course of which the Technische Museum Wien checked its holdings and in 2005 finally came across Horwitz's extensive estate in the form of manuscripts, notes, letters and photos that had reached the museum after his deportation . In the course of the following research, it was possible to locate Horwitz's son, who fled Austria in 1938.

evaluation

Most of his contemporaries had a high opinion of Horwitz and appreciated his new ideas and great expertise. Feldhaus described him as “one of the few critical and impartial experts within the various historical schools”. However, reservations about his interdisciplinary approach, his lack of institutional integration and his Jewish origins may also have been the reason why he could not find a permanent position as a historian.

In the modern reception, Horwitz is perceived as an extremely unknown but still current author who was ahead of his time with many ideas. Lynn White Jr. called him "a pioneer historian of technology". Troitzsch and Brandstetter honor him as a "bridge builder between the sciences".

Selection of publications

Monographs

• The development of the support bearings including a history of the lubricants, the lubricating devices and theories of friction - Berlin: Ms. Zillessen, 1916

Periodical publications

• The future of automobile traffic , in: Der Motorwagen 10 (1907), no.13
• Relay and transformer, a technical study on forms of energy and energy evaluation in: Rundschau für Technik und Wirtschaft 4 (1911)
• A contribution to the relationships between East Asian and European technology in: Journal of the Austrian Association of Engineers and Architects 65 (1913)
• History of technology in: German history sheets. Monthly for research into the German past based on regional history, 16 (1915)
• The relay principle , Prometheus 27 (1916)
• About a construction by Leonardo da Vinci in: History sheets for technology, industry and trade 7 (1920)
• The importance of the work rhythm for the development of human technology in: Die Werkzeugmaschine, trade fair number, spring 1921
• The meaning of rotary motion for the development of material culture , Anthropos, 1934

literature

• Thomas Brandstetter, Ulrich Troitzsch (Ed.): Hugo Theodor Horwitz. The relay principle. ISBN 978-3-85409-476-0 , Vienna 2008
• Ulrich Troitzsch : Hugo Theodor Horwitz (1882-1941 / 42) . In: Technikgeschichte, Vol. 76 (2009), H. 4, pp. 347-354.

Web links

• Literature by and about Hugo Theodor Horwitz in the catalog of the German National Library
• The Vienna Technical Museum on the return of Horwitz's estate
• The decision in full (PDF file; 116 kB)