Joseph Benedict Engl

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Berlin memorial plaque on Babelsberger Strasse 49 in Berlin-Wilmersdorf

Joseph Benedict Engl ( Jo Engl ; born August 6, 1893 in Munich , † April 8, 1942 in New York City ) was a German physicist and sound film pioneer.

Life

Joseph Benedikt Engl, who later called himself “Jo Engl” for short, was the son of the illustrator Joseph Benedikt Engl , who was born in 1867 as the son of a Bavarian father and an Austrian mother near Salzburg and grew up and settled in Munich. After attending elementary school, he entered the first class of Munich's Maximiliansgymnasium in September 1903 and passed the Abitur exam there in 1912. In the winter semester of 1912/13 he began studying mathematics and physics at the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich and received his doctorate in 1917 - still during the World War - at the University of Göttingen . In the same year he entered into a first marriage with Frieda Vierhaus (* 1892) from Bielefeld, from which a son and a daughter emerged.

In 1918 Joseph Engl got to know the engineers Joseph Massolle and Hans Vogt and discussed with them ways of making the silent film "speak". On July 1, 1919, he founded the “Laboratory for Cinematography ” with them in a former flower shop in Berlin- Wilmersdorf, from which the “ Tri-Ergon ” company, the “Work of the Three” emerged. Engl, Masolle and Vogt worked out a photocopiable optical sound method based on an invention by the German physicist Ernst Walter Ruhmer from 1901, who discovered that it was possible to record sound waves photographically on film. They developed the necessary components themselves: the "cathodophone", a microphone (see also web links ) that used electrical conductors that could be mechanically influenced based on the carbon microphone , and the "ultra-frequency lamp", which converts current fluctuations into light fluctuations without distortion, with up to 20,000 impressions per second. These were photographically applied to the film strip as a sound track. Highly sensitive, potassium-coated photocells based on electron tubes served as amplifiers for reproduction. They constructed a funnel-free, electrostatic loudspeaker , the “Statophon”, for different pitches .

As early as August 8, 1918, they registered the "Process for controlling electrical currents through sound forces", registered under the number DRP 350500, and by 1925 over 150 other patents. The financing was initially private and from 1920 onwards with a bank loan; in addition, the electrical engineering entrepreneur Carl Lorenz (later Schaub-Lorenz) joined the company as a partner. On February 26, 1921, the first “talking film” was shown, a recording by the speech artist Friedel Hintze, who read Goethe's poem “Heideröschen”. On September 17, 1922, the first light and sound film was presented in the Berlin film theater "Alhambra" on Kurfürstendamm in front of around 1000 spectators. The one-hour program consisted of a welcoming address (Gustav May), pieces of music, the (filmed!) Recitation of a poem by the actress Rose Lichtenstein and humorous film scenes, excerpts from the film "Der Brandstifter" produced by the actor, director and screenwriter Erwin Baron . During its production and further test films in a silent film studio, over 1000 sacks of potatoes were attached to the ceilings and walls to suppress undesirable sound effects; the film camera was embedded in a wooden housing filled with sawdust. Image and sound tracks - these outside the perforation - were integrated on the 42 millimeter wide celluloid strip, which ran at a speed of 20 frames per second, with the sound track being scanned by a light beam.

Joseph Engl worked for "Tri-Ergon AG" in Zurich from 1923 to 1926 and in the meantime completed his habilitation in 1925 at the Technical University in Berlin with the text "On the equation of state and internal friction of hydrogen gas". He then received a teaching position at the Technical University in Berlin and carried out research on ultrasound , the frequencies above the human hearing range , in his own laboratory . In 1925 he was responsible for the sound of the short film “The girl with the sulfur woods”, based on the fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen , produced by “Universum-Film AG” ( UFA ) in Berlin . However, the premiere had to be canceled due to significant technical defects; the film became a commercial failure.

In 1926 the Tri-Ergon patents were sold on to the American film producer William Fox and the German film company " TOBIS " (Deutsches Tonbild-Syndikat). A court settlement was reached in 1929 with "KLANGFILM GmbH", founded by the companies " AEG " and " SIEMENS & HALSKE ": "TOBIS" produced the films from then on, "KLANGFILM" the devices. In the conflict between the European and American film industry, the main opponents, the "TOBIS-KLANGFILM" group and the American corporations, agreed in the " Paris Sound Film Peace " of 1930 on a division of the world market.

From 1929 Engl worked for the American film company "FOX" on the development of sound film equipment, emigrated to the USA in 1939 and worked there as a consulting physicist. In the census (US-Census) of 1940 he was registered with his second wife Erika, née Briesemeister, and their mother Maria in New York City. He died at the age of only 49. Two memorial plaques in Berlin, one since 1964 on the "Hotel Kurfürstendamm" (Kurfürstendamm 68), the former Alhambra cinema, and another in Wilmersdorf at the former "Laboratory for Cinematography" remind of him and his employees and their groundbreaking invention.

Fonts

  • The sounding film. The Triergon method and its possible applications (= Vieweg Collection. Issue 89), Vieweg & Sohn, Braunschweig 1927.
  • Room and building acoustics. A guide for architects and engineers. Akadademie Verlagsgesellschaft, Leipzig 1939.

literature

  • Adolf Kretschy: The speaking film , in: Wiener Bilder, No. 24, June 1928, p. 12.
  • Albert Neuburger: The speaking film , in: The Philosopher's Stone, entertainment and instruction from all areas of knowledge for home and family. Illustrated bi-monthly publication for home and family. Hartleben's Verlag, Vienna and Leipzig, undated (1904), pp. 12-13.
  • Rudolf Vierhaus (Ed.): Deutsche Biographische Enzyklopädie (DBE), 2nd edition, vol. 3, Verlag KGSaur, Munich 2006, p. 88.
  • Hans Vogt: The Invention of the Sound Film. A look back at the work of the Engl – Massolle – Vogt inventors' association. Self-published, Erlau near Passau 1954.
  • Hans Vogt: The Invention of Optical Sound Film , in: Deutsches Museum, Abhandlungen undberichte, 32nd year, issue 2, Oldenbourg, Munich 1964.
  • Hermann Naber: Ruttmann & Konsorten. On the early relationship between radio play and film , in: Rundfunk und Geschichte. Communications from the Study Group on Broadcasting and History, Volume 32, No. 3–4. 2006, pp. 5–20 (rundfunkundgeschichte.de/assets/RuG_2006_3-4.pdf).
  • Siegfried Weiß : Joseph Engl, Max-Abitur 1912: physicist and sound film pioneer , in: Association of Friends of the Maximiliansgymnasium (ed.): Maximiliansgymnasium Munich. Photo yearbook 2017. Report on the school year 2016/2017. Pp. 63–69 (ill.).

Web links

Commons : Joseph Benedict Engl (film technician)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Annual report on the K. Maximilians-Gymnasium in Munich for the school year 1911/12
  2. ↑ Script: Hans Kyser ; Direction, editing and music: Guido Bagier ; Actors: Else von Möllendorff and Wilhelm Diegelmann
personal data
SURNAME Engl, Joseph Benedict
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Engl, Jo
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German physicist and sound film pioneer
DATE OF BIRTH August 6, 1893
PLACE OF BIRTH Munich
DATE OF DEATH April 8, 1942
Place of death New York City

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