Leo Lowenstein

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Leo Löwenstein (born February 8, 1879 in Aachen , † November 13, 1956 in Israel ) was a German physicist and chemist.

Leo Löwenstein comes from a respected Jewish family in Aachen who owned a ladies' fashion store.

He studied chemistry in Aachen, Munich and Berlin and received his doctorate in Göttingen in 1905. In Munich he became a member of the Licaria Jewish student union . In Austria he developed a. a. a new process for the production of hydrogen peroxide . His further work was shaped by studies of sound and its measurement.

During the First World War he was an officer, when he left the service he held the rank of captain of the reserve. Löwenstein is the inventor of sound measurement and organized its use in war. His "Procedure for finding the location of sound-producing objects", which he presented to the Artillery Inspection Commission (APK) in October 1913 , was first rejected. That changed after the initial war of movement with the trench warfare on the western front from October 1914. He successfully located enemy locations with his sound measurements. The APK then carried out tests to perfect the procedure on the troop firing range in Kummersdorf. Leo Löwenstein worked with the Reichswehr during and after the First World War in the areas of wireless communication and in experiments with guided missiles .

He applied for over 20 patents, but for patriotic reasons did not have them protected by patent law. For his services he was awarded the Iron Cross First Class and was promoted to Captain of the Reserve.

He became chairman of the Reich Association of Jewish Front-Line Soldiers founded on his initiative in February 1919 .

In 1924 he developed a process for the large-scale production of hydrogen peroxide, which was taken over by the Riedel-de Haën company ( Riedel – Löwenstein – process ).

After the Reichspogromnacht he remained undisturbed as a Jew for the time being because of his reputation in the Reichswehr Ministry. The Reichsbund, on the other hand, was smashed and the association magazine “Der Schild” was discontinued in November 1938. In 1940 Löwenstein and his wife had to do forced labor. In 1943 they were deported to the Theresienstadt concentration camp . They survived the Holocaust and emigrated to Sweden after the Second World War and then to Zurich . Leo Löwenstein died while visiting Israel .

The Dr.-Leo-Löwenstein-Kaserne in Aachen has been named after him since 2014 .

Fonts

  • Contributions to the measurement of dissociations at high temperatures. Göttingen: Dieterich 1905, plus Göttingen, Univ., Diss., 1905

literature

  • Franz Menges:  Löwenstein, Leo. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 15, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1987, ISBN 3-428-00196-6 , p. 106 f. ( Digitized version ).
  • John F. Oppenheimer (Red.) And a .: Lexicon of Judaism. 2nd Edition. Bertelsmann Lexikon Verlag, Gütersloh u. a. 1971, ISBN 3-570-05964-2 , Sp. 445.
  • Günter Nagel: inventor, industrial manager, Jewish officer and politician - the life's work of Dr. Leo Lowenstein. In: Yearbook for Brandenburg State History , 68th Volume (2017), pp. 181–224

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Kurt U. Bertrams: The cartel convent and its connections. WJK-Verlag 2009 ISBN 9783933892690 , p. 209
  2. ^ Günter Nagel: "Eavesdropping on Artillery" in Märkische Oderzeitung , Brandenburger Blätter No. 226 of October 26, 2012, p. 10
personal data
SURNAME Lowenstein, Leo
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Loewenstein, Leo
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German physicist and chemist
DATE OF BIRTH February 8, 1879
PLACE OF BIRTH Aachen
DATE OF DEATH November 13, 1956
Place of death Israel