Marga Faulstich

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Marga Faulstich (born June 16, 1915 in Weimar ; † February 1, 1998 in Mainz ) was a German chemist . She worked for Schott-Glaswerke for 44 years and developed over 300 types of optical glasses during this time . During this time she filed around 40 patents . She was also the first female manager at Schott-Glas in Mainz.

life and work

Marga Faulstich was born in Weimar as one of three children. In 1922 the family moved to Jena , where Faulstich attended the secondary school. After graduating from high school in 1935, she began training with the glassmaker Walter Geffcken as a research assistant at the Schott glass works, one of the leading manufacturers of optical and technical special glasses in Europe. In her early years she worked on the development of thin layers ; In 1939, the research group submitted the first patent. The basic research begun at that time has been used for sunglasses, anti-reflective glasses and for glass facades.

The talented young woman quickly made a career: from assistant to laboratory assistant , scientific assistant and finally to scientist. Her fiancé died in World War II and from then on she only focused on her career. From 1942 she studied chemistry while working. She could not finish her studies because the situation had changed fundamentally after the war. Jena belonged to the Soviet zone of occupation . However, Jena was home to the most progressive art of glassmaking in the world and the Western allies wanted to use this know-how for their own countries. Therefore, 41 specialists and executives from Schott were brought into the American occupation zone , including Marga Faulstich. The Schott people lived in makeshift barracks, but a new research laboratory was built in Landshut in 1949 for research purposes.

After the division of Germany had been decided in 1949 and the factory in Jena had been expropriated in 1948 , the entrepreneur Erich Schott negotiated with the Mainz city administration about the relocation of the Schott & Gen glass factory. As a result , the groundbreaking ceremony was carried out in June on the Ingelheimer Aue industrial peninsula, on the edge of Mainz Neustadt , on the former site of the Mainz slaughterhouse . The new, modern glass factory started production in the optics works on May 10, 1952.

Here Marga Faulstich was able to devote herself to the research and development of new optical glasses, especially for lenses on microscopes and binoculars . In addition to her research, she headed a crucible smelter for 16 years .

Marga Faulstich received international recognition for the invention of the lightweight heavy flint 64 (SF 64) lens , for which she was awarded the IR-100 medal of the Industrial Research Incorporation in Chicago in 1973 as one of the hundred most important technical innovations of the year.

In 1979 she retired after 44 years with Schott. She spent the following years traveling all over the world, but still gave lectures and presentations at glass congresses. She died in Mainz at the age of 82.

Honors

  • On November 19, 2015, an access road in the Wellsee district of Kiel was named after the chemist.
  • Also in 2015, the district assembly of the Berlin district of Marzahn-Hellersdorf assigned the name Marga Faulstich to one of the new streets in the Clean-Tech-Businesspark technology park .
  • On June 16, 2018, Google dedicated a Google Doodle to her in honor of her 103rd birthday .

literature

  • Schott Glaswerke (Ed.): From Jena to Mainz - and back. Schott story between the Cold War and German reunification. Mainz 1995. schott.com (PDF; 1.7 MB)

Individual evidence

  1. a b c Marga Faulstich - the glassmaker , on eyebizz.de; accessed on March 25, 2018.
  2. Hans-G. Hilscher, Dietrich Bleihöfer: Marga-Faulstich-Strasse. In: Kiel Street Lexicon. Continued since 2005 by the Office for Building Regulations, Surveying and Geoinformation of the State Capital Kiel, as of February 2017 ( kiel.de ).
  3. Biographies of women after whom new streets in Marzahn were named in 2015 (according to BVV decision of February 25, 2015).
  4. ^ Marga Faulstich: Google Doodle for the 103rd birthday of the German chemist and inventor. Retrieved June 15, 2018 .