Max Dieckmann

Max Wilhelm Friedrich Dieckmann (born July 5, 1882 in Herrmannsacker near Stolberg (Harz) , † July 28, 1960 in Graefelfing ) was a German high-frequency technician . He worked as an associate professor for radio technology and aeronautical communications at the Technical University of Munich and headed the institute for radio technology . Dieckmann was a pioneer in the field of aeronautical radio research and, with the development of the first electronic recording tube, also a pioneer of television technology in Germany. In 1908 he founded the wireless telegraphic and air-electrical test station Graefelfing (DVG) , in 1937 the aeronautical research institute Oberpfaffenhofen (FFO) , the nucleus of the research center Oberpfaffenhofen of the German Aerospace Center (DLR).

Life

Youth and Studies

Dieckmann's birthplace in Herrmannsacker

Dieckmann was born as the son of the domain tenant and farmer Theodor D. Dieckmann and his wife Alma, geb. Seipke, born in Herrmannsacker. Until 1903 he studied at the humanistic Thomas School in Leipzig and obtained his Abitur there. He then studied mathematics , chemistry , experimental physics and general electrical engineering at the Georg-August University in Göttingen and the University of Leipzig . In 1905 he went to the Physics Institute of the Kaiser-Wilhelms-Universität Strasbourg , where he was assistant to Professor Ferdinand Braun (Nobel Prize winner 1909), who worked there with wireless telegraphy . In 1907 he graduated as Dr. phil. nat. with a thesis on high frequency technology . The topic of his dissertation was on temporal relationships of vibrations in capacitor circuits .

On June 8, 1906, he and his colleague Gustav Glage proved the suitability of the cathode ray tube as an image writer (for the transmission of characters) with a two-slide apparatus - against the will of Professor Braun, who considered such applications to be unscientific gimmicks . This enabled an image point to be moved and photographed. On October 10, 1906, they registered a patent for this as a cathode ray relay based on the principle of the Braun tube ( DRP 184710: steadily quantitatively acting relay using the electrical deflectability of cathode rays ). They referred to the work of the Austrian physicist Robert von Liebens from March 4, 1906, but used a straight cathode and a shadow mask to produce the sharpest possible cathode ray. However, Braun was angry about the patent and in order not to jeopardize their doctorate, they did not pursue it any further. It expired due to non-use.

Assistantship

In 1907 he moved to Munich, where he was the first assistant at the Technical University of Munich to take measurements of the electricity in the air, first in the Ostermeier garden of the TU, then with a balloon and kite at the university observatory . In the same year he built the first electric television set with a three by three centimeter screen, 20 rows and columns each and 10 frames per second. However, a camera was not yet available as there were no amplifiers for the electricity from the selenium photo element . As the objects to be depicted, they used metal stencils that were galvanically scanned ten times per second by 20 spiral-shaped contact brushes on a rotating disk.

On October 14, 1908, he leased a meadow with a wooden hut in the Munich suburb of Graefelfing , Bergstrasse 42 (since 1945 Prof.-Kurt-Huber-Strasse), in order to carry out air-electrical measurements. In 1908 he founded the wireless telegraphic and air-electric test station Graefelfing (DVG) for experiments with students. Donors supported him in setting up workshops and radio transmitters. In 1909 Ferdinand Graf von Zeppelin became interested in the radio telegraphic transmitter and they undertook test flights over Lake Constance . He investigated the electrical properties of balloon materials, the conductivity of which he increased with fine gold plating until 1911 so that static electricity could not develop. As a result, the Tempelhof balloon cover company (later BG-Textilwerke GmbH ) was founded. He also demonstrated that the previously feared wireless telegraphy can be used safely on hydrogen-filled airships.

In 1910 he completed his habilitation with the thesis Experimental investigations from the border area between wireless telegraphy and air electricity . He was Hermann Ebert's assistant and, as a private lecturer in pure and applied physics , looked after around 25 students from 1912 . With them he set up a station building in Graefelfing. At the time, television was about as highly regarded in scientific circles as the perpetual motion machine . When he wanted to give a lecture on wireless television at the Technical University in 1913 , the Senate objected. He had to rename it to high-manifold long-distance transmission .

First World War

During the First World War , the station in Graefelfing was used for military purposes. Dieckmann himself volunteered and was assigned to the Munich news replacement department. Since the outbreak of war he developed military material. Devices for locating French telegraph cables, telephones for scouting basket observers and goniometer direction finders have been implemented on it. He was a consultant for questions about airships in Berlin and responsible for the scientific department of the Prussian Inspection of the Airship Force. He was also a member of the gas commission of the Imperial Navy . In 1915 he went back to work in Graefelfing and carried out tests on direction finding and edited service regulations. From the end of 1917 he was in charge of the tube laboratory at the Flieger-Nachrichten test department in Döberitz . This developed radio image devices for the artillery aviation department. In 1919 his station was temporarily occupied by "Red Troops" and he was looking for civilian electrophysical jobs. He improved the process of metallizing fabrics used in the Edison laboratories in West Orange , United States, for metallizing fashion fabrics for revue shows. Particular attention was paid to vacuum technology , spectroscopy and high voltage .

In 1920 he accepted an extraordinary professorship in Munich. In 1922 he founded a factory in Philadelphia for the production of metallic colored fabrics. From 1923 he devoted himself to researching the radiation field . His testing devices for balloon fabrics, radio picture devices and thunderstorm alarms were sold in the USA, England, Japan and Russia during these days. In 1925 he and his assistant Rudolf Hell invented the photo- electric image splitter for image telegraphy (RPA 1927: Lichtelectronic. Image splitting tube for television ). In 1925 he constructed a television set with the help of the Braun tube and developed photoelectric scanning and the first purely electronic recording tube . He introduced the wireless transmission of image signals and synchronization streams. In addition, he dealt with several industrial topics. For the Deutsche Reichsbahn he worked on the electronic train control , he served the Reichspost and the Junkers & Co. company as well as the Bavarian Crown Estate Management and the Munich radio station. In 1926 the Reich Ministry of Transport in Berlin commissioned him with the projects of wireless remote control and automatic aircraft control . In 1927 he built on the site of the former Bavarian folding boat yard Steiner &. Hart the branch office in Riederau am Ammersee . In 1931 an omnidirectional antenna was set up in Graefelfing for research purposes . In 1932 there were demonstrations with a self-rotating bearing at the Oberwiesenfeld airfield and the Schleissheim airfield . Dieckmann began antenna research on missiles and the like. a. a Junkers F 13 .

Professorship in Munich

From 1933 onwards his range of activities was expanded. Colonel Albert Kesselring (General Field Marshal from 1940) visited Graefelfing and guaranteed subsidies as a representative of the Reich Aviation Ministry . In 1934 a new building for the manufacture of tubes was built and research focused on military equipment of the Reichswehr . 146 people were working at the site at that time. A laboratory with a microwave measuring section was built in Hohenpeißenberg . In 1926 the German Aviation Research Institute (DVL) founded a department for high-frequency research in Berlin-Adlershof. Since the TH Munich thwarted his poaching, he became a substitute member of the Technical Advisory Board the following year. In 1936 he was appointed a regular associate professor at the TH Munich. In 1937 the Institute for Radio Technology and Aviation Radio was set up for him . In the same year, through contacts with Claudius Dornier, he set up the Aeronautical Research Institute Oberpfaffenhofen (FFO) at the Oberpfaffenhofen airfield of the Dornier-Werke , in which the DVG was merged. In 1956, the FFO became the Institute for Aviation Radio (DVL), from which the Oberpfaffenhofen Research Center of the German Aerospace Center (DLR) developed.

After the LZ 129 “Hindenburg” had an accident in Lakehurst in May 1937 , he was one of the six members of the investigative committee ( Hugo Eckener , Joachim Breithaupt, Günther Bock , Ludwig Dürr and Brieirich Hoffman). Almost nothing was known about the electrical properties of the Cellon paint. In Graefelfing he carried out electrostatic tests on the remains of the shell of the Hindenburg. His result was only given in the English report: “If the outer shell was painted the original color of the Graf Zeppelin, an explosion could not be triggered under any circumstances. When the Hindenburg paint was used, however, a detonation always occurred. ”This paragraph was deleted from the German report. This discrepancy in the reports was not noticed until the early 1990s by airship expert Gordon Vaeth . 

In 1947 Dieckmann went to the USA to Wright-Patterson Airfield in Ohio , but returned after just one year for health reasons. He died in 1960.

Awards, prizes and honors

In 1943 he was awarded the German Instrument Flight and Flight Navigation Prize of the German Academy of Aviation Research. In 1978, Prof.-Max-Dieckmann-Platz in Graefelfing was named after the scientist .

Works

• About temporal relationships of oscillations in capacitor circuits (three thermocouple method), Berlin 1907
• Experimental investigations from the border area between wireless telegraphy and air electricity, Berlin 1912
• Guide to wireless telegraphy for aviation, Munich 1913

literature

• Franz Berndorfer: Prof. Dr. Dieckmann 60 years . In: high frequency technology and electroacoustics. Yearbook of Wireless Telegraphy and Telephony . Vol. 60. Issue 1, July 1942, p. 1 f.
• Paul Freiherr von Handel: Address on the 60th birthday of the full member Max Dieckmann . In: Yearbook of the German Academy of Aviation Research 1942/1943 , p. 206 ff.
• Gerhart Goebel: The first television . In: The time . 31/1957.
• Hans-Joachim Zetzmann: Max Dieckmann . In: Yearbook 1960 of the WGL . P. 484 ff.
• Hans-Joachim Zetzmann: In recognition of Professor Dr. phil. nat. Max Dieckmann . In: Festschrift for the 50th anniversary of the DVL . 1962, p. 126 f.
• Ernst Heinrich Hirschel, Horst Prem , Gero Madelung: Aeronautical Research in Germany. From Lilienthal until Today . Springer, Berlin 2004, ISBN 3-540-40645-X , p. 47.

Web links

• Literature by and about Max Dieckmann in the catalog of the German National Library
• Max Dieckmann in the Munzinger archive
• Biography of Max Dieckmann at DLR
• Max Dieckmann. Founder of the research location Oberpfaffendorf (PDF; 3.3 MB)
• FFO, flight research Oberpfaffenhofen

Individual evidence

1. ^ Dieckmann 1882–1960 at the DLR
2. ↑ Richard Sachse, Karl Ramshorn, Reinhart Herz: The teachers of the Thomasschule in Leipzig 1832-1912. The high school graduates of the Thomas School in Leipzig 1845–1912 . BG Teubner Verlag, Leipzig 1912, p. 108.
3. ↑ G. Glage: Experimental investigations on the resonance inductor ; Inaug.-diss., Strasbourg, 1907 (incl.vita)
4. ↑ Dr. Max Dieckmann and Dipl.-Ing. Rudolf Hell: Photoelectric image splitting tubes for televisions . In: Patent No. DE 450,187 . German Reich Reich Patent Office. patented April 5, 1925, issued October 3, 1927. Retrieved July 30, 2009.
5. ↑ uni-stuttgart.de
6. ↑ Spark on the paint . In: Der Spiegel . No. 15 , 1991 ( online ).
7. ^ Deadly spark for a thousand theories. In: Spiegel Online - Wissenschaft , May 4, 2007