Paul Roentgen

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Paul Röntgen (born October 26, 1881 in Aachen ; † November 2, 1965 there ) was a German professor of metallurgy and rector of RWTH Aachen University .

Live and act

After graduating from high school in 1902, Paul Röntgen studied metallurgy at RWTH Aachen University. At the beginning of his studies there he became a member of the Academic Association of Chemists, Miners and Smelters , which later became Corps Montania, but left the following semester. He completed his studies in 1906 with a diploma. He then went on several study trips, including to England and the USA. From 1909 to 1913, Röntgen was construction and operations manager in the metallurgical department of the Norddeutsche Affinerie in Hamburg, and from 1914 to 1924 director of the copper smelter in Ilsenburg. He turned down a call to the Technical University of Wroclaw in 1921, but four years later he accepted a comparable offer in his hometown, where he took over the chair for metallurgy and soldering tube testing at RWTH Aachen on October 1, 1925, as the successor to Professor Wilhelm Borchers . He held this position until his retirement in 1952 and was in the meantime from 1932 to 1934 as successor to Felix Rötscher and from 1945 to 1948 as successor to Hans Ehrenberg rector and from 1934 to 1937 prorector of the university.

His specialist areas of expertise were electrolytic metal extraction and the refining of aluminum .

Röntgen's role in the National Socialist state

Paul Röntgen was considered the transitional rector between the Weimar Republic and the Third Reich and although he was conservative and German-national, Röntgen tried to curb the influence of the new rulers on the university. Despite certain affinities, like his predecessor Felix Rötscher in the rector's office, he did not belong to the NSDAP , tried to warn against the influence of the parties at the beginning and attacked above all the rector of the University of Jena Abraham Esau , who on February 27, 1933 became one Called for a declaration of sympathy for Hindenburg and thus also for Adolf Hitler's seizure of power. This attitude helped Röntgen, as well as many other employees of the TH who sympathized with him , to their confirmation in office on April 29, 1933 in the re -election of the rectorate, senate and dean's office at the universities, in which there were no regular elections, ordered by Bernhard Rust , because those eligible to vote were in favor of continuity and against National Socialism. In the course of the next months and years, however, he came closer and closer to the required party line, especially in his speeches and joined the National Socialist People's Welfare , the National Socialist Association of German Technicians , the National Socialist Teachers' Association and the National Socialist German Lecturer Association , but still wanted freedom of assistance for colleagues in distress. Nevertheless, in 1934, together with Felix Rötscher and Hubert Hoff on the matriculation committee of the TH, he could not prevent the proportion of Jewish students from being reduced from 5 to 1.5% and later even further. He was also probably not in a position to lobby for Jewish or allegedly Marxist professors to remain at RWTH Aachen University, but tried to alleviate their personal distress as far as possible or even to prevent their arrest. Since he did not succeed in this, instead of consistently resigning from all offices, he decided to initially only work as prorector from 1934 and only as head of the institute from 1937, thus releasing himself from responsibility.

Röntgen's role after World War II

After the end of the Second World War , Röntgen, who was classified as formally unencumbered by the Allied military government , was commissioned on August 23, 1945 to initially make himself available as provisional and a little later as elected rector and to promote the reconstruction of RWTH Aachen University . Röntgen made significant efforts and this was undoubtedly his achievement in getting teaching both spatially and organisationally going in a very short time, especially since numerous university interruptions caused by the war pushed back to the university. However, when reintegrating into the university service, Röntgen also took into account colleagues who were Nazi-charged, such as the former rectors Alfred Buntru and Otto Gruber , by willingly and uncritically issued letters of exoneration, which were intended to benefit them in the course of their denazification proceedings . He and his network of helpers set up especially for this purpose went so far as to put massive pressure on those employees who opposed this type of reintegration.

Despite all the contradictions, he was honored with numerous honors for the rapid and competent reconstruction of the RWTH and the restoration of proper teaching. Paul Röntgen died on November 2nd, 1965 and found his final resting place in Aachen's Ostfriedhof .

As part of its current analysis of the activities of its university members during the Third Reich, the Historical Institute of RWTH Aachen University deals intensively with the work of Paul Röntgen in several writings.

Honors

Works (selection)

  • On the influence of metals of the iron group on the hardening of aluminum alloys of high purity , Berlin, Aluminum Zentrale, 1935
  • On the current state of the metal industry and its likely further development , Düsseldorf, Verl. Stahleisen, [1938]
  • On the solubility of hydrogen in aluminum and magnesium , Berlin, Aluminum-Zentrale, 1938

literature

  • Michael Grüttner : Biographical Lexicon on National Socialist Science Policy (= Studies on Science and University History. Volume 6). Synchron, Heidelberg 2004, ISBN 3-935025-68-8 , p. 141.
  • Armin Heinen / Werner Tschacher / Stefan Krebs: Politics of the Past at RWTH Aachen University from 1945 to 2004 , Ed .: Department for Press and Public at RWTH Aachen University, 2007
  • Ulrich Kalkmann: The Technical University of Aachen in the Third Reich (1933–1945) , p. 86 ff., Verlag Mainz, 2003, ISBN 3-86130-181-4 ( online in the Google book search)

Web links and sources

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Franz Ludwig Neher: The Corps Montania zu Aachen, 1872–1957 , 1957, p. 122
personal data
SURNAME Roentgen, Paul
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German university professor for metallurgy and rector of the RWTH Aachen
DATE OF BIRTH October 26, 1881
PLACE OF BIRTH Aachen
DATE OF DEATH November 2, 1965
Place of death Aachen