Sigfrid von Weiher

Sigfrid Roland von Weiher (born August 22, 1920 in Bad Freienwalde (Oder) , † April 16, 2007 in Großostheim ) was a German historian , publicist , lecturer in the history of technology and genealogist .

Sigfrid von Weiher, 1970

Live and act

Sigfrid von Weiher was the second-born son of Major Eugen August von Weiher (1875–1962), who came from the Pomeranian nobility and Franziska, nee. Herbig (1885-1932). Fascinated by the history of technology since childhood, he researched as a high school student in the Reich Patent Office and at the Secret State Archive in Berlin about discoveries, natural scientists, inventors and groundbreaking advances in science. The historian Franz Maria Feldhaus (1874–1957) became his mentor; Inspired by this, von Weiher founded the 'Weiher Collection on the History of Technology' in Kassel in 1939.

As a soldier in France, Belgium and Russia during the Second World War he researched in museums and archives for technologically and historically significant inventors, buildings and industrial monuments in the respective region, visited them, interviewed contemporary witnesses and published his personal research in newspapers and specialist magazines.

After the war, von Weiher worked in Freiburg as a freelance journalist for Südwest-Funk and various newspapers. He studied at the University of Freiburg economic history and a doctorate in Clemens Bauer Dr. phil. on "The English Siemens factories and the Siemens overseas business in the second half of the 19th century".

From 1951 he was an employee, from 1960 head of the Siemens archive (today: Siemens Museum ), first in Berlin, later in Munich. From 1962–1974, von Weiher, in cooperation with the Deutsches Museum in Munich , headed the VDI Working Group on Technology History, which organized monthly subject-specific slide shows, film evenings and cultural-historical excursions to significant technological and historical stages of the Industrial Revolution .

1970–1982 he lectured as a lecturer in industrial history at the seminar for economic and social history at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg .

He worked in scientific societies and at international historians' congresses until old age. a. in London, New York and Tokyo. At scientific congresses, in his books and lectures, he advocated a "history of technical culture" that measures pioneering inventions and technological advances primarily in terms of long-term, cultural benefits for people and society.

Von Weiher also dealt intensively with family history research and the like. a. about the family of the company founder Werner von Siemens and the ancestors of his father's family von Weiher . He was married to Irma geb. Rogée, had a daughter and two sons.

Technology history

Von Weiher dealt with cultural-historical-philosophical questions regarding the development of societies, states and cities with a view to promoting inventiveness as well as education and science. He gave numerous lectures on this topic (e.g. "The traffic engineering conquest of the earth 100 years ago").

Long before the "Limits to Growth" became an issue in the 1970s through the Club of Rome , von Weiher used the example of the steam engine , the internal combustion engine or the utilization of electricity to demonstrate how the commercial implementation of ingenious inventions can drive technical progress , but can also plunge people into deep existential need, marginalize large parts of society with serious consequences and permanently destroy livelihoods.

Von Weiher published over 1066 specialist articles in newspapers, the VDI-Nachrichten (“Memorial Days of Technical Culture”) and scientific periodicals as well as the New German Biography . Long-forgotten inventors and their work (from the electromagnet to the permanent wave and the rail zeppelin to the computer mouse) were honored and important scientific discoveries or pioneering achievements were presented.

From 1980 he devoted himself to the question of whether the history of technology can make concrete contributions to a 'better world' by creating clarity as to how inventions and technical progress should be used in a targeted manner so that above all people can benefit from them in the long term, and pointed to the Necessity of responsible use of technology and progress on the part of politics and economy, also with regard to the protection of the environment. To this end, he also used his lectures at international historians' congresses, specialist presentations at conferences of important committees, but also book reviews to make it clear which pioneering task, in his opinion, the history of technology as a science should actually do justice, and above all economic calculation.

In recognition of his personal commitment to establishing the history of technology as an independent historical discipline and his socio-political, educational impulses, Sigfrid von Weiher was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit on Ribbon in 1986.

Ambivalence of belief in progress

In his 17 published specialist books, von Weiher dealt with the development of technology in relation to the concrete effects of technical progress on people , their working and living conditions, their mobility (transport), their creative imagination (aerospace). But he also pointed to the problem of the destructive power of technological progress, e.g. B. the war technology.

Von Weiher's main endeavor was to create an expanded awareness with his lectures and books that repeatedly critically questions technical progress for its holistic interactions and its substantial value for a humane life that respects nature as the basis of existence. And he did not shy away from occasionally including biblical terms such as ' awe ' or ' humility '.

Collection from Weiher on the history of technology

When he founded his technical history collection in Kassel in 1939 , von Weiher's aim was to archive the cultural-historical references to technical progress since the beginning of the Anthropocene , to question them critically and to document them in order to prepare the material for scientific and popular scientific publications in print To use radio (and later also television).

After the rapid reconstruction of his collection, which was badly damaged by the air war, he expanded it steadily in Freiburg , then in Berlin and from 1954 in Munich until 2002. Most recently, it included:

• a technical history library of approx. 6000 volumes
• a file archive of 930 individual files on persons / subject areas relevant to the history of technology
• an image archive, from 1955 supplemented by audio documents (interviews with inventors, etc.)
• documentation on approx. 14,000 index cards (item index, personal index, daily data).

The Deutsches Museum added numerous volumes and writings from the library to its collection; other parts were archived by his son Manfred von Weiher in Stockstadt am Main . The file archive and von Weiher's complete technical history documentation have been available for scientific research in the German Museum of Technology in Berlin since 2013 . - Here z. B. Technical editors daily data on groundbreaking historical events as well as on long-forgotten technologies, curious utopias, problematic inventors or ingenious inventors who failed in the economic marketing of their life's work, such as B. the inventor of the (running) bicycle, Baron von Drais .

Awards (selection)

• Honor plaque and honorary membership of the Association of German Engineers (VDI) 1973
• Federal Cross of Merit on Ribbon 1986

Works (selection)

• The English Siemens works and the Siemens overseas business in the second half of the 19th century (revised diss.), Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1990, ISBN 3-428-06888-2
• Werner von Siemens - a life dedicated to science, technology and business . Muster-Schmidt, Göttingen 1970
• Path and work of the Siemens works in the advancement of electrical engineering 1847-1980 . Steiner, Wiesbaden 1981
• Berlin's way to the Electropolis - technology and industrial history on the Spree . Muster-Schmidt, Göttingen 1987, ISBN 3-7881-1744-3
• Men of radio technology - 70 life works of German radio, radio and television pioneers . VDE, Berlin 1983, ISBN 3-8007-1314-4
• Telecommunications diary - from 1600 to the present . VDE publishing house, Berlin 1991

literature

• Laetitia Boehm and Charlotte Schönbeck: Technology and Education. Düsseldorf, VDI-Verlag, 1989 ISBN 3-18-400865-7
• Ludwig Darmstaedters: Handbook on the history of the natural sciences and technology. Berlin, Julius Springer-Verlag, 1908 (1262 pages)
• Franz Maria Feldhaus: Glory sheets of technology. Leipzig, Brandsetter-Verlag, 1910 (631 pages)
• Hendrichs, Franz: The way out of the treadmill. Düsseldorf, VDI-Verlag, 1955 (235 pages)
• Kellenbenz, Hermann: German economic history from the end of the 18th century to the end of the Second World War. Munich, Beck-Verlag, 1981 ISBN 3 406 06988 6 (544 pages)
• Ludwig, Karl-Heinz: Technology and engineers in the Third Reich. Düsseldorf, Droste Verlag, 1974 (544 pages)
• Matschoss, Conrad: The development of the steam engine. Berlin, Springer-Verlag, 1908
• Meinel, Christoph and Voswinkel, Peter (eds.): Medicine, natural science and technology in National Socialism Stuttgart, Publishing House for the History of Natural Science, 1994 ISBN 3-928186-24-8 (331 pages)
• Neudeck, G. von: History of technology. Heilbronn, Seifert Verlag, 1923 (490 pages)
• Schnabel, Franz: German history in the 19th century. Vol. 3: empirical sciences and technology: Freiburg, Herder Verlag, 1950
• Sombart, Werner: Economic life in the age of high capitalism. Munich u. Leipzig, Duncker & Humblot, 1928
• Weiher, Sigfrid von: Directed research as early as the 19th century. VDI-Nachrichten No. 49, Düsseldorf, February 15, 1962 p. 11f
• Weiher, Sigfrid from: The preservation of Technical Monuments in Germany. International Congress FICCIM, Ironbridge / England, 1973, pp. 102-112
• Weiher, Sigfrid von: History of technology in Germany. VDI Working Group on the History of Technology, Munich, 1974
• Weiher, Sigfrid von: Social policy at Werner Siemens. Journal for Company History, Wiesbaden, 1978, p. 70f
• Weiher, Sigfrid von: Learning from the history of technology (conference report). Archive and Economy, Vol. 17, Düsseldorf, VDI-Verlag, 1984, p. 109f

Web links

• Literature by and about Sigfrid von Weiher in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

1. ^ ^{A b} Sigfrid von Weiher, Berlins Weg zur Elektropolis; Göttingen: Muster-Schmidt, 1987 (211 pp.) ISBN 3-7881-1744-3
2. ↑ ^{a b c} Siemens-Museum (ed.), Bibliography of the publications by Sigfrid von Weiher 1939 to 1985 (supplemented by 1995, to a total of 1066 publication references) Munich, Siemens-Museum, 1985 (98 pages)
3. ^ Weiher, Sigfrid von: The English Siemens works and the Siemens overseas business in the second half of the 19th century (revised Diss); Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 1990 ISBN 3-428-06888-2 (220 pages)
4. ^ Sigfrid von Weiher, family tree of the Siemens family; Munich: German Aristocratic Archive Foundation, 1985; also: Goslar (Family Foundation ) 1985, ISBN 3 980115305
5. ^ Sigfrid von Weiher, in: Genealogisches Handbuch des Adels; Limburg: Starke-Verlag, 1966 (page 481 ff)
6. ^ Sigfrid von Weiher, lecture and discussion about new tasks of German industrial archives, in Tokyo, March 16, 1987 Japanese short version by Prof. Watanabe in the journal of the Business Archives Association, Japan, no. 28/1987 (8 pp.)
7. ↑ Sigfrid von Weiher, contribution to the discussion on motorway construction at the conference "Influences of motorization on transport 1886 - 1986"; Journal for Company History, supplement 52, 1988, p. 210f
8. ↑ Buddensieg, Tilmann and Rogge, Henning (eds.); The useful arts, design technology and fine arts since the industrial revolution (exhibition catalog); Berlin, Quadriga Verlagbuchhandlung , 1981 ISBN 3 886790010 (391 pages)
9. ^ Sigfrid von Weiher; Expert opinion to the Senator for Cultural Affairs of the City of Berlin; Dr. Sauberzweig, July 19, 1978
10. ↑ Sigfrid von Weiher, book review about "The Useful Arts" (see above) in: Kultur & Technik, 1/1982, p. 59f
11. ^ Kurt Mauel, preface to the bibliography Sigfrid von Weiher; see above (2)
12. ^ Association of German Engineers (ed.), 25 years of the VDI Working Group on Technology History; Documentation of the ceremony in the Deutsches Museum on April 29, 1974; Munich: VDI-Verlag, 1974 (page 30)