Walter Friedrich (biophysicist)

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Walter Friedrich, 1962

Walter Friedrich (born  December 25, 1883 in Salbke near Magdeburg , †  October 16, 1968 in Berlin ) was a German biophysicist . Among other things, he worked as a professor and rector at the University of Berlin and as director of a research institute and as president of the German Academy of Sciences in Berlin, which later became the Academy of Sciences of the GDR .

Life

Friedrich was born the son of the engineer Carl Friedrich . His father encouraged his son's interest in science at an early age. At the beginning of the 20th century, for example, he gave his son a used X-ray machine. Even as a high school student, he x-rayed broken bones at the request of doctors for a fee.

Friedrich attended the Stephaneum high school in Aschersleben . Here he had to repeat a class twice. Although he showed excellent grades in physics and mathematics, he was completely uninterested in subjects such as languages ​​and history. He was also musically gifted and played the violin. For a long time he contemplated embarking on a career in music. However, his father advised science. In 1905 he graduated from high school.

Walter Friedrich first studied music and physics at the University of Geneva from 1905 , although he broke off the music studies. The choice fell on Geneva as the place to study, as Friedrich wanted to learn from the well-known violin player Jacques Thibaud . He moved to Munich , where he joined the Corps Guestphalia . In 1911 he received his doctorate from the University of Munich . His dissertation was entitled Spatial intensity distribution of X-rays emanating from a platina anticathode . At the University of Munich he worked for six years under Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen and experimented at Arnold Sommerfeld's institute . In 1912 he began to pursue a hypothesis expressed by the lecturer Max Laue , according to which the interference of X-rays on crystals could be proven experimentally. Since both Sommerfeld and Röntgen considered this impossible, Friedrich conducted secret research together with doctoral student Paul Knipping . In fact, he succeeded in proving it experimentally. This was of great scientific importance, as it was used to demonstrate the wave character of X-rays and the lattice structure of crystals. The work was published in 1912. Max Laue worked on the theoretical part and received the Nobel Prize for the discovery in 1914, publicly referring to the merits of Friedrich and Knipping and announcing that he would share the donation with both of them.

From 1914 he worked at the University Clinic of the University of Freiburg , where he became a private lecturer three years later and a professor of physics in 1921. He therefore turned to medicine as a physicist. He headed the laboratory of the University Women's Clinic in Freiburg. He worked with the gynecologist Bernhard Krönig , with whom he also published joint research results, and established the first university research center for biophysics . In terms of content, his scientific work dealt with cancer research. In 1922 he gave guest lectures in Granada , Spain .

From 1923 he worked as a full professor for medical physics at the University of Berlin . Fighting against significant prejudices against his new subject, he planned to convert a residential building on Robert-Koch-Platz from 1927 into the headquarters of the Institute for Radiation Research, which he headed as director, which was inaugurated on January 1, 1929. With the help of this state institute, Friedrich was able to implement his idea of ​​a collaboration between physicists, doctors, chemists and biologists. In 1929 he became dean of the medical faculty of the University of Berlin, took over the presidency of the German Radiological Society in 1928 and of the German Society for Light Research in 1930 .

During the time of National Socialism , Friedrich continued to work in his institute. In publications from the GDR period it is emphasized that he published 30 of around 200 publications with Jewish employees during his work at the Berlin Institute. In addition, after 1933 he had succeeded in preventing the deportation of two Jewish researchers to a labor camp or to Theresienstadt . In 1936 he was president of the third international congress for light research in Wiesbaden and became honorary president of the Comité International de la Lumière . In 1935 and 1936, the physicist Erich Fischer was Friedrich's teaching assistant. Around this time, the radiation physicist Rudolf Schulze was one of his assistants.

Because of the bombing raids in World War II , Friedrich relocated parts of the institute's inventory to Thuringia . At the end of 1944 the institute was damaged in bombing raids. Friedrich created another alternative place in a farm that he rented in Affinghausen near Diepholz and founded the Society for Agriculture and Technology there , whose purpose, however, is said to have been primarily to give Friedrich a permanent safe retreat. Even after the end of the Second World War, Friedrich initially stayed on the rented farm. The institute building in Berlin was completely destroyed shortly before the end of the war.

In 1947 he received an offer to join the University of Marburg . The Berlin University, which was in the Soviet sector, then made a better offer, which contained eight times the Marburg budget. Friedrich went to Berlin in 1947. Initially, Friedrich worked with a few employees on the grounds of the agricultural faculty in Invalidenstrasse .

From 1949 to 1952 he was rector of the Berlin University, since 1949 Humboldt University in Berlin. In 1948 he became director and in 1955 president of the Institute for Medicine and Biology in Berlin-Buch and in 1961 president of the medical-biological research center of the German Academy of Sciences in Berlin that was created from the institute . Laboratories, examination centers, the tumor clinic, which became known as the Robert Rössle Clinic , and stables for laboratory animals were built under his direction . Research facilities with departments for neutron physics , biophysics, microbiology , biochemistry , genetics , pharmacology and biological cancer research were set up in a new building .

Walter Friedrich as a guest at the 4th party congress of the SED in 1954

The Academy, to which he belonged from 1949, he was president from 1951 to 1956, then he was vice-president until 1958. He began to get involved politically. From 1950 until his death he was chairman of the German Peace Committee . He was also a member of the Presidium of the World Peace Council from 1951 . From 1950 to 1954 he was also a member of the People's Chamber of the GDR for the Kulturbund , as well as the provisional People's Chamber before that. Despite the proximity of his activities to the state doctrine of the GDR, he did not join any party. He lived in Zeuthen .

Appreciations

Bust of Friedrich in Berlin-Buch

Walter Friedrich is considered to be a co-founder of biophysics , the focus of his research was radiation therapy for cancer .

In 1950 he received the GDR National Prize . In 1952 he was made an honorary citizen of Aschersleben . The Patriotic Order of Merit in Gold was presented to him in 1954 when Wilhelm Pieck was first awarded the order . In 1958 the Goethe Prize of the Academy of Sciences was awarded, for which there is a congratulatory drawing by Walter Buhe . In 1953 he was awarded the honorary title of Outstanding Scientist of the People . The FDJ made him a sponsor of the youth and an honorary member of the FDJ.

The municipal hospital in Magdeburg-Neu Olvenstedt was named after him from 1989 to 2000 . During the GDR era, numerous streets were named after him, such as Walter-Friedrich-Strasse in the new development area in Berlin-Buch , Dr.-Walter-Friedrich-Strasse in Hohenmölsen and Prof.-Dr.-Walter-Friedrich-Strasse in Aschersleben.

On the campus in Berlin-Buch there is a bronze bust depicting Walter Friedrich.

In 1966 the important portrait painter Bert Heller created a large-format oil painting by Walter Friedrich.

family

Friedrich was married twice. Both women died of cancer. He is said to have refrained from having biological children out of concern about possible harm from his work in the field of radiation research. He had adopted a child.

Works

  • Physical and biological basics of radiation therapy. Munich 1918
  • The interference of the X-rays. Leipzig 1923 (as co-author)
  • The methodical basics when working with spectrally dispersed light. Berlin 1931

literature

Web links

Commons : Walter Friedrich  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. Maximilian Scheer , The Music Scientist in Walter Friedrich - Life and Work , Peace Council of the German Democratic Republic (Ed.), Berlin 1963, p. 15 f.
  2. Klaus Buchmüller, Walter Friedrich and his Institute for Radiation Research in Walter Friedrich - Life and Work , Peace Council of the German Democratic Republic (ed.), Berlin 1963, p. 61
  3. Robert Rompe , pioneer of biophysics in Walter Friedrich - Life and Work , Peace Council of the German Democratic Republic (ed.), Berlin 1963, p. 130
  4. ^ Address list of the Weinheimer SC. Darmstadt 1928, p. 281.
  5. Maximilian Scheer, The Music Scientist in Walter Friedrich - Life and Work , Peace Council of the German Democratic Republic (ed.), Berlin 1963, p. 16 f.
  6. Maximilian Scheer, The Music Scientist in Walter Friedrich - Life and Work , Peace Council of the German Democratic Republic (ed.), Berlin 1963, p. 20
  7. a b c Maximilian Scheer, The musical scientist in Walter Friedrich - Life and Work , Peace Council of the German Democratic Republic (ed.), Berlin 1963, p. 21
  8. Klaus Buchmüller, Walter Friedrich and his Institute for Radiation Research in Walter Friedrich - Life and Work , Peace Council of the German Democratic Republic (ed.), Berlin 1963, p. 65
  9. a b Maximilian Scheer, The Music Scientist in Walter Friedrich - Life and Work , Peace Council of the German Democratic Republic (ed.), Berlin 1963, p. 22
  10. Heinz Willmann , Walter Friedrich and the peace movement in Walter Friedrich - Life and Work , Peace Council of the German Democratic Republic (ed.), Berlin 1963, p. 31
  11. New Germany . Issued May 8, 1954
  12. Heinz Willmann, Walter Friedrich and the peace movement in Walter Friedrich - Life and Work , Peace Council of the German Democratic Republic (ed.), Berlin 1963, p. 26