Werner Mansfeld (technician)

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Werner Mansfeld (born November 9, 1913 in Reppichau ; † January 17, 2011 in Radeberg ) was a German university professor and expert in positioning and navigation technology.

life and work

Mansfeld was born on November 9, 1913 in Reppichau near Köthen . Here he attended elementary and secondary school, where he graduated from high school in 1933. Even in his school days, Mansfeld was interested in ultra-short wave and television technology and built a television receiver with a Nipkow disc . At the age of 17 he received a badge of honor from the German Radio Technology Association, which was unusual for the time. In 1934 Mansfeld began studying at what was then the Technical University in Dresden . Heinrich Barkhausen became his mentorwho founded the Institute for Low Current Technology in Dresden. As a result, Mansfeld devoted himself to the field of radio reconnaissance , the testing of new radio listening and direction finding receivers , the location of monitored transmitters and the encryption and decryption of radio messages. These activities were dovetailed with the Wehrmacht , as they were useful for military radio reconnaissance . Mansfeld was called up to an army intelligence department at the beginning of the war in 1939 - in the middle of the diploma exams. In this unit he was entrusted with the tasks of radio reconnaissance, most recently as a lieutenant. In 1942 Mansfeld fell seriously ill and was transferred to a news replacement department in Chemnitz. Until 1944 he was responsible for radio reconnaissance in Saxony as an intelligence officer with the rank of first lieutenant in the "fixed radio station in Dresden". In 1944, he completed his engineering degree under Professor Barkhausen at the university. At Barkhausen's instigation, he was assigned to the research program for radio measurement technology at the Dresden University. During the air raid in February 1945 , Mansfeld's work and living environment was destroyed and he was assigned to the air force test site at Köthen Air Base .

In mid-April 1945, the air base was initially occupied by American units and from July by Soviet troops. Mansfeld was hired to repair German radios. At the end of 1946 he received a request from his mentor Barkhausen for a job at the Sachsenwerk Radeberg . Since mid-1946 this company was a SAG company of the “Vereinigung Gerät”. At the beginning of 1947 Mansfeld began his activity and developed a remote measurement system for missiles. He managed this top-secret military project with 50 specialists, which ended with the handover of the SAG operation to the GDR on July 1, 1952. In the newly founded VEB Sachsenwerk Radeberg , he became department head in the telecommunications laboratory for the development of microwave technology. From 1963, Mansfeld coordinated all development departments as head of the commercial communications engineering department. The Radeberg plant became the leading production and research facility in the area of ​​radio relay in what was then the Eastern Bloc. Parallel to his work in Radeberg, Mansfeld had been teaching air traffic control and radio location technology at the then Aviation Faculty of the TH Dresden from 1957. After the abandonment of the GDR aircraft construction in 1961, this teaching position was taken over by the Institute for High Frequency Technology and Telecommunications. In 1969 he completed his habilitation with a thesis on collision protection in aviation. During his research and teaching activities, Mansfeld applied for 20 patents.

Up until the statutory retirement age, Mansfeld got into personal difficulties. In addition to caring for his seriously ill wife, he suffered professional setbacks. Due to his Christian outlook on life, Mansfeld, who also worked in a militarily sensitive research area, was targeted by the Ministry for State Security . In the evaluation of the strenuous observations, this classified him as hostile to the GDR. His teaching qualification was also denied in connection with his basic Christian attitude at a socialist university ; Mansfeld's lectures were canceled without notice in 1970. The departure of his daughter to the Federal Republic of Germany was carried out after him. For the broadband unit system (BES) to be developed as a new directional radio system with 11 GHz, he proposed a frequency that was only used in the USA at the time. This was added to him, for example, as an economic sabotage.

In 1978 he retired without recognition. At the Dresden University of Transport , he received teaching assignments and gave lectures on navigation and air traffic control. His lesson letters became the basis for several publications. Due to the travel regulations of the GDR for retirees, it was his responsibility to take part in international symposia and to give lectures abroad. After the political change in the GDR, Mansfeld was rehabilitated by the TU Dresden, so from 1991 - at the age of 77 - he resumed teaching as an independent professor and gave lectures on the subject of radio location and navigation systems. The topic of satellite positioning systems was added later and he lectured until 2006, when he was already 93 years old.

For his services he was awarded the Merit Technician of the People in the GDR in 1964 and in 1998 with the Cross of Merit 1st Class of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany .

Book publications

  • Systems for navigation and air traffic control (lesson units). TU Dresden, 1967/1968.
  • The collision protection in the context of air traffic control and its possible solutions with on-board means. Dresden, 1969.
  • Radio systems for location and navigation. VMA-Verlag, Wiesbaden 1983.
  • Radio location and radio navigation systems. Hüthig, Heidelberg 1994, ISBN 3-7785-2202-7 .
  • Satellite positioning and navigation. Vieweg & Teubner, Braunschweig 1998, ISBN 978-3834806116 .

credentials

  1. ^ A b c Klaus Janschek : Obituary for Professor Werner Mansfeld . In: Dresdner Universitätsjournal , Vol. 22, No. 2, February 1, 2011, p. 9 ( online as PDF; 2.5 MB).
  2. ↑ Honor for Professor Mansfeld . In: Dresdner Universitätsjournal , Vol. 14, No. 19, November 25, 2003, p. 11 (with a photo; online as PDF; 0.8 MB).
  3. ↑ Prof Dr Ing habil Werner Mansfeld: Obituary notice , Saxon newspaper

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Web links

personal data
SURNAME Mansfeld, Werner
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German communications engineer and professor
DATE OF BIRTH November 9, 1913
PLACE OF BIRTH Reppichau
DATE OF DEATH January 17, 2011
Place of death Dresden