Wilhelm Frank (energy economist)

Wilhelm Frank (born May 19, 1916 in Budapest , † May 14, 1999 in Salzburg ) was an Austrian engineer, university professor and top civil servant.

Life

The son of a chemical engineer attended the five-class elementary school (Managettagasse 1) and the eight-year Beethoven realschule (Krottenbachstrasse 11) in Vienna- Döbling . After graduating from high school in the summer of 1935, Frank, like his father, chose the engineering profession and enrolled in the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering at the Vienna University of Technology . Organized in the Association of Socialist Middle School Students since 1931, Wilhelm Frank joined the Communist Youth Association (KJV) after the February fights in 1934. From 1936 he was in charge of agitation tasks for the KJV in the 19th district.

Wilhelm Frank was arrested on September 11, 1937 for his activities as a communist and remained in prison, sentenced to four months in prison until the amnesty in February 1938. After his dismissal, Wilhelm Frank succeeded in passing the first state examination on July 7, 1938. Excluded from further studies for "racial" reasons, he fled to Switzerland on August 1, 1938 and was able to continue his studies at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETH diploma as mechanical engineer on December 30, 1940).

As a result, Frank was drafted into the labor service and was employed in the Aargau , Ticino and the Bernese Jura on road construction, amelioration and clearing until late autumn 1944. In 1942, however, legal proceedings were opened against him for prohibited communist propaganda activities, and in 1944 he was threatened with deportation to Germany. In November 1944, Frank received a scholarship to continue his education at the ETH Zurich . At the beginning of 1945 he founded the "Austrian Association of Technicians in Switzerland".

In October 1945 Wilhelm Frank returned to Austria. He initially became a production engineer in the only oil company that remained at least half Austrian, the oil production company in Zistersdorf . From there, at the beginning of February 1946, the Communist Federal Minister for Energy and Electrification, who was in office until November 20, 1947, brought him to his ministry, Leopold Figl , and Karl Altmann as head of the planning and studies department. As managing director of the project commission for the Ybbs-Persenbeug power plant and as deputy managing director in the construction committee for the Kaprun storage power plant , Frank devoted himself to the two largest energy policy projects of the immediate post-war period. He also successfully campaigned for the isolated Illwerke to be connected to the Austrian network via a line over the Arlberg. After the dissolution of the energy ministry in December 1949, Frank worked in the energy management department of the federal ministry for trade and reconstruction. In addition, he completed his engineering studies in Vienna in 1952 with a doctorate.

From May 1966 to September 1970 Wilhelm Frank worked in the Federal Ministry for Buildings and Technology, where he mainly dealt with questions of technical testing and international cooperation. From May 1973 to December 1973 he was head of the department for coordination of the energy industry in the Federal Ministry of Trade, Commerce and Industry, from January 1974 to December 1976 there as section head head of the section energy and from January 1977 to April 1980 in the same federal ministry head of the um the areas of basic materials - Supreme Mining Authority expanded energy section. At that time he was practically the last remaining top communist official in Austria, even though he had already resigned from the KPÖ in January 1969 as a "dissident" in the circle around the Vienna Diary .

Among other things, Frank aggressively represented the peaceful use of nuclear energy and in particular the Zwentendorf nuclear power plant . Wilhelm Frank retired as a civil servant in May 1980. Above all, he remained scientifically active and took over the honorary management of the "Association for the Promotion of Small Power Plants".

Since the seventies Wilhelm Frank has held various teaching positions on mathematical theory of optimization and problems of energy supply, at the University of Vienna , the Technical University of Vienna, the University of Innsbruck and the University of Salzburg . On May 7, 1980, Frank was appointed honorary professor for applied mathematics at the latter . Frank died suddenly in Salzburg on the way to his lecture.

Awards

• 1981: Great Silver Medal of Honor with the Star for Services to the Republic of Austria

Web links

• Gerhard Oberkofler: Wilhelm Frank in memory of the Alfred Klahr Society

Individual evidence

1. ↑ List of all decorations awarded by the Federal President for services to the Republic of Austria from 1952 (PDF file; 6.59 MB)