Wolfgang Berg (physicist)

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Wolfgang Friedrich Berg (born March 30, 1908 in Göttingen ; † July 13, 1984 in Zurich ) was a German-British-Swiss physicist .

Life and activity

Berg was the third child of Otto Berg and his wife Julie nee. Zuntz. His father had been a private lecturer in physics in Berlin since 1911 . In his youth Berg attended the humanistic grammar school in Zehlendorf, the secondary school in Schmargendorf and the Grunewald grammar school. After passing the school leaving examination on February 25, 1927, he studied physics, mathematics and chemistry at the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität in Berlin . In 1932 he received his doctorate with a dissertation on iodine fluorescence supervised by Peter Pringsheim .

Berg's particular interest during his assistantship was crystal research . In 1930, in a work that is now considered classic, he succeeded in providing X-ray evidence of lattice defects in crystals.

After the National Socialists came to power in the spring of 1933, Berg was ousted from the civil service. He moved to Manchester , where he was able to continue his radiographic work on lattice defects in metals thanks to a scholarship under the supervision of William Lawrence Bragg . In addition to his doctoral degree, he acquired the Anglo-Saxon degree of Ph.D.

In 1936 Berg switched to the service of the research laboratory at Kodak Ltd in Harrow . He remained in the service of this institution until 1961. His main job there was the supervision of development work on photographic emulsions as well as research on the photographic process. He also taught at the London School of Medical Photography and worked on a number of magazines. In 1946 Berg was naturalized in Great Britain.

After his emigration, Berg was classified by the National Socialist police as an enemy of the state : In the spring of 1940, the Reich Main Security Office in Berlin put him on the special wanted list GB , a list of people whom the Nazi surveillance apparatus regarded as particularly important or dangerous, and who therefore in the event of one successful invasion and occupation of the British Isles by the Wehrmacht should be located and arrested by the occupying troops subsequent SS special commandos with special priority.

On October 1, 1961, Berg was appointed to succeed John Eggert as full professor of scientific photography at the ETH Zurich . He retained this professorship until his retirement on March 31, 1978. During his work at the ETH, Berg published a total of 125 individual publications and twelve patent specifications. In 1976 he was naturalized in Switzerland.

In addition to his research and teaching activities, Berg was editor-in-chief of Focal Library magazine since 1960. In retirement, Berg was appointed honorary professor at the Academia Sinica in Beijing. He was also President of the International Committee of the Science of Photography for many years.

Berg was married to Lisa Steffens since 1933. Berg became a member of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) in England in 1937 .

Fonts

  • On the extinction of iodine fluorescence by magnetic fields and by foreign gases , Berlin 1932 (dissertation).
  • Photographic Science: Symposium, Zurich 1961 , 1961.
  • Exposure: Theory and Practice , 1971.

literature

  • Hans Girsberger: Who's who in Switzerland , 1989, p. 63.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. https://www.forces-war-records.co.uk/hitlers-black-book/person/272/doctor-wolfgang-berg/ .
  2. ^ Thomas Fuchs: Berg, Wolfgang Friedrich. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland . 25/06/2002 , accessed November 14, 2018 .