Manfred von Ardenne

The stormy life of von Ardenne's grandmother, Elisabeth von Ardenne (1853–1952), is said to have been be the inspiration for Effi Briest by Theodor Fontane, one of the most famous German realist novels.

Manfred baron von Ardenne (20 January 190726 May 1997) was a German researcher and applied physicist and inventor.

He took out approximately 600 patents in fields including electron microscopy, medical technology, nuclear technology, plasma physics, and radio and television technology.

Born in 1907 in Hamburg to a wealthy aristocratic family, Ardenne was the oldest of five children.

In 1913, Ardenne's father, assigned to the Kriegsministerium, moved to Berlin.

From Ardenne's earliest youth, he was intrigued by any form of technology, and this was fostered by his parents.

Ardenne's early education was at home through private teachers.

In Berlin, from 1919, Ardenne attended the Realgymnasium, where he pursued his interests in physics and technology.

In a school competition, he submitted models of a camera and an alarm system, for which he was awarded first place.

In 1923, at the age of 15, he received his first patent for an electronic tube with multiple (three) systems in a single tube for applications in wireless telegraphy.

At this time, Ardenne prematurely left the Gymnasium to pursue the development of radio engineering with the entrepreneur Siegmund Loewe, who became his mentor.

Loewe built the inexpensive Loewe-Ortsempfänger OE333 with Ardenne's multiple system electronic tube.

In 1925, from patent sales and publication income, Ardenne substantially improved the broadband amplifier (resistance-coupled amplifier), which was fundamental to the development of television and radar.

Without an Abitur, because he did not graduate from the Gymnasium, Ardenne entered university-level study of physics, chemistry, and mathematics.

After four semesters, he left his formal studies, due to the inflexibility of the university system, and educated himself; he became an autodidact and devoted himself to applied physics research.

From 1928 to 1945, he directed his private research laboratory Forschungslaboratorium für Elektronenphysik.

For ten years after World War II, he worked in the Soviet Union on their atomic bomb project and was awarded a Stalin Prize.

Upon his return to the then East Germany, he started another private laboratory, Forschungsinstitut Manfred von Ardenne.

Von Ardenne is seen as one of the main inventors of the television.

In 1928, he came into his inheritance with full control as to how it could be spent, and he established his private research laboratory Forschungslaboratorium für Elektronenphysik, in Berlin-Lichterfelde, to conduct his own research on radio and television technology and electron microscopy.

He invented the scanning electron microscope.

He financed the laboratory with income he received from his inventions and from contracts with other concerns.

For example, his research on nuclear physics and high-frequency technology was financed by the Reichspostministerium (RPM, Reich Postal Ministry), headed by Wilhelm Ohnesorge.

At the Berlin Radio Show in August 1931, Ardenne gave the world's first public demonstration of a television system using a cathode ray tube for both transmission and reception.

(Ardenne never developed a camera tube, using the CRT instead as a flying-spot scanner to scan slides and film.) Ardenne achieved his first transmission of television pictures on 24 December 1933, followed by test runs for a public television service in 1934.

The world's first electronically scanned television service then started in Berlin in 1935, the Fernsehsender Paul Nipkow, culminating in the live broadcast of the 1936 Summer Olympic Games from Berlin to public places all over Germany.

In 1937, Ardenne developed the scanning transmission electron microscope.

During World War II, he took part in the study and application of radar.

M von Ardenne attracted top-notch personnel to work in his facility, such as the nuclear physicist Fritz Houtermans, in 1940.

Ardenne also conducted research on isotope separation.

The small list of equipment Ardenne had in the laboratory is impressive for a private laboratory.

In 1941 the "" of the "Preußische Akademie der Wissenschaften" was awarded to Ardenne, and in January 1945, he received the title of "Reichsforschungsrat" (Empire Research Advisor).

Von Ardenne, Gustav Hertz, Nobel laureate and director of Research Laboratory II at Siemens, Peter Adolf Thiessen, ordinarius professor at the Humboldt University of Berlin and director of the Kaiser-Wilhelm Institut für physikalische Chemie und Elektrochemie (KWIPC) in Berlin-Dahlem, and Max Volmer, ordinarius professor and director of the Physical Chemistry Institute at the Berlin Technische Hochschule, had made a pact.

The pact was a pledge that whoever first made contact with the Soviets would speak for the rest.

The objectives of their pact were threefold: (1) Prevent plunder of their institutes, (2) Continue their work with minimal interruption, and (3) Protect themselves from prosecution for any political acts of the past.

Before the end of World War II, Thiessen, a member of the NSDAP, had Communist contacts.

For example, when on 10 May 1945 he was visited by NKVD Colonel General V. A. Makhnjov, accompanied by Soviet physicists Isaak Kikoin, Lev Artsimovich, Georgy Flyorov, and V. V. Migulin (of the Russian Alsos operation), they praised the research being conducted and the equipment, including an electron microscope, a 60-ton cyclotron, and plasma-ionic isotope separation installation.

On 27 April 1945, Thiessen arrived at von Ardenne's institute in an armored vehicle with a major of the Soviet Army, who was also a leading Soviet chemist, and they issued Ardenne a protective letter (Schutzbrief).

All four of the pact members were taken to the Soviet Union.

Von Ardenne was made head of Institute A, in Sinop, a suburb of Sukhumi.