Franz Heinrich Ollendorff (

Hebrew Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...

פרנץ אולנדורף or חיים אולנדורף; born 15 May 1900; died 9 December 1981) was an Israeli

physicist A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe. Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate caus ...

Biography

Franz Heinrich (Haim) Ollendorf was born in

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...

. In 1924, he joined the

Siemens Siemens AG ( ) is a German multinational conglomerate corporation and the largest industrial manufacturing company in Europe headquartered in Munich with branch offices abroad. The principal divisions of the corporation are ''Industry'', '' ...

research department in Berlin, working under Reinhold Rüdenberg. From 1928 he taught in the engineering faculty of the Berlin Technische Hochschule. Despite protest from his supervisor and university rector Ernst Orlich, the Nazis forced Ollendorff to resign in 1933. Soon after the dismissal, Ollendorff joined the teaching staff of the Jewish public school in Berlin, moving to

Jerusalem Jerusalem (; he, יְרוּשָׁלַיִם ; ar, القُدس ) (combining the Biblical and common usage Arabic names); grc, Ἱερουσαλήμ/Ἰεροσόλυμα, Hierousalḗm/Hierosóluma; hy, Երուսաղեմ, Erusałēm. i ...

when the school and staff transferred there in 1934. Ollendorff returned to Germany in the following year to organize the transfer of Jewish children to

Mandatory Palestine Mandatory Palestine ( ar, فلسطين الانتدابية '; he, פָּלֶשְׂתִּינָה (א״י) ', where "E.Y." indicates ''’Eretz Yiśrā’ēl'', the Land of Israel) was a geopolitical entity established between 1920 and 1948 ...

within the framework of the newly established

Youth Aliyah Youth Aliyah (Hebrew: עלית הנוער, ''Aliyat Hano'ar'', German: Jugend-Alijah, Youth Immigration) is a Jewish organization that rescued thousands of Jewish children from the Nazis during the Third Reich. Youth Aliyah arranged for their r ...

. In 1937 he was finally expelled by the

Gestapo The (), abbreviated Gestapo (; ), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe. The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of Prussia into one organi ...

. In 1939, he joined the staff of the Haifa Technion and founded the faculty of electrical engineering in which he was professor. He specialized in biomedical electronics and physics. He was a member of the

Israel Academy of Sciences Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, based in Jerusalem, was established in 1961 by the State of Israel to foster contact between Israeli scholars in the sciences and humanities and create a think tank for advising the government on r ...

and was awarded the

Israel Prize The Israel Prize ( he, פרס ישראל; ''pras israél'') is an award bestowed by the State of Israel, and regarded as the state's highest cultural honor. History The Israel Prize is awarded annually, on Israeli Independence Day, in a state cer ...

for his research in

magnetic field A magnetic field is a vector field that describes the magnetic influence on moving electric charges, electric currents, and magnetic materials. A moving charge in a magnetic field experiences a force perpendicular to its own velocity and to ...

s (1954). He was elected a fellow of the

American Institute of Electrical Engineers The American Institute of Electrical Engineers (AIEE) was a United States-based organization of electrical engineers that existed from 1884 through 1962. On January 1, 1963, it merged with the Institute of Radio Engineers (IRE) to form the Instit ...

in 1963 and served as the institute's vice president. His interest in the education of teenagers made him a keen supporter of the Technion's vocational high school. Ollendorff wrote books and papers on electronics, physics, mathematics, acoustics, medical electronics, technical education, and other specialized fields. His publications include Die Grundlagen der Hochfrequenztechnik (1926); Erdstroeme (1928); Die Welt der Vektoren (1950); and Innere Elektronik (1955).

Awards

In 1954, Ollendorff was awarded the

, in

exact science The exact sciences, sometimes called the exact mathematical sciences, are those sciences "which admit of absolute precision in their results"; especially the mathematical sciences. Examples of the exact sciences are mathematics, optics, astron ...

s. A plaque commemorating Orlich's courage hangs in the Physics department at the Technion.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ollendorff, Franz 1900 births 1981 deaths Scientists from Berlin Jewish emigrants from Nazi Germany to Mandatory Palestine Humboldt University of Berlin alumni Technion – Israel Institute of Technology faculty Israeli physicists Members of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities Israel Prize in exact science recipients who were physicists Jewish physicists

Biography

Awards

See also

References