Siegfried Samuel Marcus (; 18 September 1831 – 1 July 1898) was a German inventor. Marcus was born of
Jewish
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
descent in
Malchin
Malchin () is a town in the Mecklenburgische Seenplatte district, in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Germany. It offers some notable landmarks, such as two Brick Gothic town gates, a medieval defense tower, the Gothic town church of St. Johannis ...
, in the
Grand Duchy of Mecklenburg-Schwerin
The Grand Duchy of Mecklenburg-Schwerin was a territory in Northern Germany held by the House of Mecklenburg residing at Schwerin. It was a sovereign member state of the German Confederation and became a federated state of the North German Conf ...
. He made the first
petrol
Gasoline (; ) or petrol (; ) (see ) is a transparent, petroleum-derived flammable liquid that is used primarily as a fuel in most spark-ignited internal combustion engines (also known as petrol engines). It consists mostly of organic co ...
-powered vehicle in 1864, while living in Vienna, Austria.
Life
Marcus was born in
Malchin
Malchin () is a town in the Mecklenburgische Seenplatte district, in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Germany. It offers some notable landmarks, such as two Brick Gothic town gates, a medieval defense tower, the Gothic town church of St. Johannis ...
, in the
Grand Duchy of Mecklenburg-Schwerin
The Grand Duchy of Mecklenburg-Schwerin was a territory in Northern Germany held by the House of Mecklenburg residing at Schwerin. It was a sovereign member state of the German Confederation and became a federated state of the North German Conf ...
into a Jewish family. Today Malchin is part of Germany. He began work at age 12 as an apprentice mechanic. At 17 he joined Siemens and Halske, an engineering company that built telegraph lines. He moved to
Vienna
en, Viennese
, iso_code = AT-9
, registration_plate = W
, postal_code_type = Postal code
, postal_code =
, timezone = CET
, utc_offset = +1
, timezone_DST ...
, the capital of the
Austrian Empire
The Austrian Empire (german: link=no, Kaiserthum Oesterreich, modern spelling , ) was a Central-Eastern European multinational great power from 1804 to 1867, created by proclamation out of the realms of the Habsburgs. During its existence, ...
, in 1852, working first as a technician in the Physical Institute of the Medical School. He then worked as an assistant to Professor
Carl Ludwig
Carl Friedrich Wilhelm Ludwig (; 29 December 1816 – 23 April 1895) was a German physician and physiologist. His work as both a researcher and teacher had a major influence on the understanding, methods and apparatus used in almost all branches ...
, a physiologist. In 1860 Marcus opened his own workshop which made mechanical and electrical equipment.
The first was located at Mariahilferstrasse 107 and the second at Mondscheingasse 4.
His chief improvements include
telegraph
Telegraphy is the long-distance transmission of messages where the sender uses symbolic codes, known to the recipient, rather than a physical exchange of an object bearing the message. Thus flag semaphore is a method of telegraphy, whereas p ...
relay system and ignition devices such as the "Wiener Zünder", a
blasting machine
A blasting machine or shot exploder is a portable source of electric current to reliably fire a blasting cap to trigger a main explosive charge. It is mostly used in mining and demolition.
The use of the term "machine" dates from early designs ...
. Marcus was buried at the
Protestant
Protestantism is a Christian denomination, branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Reformation, Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century agai ...
Cemetery at
Hütteldorf
Hütteldorf (; Central Bavarian: ''Hittldorf'') is a part of Vienna's 14th district, Penzing. It is located in the west of Vienna, in the geographical center of the district, stretching roughly from ''Deutschordenstraße'' (which forms the border ...
, Vienna. Later, his remains were transferred to an "Honorary Tomb" of Vienna's
Central Cemetery. During his lifetime he was awarded the ''Golden Cross of Merit'' by the then Austro-Hungarian Emperor Franz Joseph for his scientific achievements.
Nazi rewrite
![Austrian Golden Cross of Merit (1849), front](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c7/Austrian_Golden_Cross_of_Merit_%281849%29%2C_front.jpg)
Because of Marcus' Jewish ancestry, his name and all memorabilia, particularly in Austria, vanished under the
Nazis
Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Na ...
. In 1937 the Austrian Harand Movement Against Racial Hatred had issued a series of stamps featuring prominent Jews, including Marcus, who had contributed to mankind in response to the ''Ewiger Jude'' (eternal Jew) exhibition by
Julius Streicher
Julius Streicher (12 February 1885 – 16 October 1946) was a member of the Nazi Party, the ''Gauleiter'' (regional leader) of Franconia and a member of the '' Reichstag'', the national legislature. He was the founder and publisher of the virul ...
in Munich. Marcus was credited as having invented the petrol driven motor car. With the
German occupation of Austria in March 1938, the
memorial
A memorial is an object or place which serves as a focus for the memory or the commemoration of something, usually an influential, deceased person or a historical, tragic event. Popular forms of memorials include landmark objects or works of a ...
in front of the
Vienna Technical University
TU Wien (TUW; german: Technische Universität Wien; still known in English as the Vienna University of Technology from 1975–2014) is one of the major universities in Vienna, Austria. The university finds high international and domestic recogn ...
was removed. After World War II, the monument was rebuilt and his car, which had been hidden, was returned to display.
Marcus was removed from German encyclopedias as the inventor of the modern car, under a directive from the
German Ministry for Propaganda during
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
. His name was replaced with the names of
Daimler
Daimler is a German surname. It may refer to:
People
* Gottlieb Daimler (1834–1900), German inventor, industrialist and namesake of a series of automobile companies
* Adolf Daimler (1871–1913), engineer and son of Gottlieb Daimler
* Paul Da ...
and
Benz
Benz, an old Germanic clan name dating to the fifth century (related to "bear", "war banner", "gau", or a "land by a waterway") also used in German () as an alternative for names such as Berthold, Bernhard, or Benedict, may refer to:
People Sur ...
. The directive (in German) read as follows:
In English this would be
Current Austrian thinking is that Marcus' first car ran in the late 1880s.
However, early publications suggest that he may have had a petrol powered vehicle running earlier than 1870.
The deliberate destruction of evidence of Marcus' inventions by the Nazi regime has left these dates open to debate and speculation.
Britannica cites 1864 for Marcus' first car with a 10-year gap to the second, which is consistent with other sources.
Marcus' cars
![MW1 signiert klein](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a7/MW1_signiert_klein.jpg)
Based on the information from existing sources, Marcus' first machine was built on a simple handcart in 1870. but had to be started by lifting the drive wheels off the ground and spinning them. The
internal combustion engine
An internal combustion engine (ICE or IC engine) is a heat engine in which the combustion of a fuel occurs with an oxidizer (usually air) in a combustion chamber that is an integral part of the working fluid flow circuit. In an internal combus ...
was designed for liquid combustibles and made him the first to propel a vehicle by means of petrol. Marcus was not satisfied with this cart and dismantled it.
[ However, his first automobile model was displayed at the Vienna Exhibition in 1864 (more likely the 1873 Vienna Internation Exhibition according to earliest sources) and his second model was made and driven in 1875.
In 1883 a patent for a low-voltage ]ignition magneto
An ignition magneto, or high-tension magneto, is a magneto that provides current for the ignition system of a spark-ignition engine, such as a petrol engine. It produces pulses of high voltage for the spark plugs. The older term ''tension'' ...
was given to Marcus in Germany and a new petrol engine built.
This design was used for all further engines, including that of the only existing Marcus car from 1888 to 1889. It was this ignition, in conjunction with the "rotating brush carburettor
A carburetor (also spelled carburettor) is a device used by an internal combustion engine to control and mix air and fuel entering the engine. The primary method of adding fuel to the intake air is through the venturi tube in the main meterin ...
", that made the engine's design very innovative. By 1886 the German navy was using the engine in its torpedo boats.
In 1887, Marcus started a co-operation with the Moravia
Moravia ( , also , ; cs, Morava ; german: link=yes, Mähren ; pl, Morawy ; szl, Morawa; la, Moravia) is a historical region in the east of the Czech Republic and one of three historical Czech lands, with Bohemia and Czech Silesia.
The me ...
n company Märky, Bromovsky & Schulz. They offered two stroke and — after the fall of the Otto
Otto is a masculine German given name and a surname. It originates as an Old High German short form (variants ''Audo'', ''Odo'', ''Udo'') of Germanic names beginning in ''aud-'', an element meaning "wealth, prosperity".
The name is recorded fro ...
-Patent in 1886 — four stroke engines of the Marcus type.
In 1875 Märky, Bromovsky & Schulz built the car which can still be seen in Vienna's Technical Museum. This car made Marcus well-known all over the world. The car was named a Historic Mechanical Engineering Landmark by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers
The American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) is an American professional association that, in its own words, "promotes the art, science, and practice of multidisciplinary engineering and allied sciences around the globe" via "continuing ...
.
In a 1904 book, "The Motor," it states: ''Who was the Inventor? Siegfried Marcus is widely credited with having invented the benzine motor''.
John Nixon of the London Times in 1938 considered Marcus' development of the motor car to have been experimental, as opposed to Benz who took the concept from experimental to production. Nixon described Marcus' cars as impractical. 12 years later, in 1950, the Times described the car at the Vienna Technical Museum as being built in 1875 and the first petrol-powered road vehicle. A description of its first journey of 7.5 miles from Vienna to Klosterneuberg was included in the article. Since the car was moved to the Museum in 1918, it had only been driven twice. once when sent for display in Sweden.
Patents
Marcus was the holder of 131 patent
A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an enabling disclosure of the invention."A p ...
s in 16 countries. He never applied for a patent for the motorcar and, of course, he never held one. Nevertheless, he was the first to use petrol to propel a vehicle
A vehicle (from la, vehiculum) is a machine that transports people or cargo. Vehicles include wagons, bicycles, motor vehicles (motorcycles, cars, trucks, buses, mobility scooters for disabled people), railed vehicles (trains, trams), wa ...
, in the simple handcart of 1864, but it is uncertain whether the extant Marcus car ran before 1890.
Some examples of his patents:
* 33258, 10 September 1861, Improvements to relay magnets
* 2058, 6 July 1872, Device for mixing of fuel with air
* 286030, 2 October 1883, Improved gas engine
* 306339, 7 October 1884, Electrical igniting device for gas engines
In conjunction with Captain E von Wohlgemuth of the Imperial German Navy, Marcus invented an electrical ignition of ships cannons. The advantages of the system were that it allowed for the simultaneous firing of the cannons, or selection of a particular firing pattern, and the ability to fire them from the ship's bridge.
Sources
*
* Awarded as the June 2001 book of the month by the Austrian Academy of Science.
*
*
*
See also
* History of the internal combustion engine
Various scientists and engineers contributed to the development of internal combustion engines. In 1791, the English inventor John Barber patented a gas turbine. In 1794 Thomas Mead patented a gas engine. Also in 1794 Robert Street patented an i ...
* List of Austrian scientists
This is a list of Austrian scientists and scientists from the Austria of Austria-Hungary.
Economists
* Siegfried Becher, economist and government minister
*Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk
*Ernst Fehr
*Simon Gächter
*Friedrich Hayek, economist and social ...
References
External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Marcus, Siegfried
1831 births
1898 deaths
Jewish scientists
People from Malchin
German automotive pioneers
German scientific instrument makers
People from the Grand Duchy of Mecklenburg-Schwerin
Burials at the Vienna Central Cemetery
Engineers from Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania