Franz Heinrich Ollendorff ( or חיים אולנדורף; May 15, 1900 – December 9, 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 cau ...

Biography

Franz Heinrich (Haim) Ollendorf was born in

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

. In 1924, he joined the

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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 is a city in the Southern Levant, on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest cities in the world, and ...

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 was a British Empire, British geopolitical entity that existed between 1920 and 1948 in the Palestine (region), region of Palestine, and after 1922, under the terms of the League of Nations's Mandate for Palestine. After ...

within the framework of the newly established Youth Aliyah. In 1937 he was finally expelled by the

Gestapo The (, ), Syllabic abbreviation, 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 F ...

. 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 and was awarded the

Israel Prize The Israel Prize (; ''pras israél'') is an award bestowed by the State of Israel, and regarded as the state's highest cultural honor. History Prior to the Israel Prize, the most significant award in the arts was the Dizengoff Prize and in Israel ...

for his research in

magnetic field A magnetic field (sometimes called B-field) is a physical 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 ...

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 Inst ...

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 sciences. 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 Academic staff of Technion – Israel Institute of Technology Israeli physicists Members of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities Israel Prize in exact science recipients who were physicists Jewish physicists Weizmann Prize recipients Israeli educators

Biography

Awards

See also

References