Fritz Pfleumer (20 March 1881 – 29 August 1945) was a German
engineer
Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who Invention, invent, design, build, maintain and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials. They aim to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while ...
who invented
magnetic tape
Magnetic tape is a medium for magnetic storage made of a thin, magnetizable coating on a long, narrow strip of plastic film. It was developed in Germany in 1928, based on the earlier magnetic wire recording from Denmark. Devices that use magnetic ...
for recording sound.
Biography
Pfleumer was born on 20 March 1881, in
Salzburg
Salzburg is the List of cities and towns in Austria, fourth-largest city in Austria. In 2020 its population was 156,852. The city lies on the Salzach, Salzach River, near the border with Germany and at the foot of the Austrian Alps, Alps moun ...
, to Robert and Minna Pfleumer (
née
The birth name is the name of the person given upon their birth. The term may be applied to the surname, the given name or to the entire name. Where births are required to be officially registered, the entire name entered onto a births registe ...
Hünich). His father Robert (1848–1934) was born in
Greiz
Greiz ( ; ) is a town in the state of Thuringia, Germany, and is the capital of the Greiz (district), district of Greiz. Greiz is situated in eastern Thuringia, east of the state capital Erfurt, on the White Elster river.
Greiz has a large park ...
, and his mother Minna (1846–1932) was born in
Freiberg
Freiberg () is a university and former mining town in Saxony, Germany, with around 41,000 inhabitants. The city lies in the foreland of the Ore Mountains, in the Saxon urbanization axis, which runs along the northern edge of the Elster and ...
. Fritz had five siblings – Mimi, Hans, Hermann, Otto, and Mizi. Hans emigrated to the US.
Pfleumer developed a process for putting metal stripes on cigarette papers and reasoned that he could similarly coat a magnetic stripe to be used as an alternative to wire recording.
In 1927, after experimenting with various materials, Pfleumer used very thin paper that he coated with iron oxide powder using lacquer as glue. He received a patent in 1928.
On 1 December 1932, Pfleumer granted
AEG The initials AEG are used for or may refer to:
Common meanings
* AEG (German company)
; AEG) was a German producer of electrical equipment. It was established in 1883 by Emil Rathenau as the ''Deutsche Edison-Gesellschaft für angewandte El ...
the right to use his invention when building the world's first practical
tape recorder
An audio tape recorder, also known as a tape deck, tape player or tape machine or simply a tape recorder, is a sound recording and reproduction device that records and plays back sounds usually using magnetic tape for storage. In its present ...
, called
Magnetophon
Magnetophon was the brand or model name of the pioneering reel-to-reel tape recorder developed by engineers of the German electronics company AEG in the 1930s, based on the magnetic tape invention by Fritz Pfleumer. AEG created the world's firs ...
K1. It was first demonstrated at the
IFA in 1935.
Pfleumer died on August 29, 1945, aged 64, in
Radebeul
Radebeul (; ) is a town (''große Kreisstadt'') in the Elbe valley in the district of Meißen (district), Meißen in Saxony, Germany, a suburb of Dresden. It is well known for its viticulture, a Karl May Museum, museum dedicated to writer Karl ...
, after being hit by a truck.
References
External links
videopreservation.conservation-us.org– Museum of Historic Video Equipment – Beginnings of Magnetic Recording – Audio, 1920–30s
by Wayne Carlson,
Ohio State University
The Ohio State University (Ohio State or OSU) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Columbus, Ohio, United States. A member of the University System of Ohio, it was founded in 1870. It is one ...
The History of Magnetic Recording by Steven Schoenherr, University of San Diego 2002Retrieved 2011-12-17
Fritz Pfleumer– German biography of Pfleumer from a local (Dresden) point of view
1881 births
1945 deaths
20th-century German inventors
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