Rudolf Hell (19 December 1901 – 11 March 2002) was a German

inventor An invention is a unique or novel device, method, composition, idea or process. An invention may be an improvement upon a machine, product, or process for increasing efficiency or lowering cost. It may also be an entirely new concept. If an id ...

and

engineer Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who invent, design, analyze, build and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while considering the l ...

Career

Hell was born in Eggmühl. From 1919 to 1923, he studied electrical engineering in

Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the third-largest city in Germany, after Berlin and Ha ...

. He worked there from 1923 to 1929 as assistant of Prof. Max Dieckmann, with whom he operated a television station at the ''Verkehrsausstellung'' (lit.: "traffic exhibition") in Munich in 1925. In the same year Hell invented an apparatus called the ''

Hellschreiber The Hellschreiber, Feldhellschreiber or Typenbildfeldfernschreiber (also Hell-Schreiber named after its inventor Rudolf Hell) is a facsimile-based teleprinter invented by Rudolf Hell. Compared to contemporary teleprinters that were based on t ...

'', an early forerunner to impact dot matrix printers and faxes. Hell received a patent for the Hellschreiber in 1929. In the year 1929 he founded his own company in

Babelsberg Babelsberg () is the largest quarter ('' Stadtteil'') of Potsdam, the capital city of the German state of Brandenburg. The affluent neighbourhood named after a small hill on the Havel river is famous for Babelsberg Palace and Park, part of the Pala ...

Berlin Berlin is Capital of Germany, the capital and largest city of Germany, both by area and List of cities in Germany by population, by population. Its more than 3.85 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European U ...

. After

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 World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

he re-founded his company in

Kiel Kiel () is the capital and most populous city in the northern German state of Schleswig-Holstein, with a population of 246,243 (2021). Kiel lies approximately north of Hamburg. Due to its geographic location in the southeast of the Jutland pe ...

. He kept on working as an engineer and invented machines for electronically controlled engraving of printing plates and an electronic photo typesetting system called ''digiset'' marketed in the US as ''VideoComp'' by

RCA The RCA Corporation was a major American electronics company, which was founded as the Radio Corporation of America in 1919. It was initially a patent pool, patent trust owned by General Electric (GE), Westinghouse Electric Corporation, Westin ...

and later by III. He has received numerous awards such as the Knight Commander's Cross of the

Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany The Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany (german: Verdienstorden der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, or , BVO) is the only federal decoration of Germany. It is awarded for special achievements in political, economic, cultural, intellect ...

, the Gutenberg Prize of the International Gutenberg Society and the City of Mainz, the Werner von Siemens Ring and the Eduard Rhein Ring of Honor from the German

Eduard Rhein Foundation The Eduard Rhein Foundation was founded in 1976 in Hamburg (Germany) by Eduard Rhein. The goal of the foundation is to promote scientific research, learning, arts, and culture. This is done in particular by granting awards for outstanding achievemen ...

(1992). His company was taken over by

Siemens AG 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'', ''E ...

in 1981 and merged with Linotype in 1990, becoming ''Linotype-Hell AG''. Hellschreiber is still in use today by

Amateur Radio Amateur radio, also known as ham radio, is the use of the radio frequency spectrum for purposes of non-commercial exchange of messages, wireless experimentation, self-training, private recreation, radiosport, contesting, and emergency communi ...

(Ham) operators around the world. Hellverein Kiel collects Hell devices and keeps them functional. In addition, the website contains numerous documents and patents relating to the Hell devices: https://www.hell-kiel.de/en/

Death

Rudolf Hell died in

on 11 March 2002.

References

1901 births 2002 deaths People from Regensburg (district) 20th-century German inventors German centenarians German electrical engineers Men centenarians Werner von Siemens Ring laureates Knights Commander of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany Technical University of Munich alumni Engineers from Bavaria {{Germany-engineer-stub

Career

Death

See also

References