Name Wilhelm Orthmann | Died 1945 | |
Wilhelm Orthmann (1901–1945) was a German physicist. He was director of the physico-technical department of the Industrial College of Berlin. During World War II, he was also employed by the Reich Aviation Ministry.
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Education
Orthmann studied at the Martin-Luther-Universitat Halle-Wittenberg and the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universitat (today, the Humboldt-Universitat zu Berlin). He received his doctorate in 1926, under Peter Pringsheim, with a thesis on resonance lines.
Career
After receipt of his doctorate, he was a teaching assistant to Peter Pringsheim and Walther Nernst at the University of Berlin. He completed his Habilitation at the University of Berlin in 1931; his Habilitationsschrift was on the dielectric constants of electrolytes. From 1931, he was a Privatdozent at the University of Berlin.
From 1938 Orthmann was an untenured ausserordentlicher Professor (extraordinarius professor), from 1940 an ausserordentlicher Professor, and from 1942 an ordentlicher Professor (ordinarius professor) and director of the physico-technical department at the Wirtschaftshochschule Berlin (Industrial College of Berlin).
Orthmann, an assistant to Walther Nernst, helped Lise Meitner build an improved calorimeter with which to measure the average energy per beta particle emitted by Radium E, i.e., 210Bi83. Their results were submitted for publication in late 1929.
The Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service, passed in 1933, was substantially directed at academia and judges. The Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft (DPG, German Physical Society) dragged its feet in the dismissal of Jews for more than five years. It was not until the end of 1938, on the initiation of a petition by Herbert Arthur Stuart and Wilhelm Orthmann, who were engaged in physics studies (academic) reform, that the DPG asked Jewish members to withdraw their membership.
During World War II, Orthmann was also employed at the Reichsluftfahrtminiterium (RLM, Reich Aviation Ministry), finally as a scientific advisor in the development of anti-aircraft artillery.