Friedrich Dessauer

Who was Friedrich Dessauer?

Friedrich Dessauer was a physicist, a philosopher, a socially engaged entrepreneur and a journalist.

Friedrich Dessauer was born in Aschaffenburg, Germany. As a young man he was fascinated by new discoveries in the natural sciences. He was particularly interested in the X-rays discovered by Röntgen and their medical applications. Dessauer studied at the Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main until 1917. From 1924 to 1933 he was a Zentrum party member of the Reichstag, the German Parliament.

He was imprisoned by the Nazis when they came to power for his opposition to Hitler. He was released at request of the Turkish government, who invited him to the University of Istanbul, where he was made chair of the Institute. Here he worked together with Erich Uhlmann to develop medical applications of X-rays in Turkey. He moved to Fribourg University in 1937 to become the chair of experimental physics.

On 16 February 1963 Dessauer died, like many X-ray physicists, from radioactive contamination.