Franz Ollendorff

Franz Ollendorff was born in 1900 in Berlin

Franz Heinrich (Haim) Ollendorff was born in Berlin in 1900. His parents were Martha Wohlauer and the businessman Nathan Ollendorff. He studied engineering at the Technical University of Berlin and completed a doctorate in 1921.

In 1924 he joined Siemens in Berlin, working under Reinhold Rüdenberg. From 1928 he taught engineering at the Berlin Technische Hochschule. The Nazis forced him out in 1933, and he then taught at the Jewish school in Berlin.

In 1934 the school moved to Jerusalem, and he moved with it. He returned to Germany to work for Youth Aliyah and was expelled by the Gestapo in 1937. He then joined the Technion, where he founded the electrical engineering faculty and served as its first dean.

His research covered electromagnetic waves, radar, biophysics and medical electronics. In 1955 he became the first research professor at the Technion. He also taught at the Technion's vocational high school until 1975.

He opposed patents on scientific discoveries and in the early 1960s joined scientists who called for a Middle East free of nuclear weapons. He died in Haifa in 1981.