BTZ42: p. 85: Jamf, Darmstadt, Universities, V-2s

[Smoke Teff]

What biographical/career info about Jamf is known?

He's working at Darmstadt in 1920, visiting Harvard, one of the oldest
institutions and symbols of power/influence in the New World. This is early
in his career, "before he phased into organic chemistry," but if he's
visiting Harvard he's gotta be fairly accomplished.

As much as (inextricable from) the corporate bleedthrough between these two
states who were just at war and soon would be again, universities/the
academy are an avenue that permeates the membrane of national borders. Even
during the War, nations' taste for scientists, even the other side's
scientists, and their insight, intensifies. Information knows no border
(nor ethics, and neither do we in pursuit of it). The Word. The supposedly
apolitical act of inquiry.

But this is all during Wartime. In Peacetime, in 1920, scientists don't
need to be kidnapped, smuggled. Jamf travels freely to Harvard, works on
the National Research Council's dime, in fact.



This might be immaterial, but in clicking around, I find two plausible
universities Jamf might have been based out of in Darmstadt:

1) The Technical University of Darmstadt (TU Darmstadt)

2) The Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences (Hochschule Darmstadt)

Both of them seem to be very important/notable in their own right and seem
to have played a big part in the growth and character of the city. Except
that, in reading about them, you see that they are really kindred--HD and
TUD were originally integrated under the TUD name from that institution's
founding in 1877 (it was elevated from a polytechnic school to a university
by Louis IV, Grand Duke of Hesse, the year his father died and he inherited
his father's title/influence). (Here
<https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5b/Wappen-HD.png> is a
link to the family crest--it has a wheel, a key, six- and eight-pointed
stars, a few...sphinxes?, one with a dagger).

The university's name is an amalgam of the two that eventually split:
Technische Hochschule zu Darmstadt.

There is some debate about whether the town is big enough to sustain a
university. The matter persists until the school becomes THE FIRST SCHOOL
IN THE WORLD to endow a chair in the hot new field of Ee-lectrical
Engineering. Which business is about to be booming. The university expands
rapidly. In the wake of the industrial revolution, and before WWI, we see
that corporate and military interests are driving the academy.

Wikipedia has it: "During the two decades before the World War I
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I>, all disciplines of the
university underwent diversification and expansion. New disciplines such as
Paper Making and Cellulose Chemistry were introduced, and as early as 1913
a Chair of Aeronautics <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeronautics> and
Flight Mechanics was set up."

And further: "Intense discussions were held on the aim of extending the
curriculum <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curriculum> beyond the purely
technical education in order to prepare the engineer for his leading role
in society. A concrete step in this direction was taken in 1924, when the
'General Faculty', which until then had combined all the non-technical
subjects, was divided into a Department of Mathematics and Natural Science
and a Department of Cultural Studies and Political Science. Moreover, the
measures taken to provide students with knowledge outside their own narrow
field of study included the upgrading of Economics and the creation of
professorships in Political Science, History of Technology and Sociology."

This reminds me of the the source for WvB's epigraph. Also of the notion
(do Weber and Brown both mention this?) of the division of labor as a sort
of original sin (my words) of the culture.


Zoom out for a few notes about Darmstadt. It's "first city in Germany to
force Jewish shops to close in early 1933" (wik.). Also one of the earliest
sites of US firebombing on Sep. 11, '44. Your classic
used-to-be-a-beautiful-city thing. Wikipedia puts it better than I
could: "20,000
dwellings and one chemical works destroyed and industrial production
reduced."

I guess this is where G-5 comes in? Of the aftermath of the city's (and
thus most of the university's) destruction, Wikipedia says: "The electrical
engineering department remained continuously functional, doing work under
contract with the U.S. Army to build components of the V-2 guidance system.
'But we have to be careful how we word this production order because we
don't want the Russians to know that we are cranking up the V-2 system.'"

This quote comes from an oral interview given by Helmut Kuerschner, a
summary of which can be found here.
<http://airforcehistoryindex.org/data/001/070/962.xml> Says Helmut: "WORKED
ON GUIDANCE AND CONTROL COMPONENTS, PARTICULARLY ACCELEROMETER, FOR V-2
GUIDED MISSILE PROJECT AT PEENEMUNDE, GERMANY."

Helmut is offered a job by the government. Eventually relocates to the
United States where he works "on the early missile program (later to become
NASA) for the U.S. military with other German scientists under Werner Von
Braun" (says his wife's obituary). They spend the rest of their days living
in the American southwest.
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