Archenhold, Friedrich Simon (1861-1939)

Archenhold, Friedrich Simon

ASTRONOMER (GERMANY)

BORN 2 Oct 1861, Lichtenau, Westfalen - DIED 14 Oct 1939, Berlin
GRAVE LOCATION Berlin: Städtischer Zentralfriedhof Friedrichsfelde, Gudrunstrasse, Lichtenberg (Feuerh.18 (ashes))

Co-founder of the Archenhold Observatory in Berlin. He was educated in Lippstadt, Berlin and Strassbourg. One of his professors was Wilhelm Foerster, a founder of the Urania in Berlin. In 1889 Archenhold was appointed first astronomer at the Urania and in 1890 he was employed at the Berlin Observatory under Foerster. In 1897 he married his wife Alice and they had five children.

Archenhold developed a huge telescope that was presented in 1896 and known as Himmelscanone (sky cannon). It was placed in the Treptower Park in Berlin and this was the beginning of what is known since 1946 as the Archenhold Observatory. In 1904 he met with Andrew Carnegie in England and later Carnegie visited him in Berlin. In 1907 he travelled to the USA where he met T.A. Edison and E.C. Pickering. He invited many scientists to the Observatory and on 2 June 1915 Alfred Einstein spoke there about his theory of relatively, possibly for the first time in public.

In 1914-1918 Archenhold was opposed to the war and in 1914 he was a founder of the Bund Neues Vaterland. In the 1920s he bought a summer house in Bansin where he took his family and he worked on papers. The Archenholds were jews and Alice and their daughter Hilda died in Theresienstadt. Archenhold died in 1939 and on his gravestone at the Zentralfriedhof Friedrichsfelde in Berlin Alice and Hilda are remembered.

Related persons
• knew Carnegie, Andrew
• cooperated with Messter, Oskar

Images

The grave of Friedrich Archenhold at the Städtischer Zentralfriedhof Friedrichsfelde, Berlin.
Picture by Androom (14 Nov 2004)