Abstract
IN 1979, the Technische Hoschshule was established in Berlin following the fusion of two existing technical academies: the Gewerbeakademie, a species of polytechnic dating from 1821 ; and the Bauaksdemie, effectively a technical school for constructional engineers, which was founded in 1799. On this fact rests the claim of the "Technical University" to celebrate its hundred and fiftieth anniversary, and a recently published pamphlet (Von der Bauakademie zur Technischen Universitat: 150 Jahre Technisches Unterrichtswesen in Berlin. By Prof. Josef Becker. Pp. 44 + 6 plates. Berlin-Charlottenburg; 1949) is a description in some forty pages of the history of the Technische Hochschule and its forerunners. The interest of the pamphlet lies, however, not so much k the typical enough story of past development as in the present situation and its potentialities for the fature. The Berlin Technical Highschool was renamed the Technical University in 1946, almost, as it were, inrepudiation of its former reputation, and completely in line with the Faustian conception, current to-day smong Germn technicians, that technology culti-vated without regard to its social and humanistic responsibilities has a 'dæmonic power' over its practitioners. This conception, which was debated with very marked emotional oontent at the Darm-stadt Conference of Engineers in 1947, has led to a movement among the technical highschools to include some sort of 'humanistic faculty' in their teaching. Aachen and Berlin, at least, have actually taken practical steps in this direction, and it is on these grounds that the Technische Hochschule Berlin-Charlottenburg now claims the title of University. The Germn technicians appear, in fact, to be finding for themselves a rationalization of the apocalyptic destruction, material and moral, of the Germn debacle; and it may well prove that the outward expression will not be confined in the future to mere platform oratory and piously expressed intentions. On the contrary : the Germn capaoity to rationalize a strong emotional surge in fact and deed may have important consequences in the future bias of technical education in Germany. It is here, if anywhere, that the Barlin pamphlet is significant.
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The Technical University, Berlin (1799–1949). Nature 164, 16–17 (1949). https://doi.org/10.1038/164016d0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/164016d0