IEEE - Aerospace and Electronic Systems - September 2019 - 60

Christian H€ulsmeyer: Invention and Demonstration of Radar, 1904

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We are most grateful to those who have helped with the
preparation of this nomination. Special thanks are due to
Arthur Bauer, whose careful and detailed account of
H€
ulsmeyer and his work has provided much invaluable
material, and to Yves Blanchard. We acknowledge with
gratitude the support of the City of Cologne, without
which the nomination would not have been possible.

REFERENCES
[1] [Online]. Available: https://ethw.org/Milestones:List_of_

Figure 8.
Medal commemorating the 100th anniversary of H€ulsmeyer's
birth showing the coat of arms of the H€ulsmeyer's family, and
depicting a bat.

IEEE_Milestones
[2] J. C. Maxwell, "General equations of the electromagnetic
field," in A Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism, Oxford,
U.K.: Clarendon, 1891.

and his work, and components of the Telemobiloskop, now
on display in the Deutsches Museum in Munich.
H€ulsmeyer and Watson-Watt actually met, at a radar conference in Frankfurt in 1953 (Figure 6). This must have been
a remarkable meeting. Watson-Watt is recorded as saying: "I
am the father of radar. You may be its grandfather," but the
expression on H€ulsmeyer's face is interesting.
H€ulsmeyer died on 31 January 1957, at the age of 75, and
was buried in the North Cemetery at D€usseldorf (Figure 7).

[3] H. Griffiths, "Oliver Heaviside," in History of Wireless.
T. K. Sarkar Ed., Hoboken, NJ, USA: Wiley, 2006, ch. 7.
[4] D. Pritchard: The Radar War: Germany's Pioneering
Achievement 1904-1945, New York, NY, USA: Harper
Collins, 1989, pp. 13-29.
[5] Sean Swords, Technical History of the Beginnings
of RADAR, (IEE History of Technology Series, 6),
pp. 42-45, Stevenage, U.K.: Peter Peregrinus, 1986.
[6] A. O. Bauer, "Christian H€ulsmeyer and about the early
days of radar inventions-A survey," Diemen, 2005.
[Online]. Available: http://www.cdvandt.org/radar_i.htm

CONCLUSION

[7] H. Griffiths, "Early history of bistatic radar," in Proc. Eur.

Although there are plenty of others who made significant
contributions, it was H€ulsmeyer who designed, built, demonstrated, and patented the first system of this kind, so it is
right that he receives the credit for the invention of radar.
As a final comment, it is interesting that the coat of arms
of the H€ulsmeyer family includes a bat (Fledermaus)-
making reference to the principle of echolocation on which
radar is based (Figure 8).
The references that were cited in the IEEE
Milestone nomination were the books of Brown [8],
Pritchard [4] and Swords [5], and the website of
Arthur Bauer [6].

60

Radar Conf., 2016, pp. 253-257.
[8] Louis Brown: Technical and Military Imperatives: A
Radar History of World War II, New York, NY, USA:
Taylor & Francis, 1999, pp. 40-43.
[9] A Special Session was held at the SEE/IEEE International

IEEE A&E SYSTEMS MAGAZINE

Radar Conference in Toulouse, France in 2004 to mark
the centenary of H€ulsmeyer's invention. Two papers of
particular relevance are: Arthur O. Bauer: 'H€ulsmeyer's
early radar commitments' and Jean-Marie Colin: 'Radar
innovation and proofs from C. H€ulsmeyer' Soci
et
e de


l'Electricit
e, de l'Electronique
et des Technologies de
l'Information et de la Communication, 2004.

SEPTEMBER 2019
https://www.ethw.org/Milestones:List_of_IEEE_Milestones https://www.ethw.org/Milestones:List_of_IEEE_Milestones http://www.cdvandt.org/radar_i.htm
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