Friday, April 12, 1946

THE JEWISH NEWS

_Page Fifty-six

Granted Patent in 1864

w Gave Automobile to World

Siegfried Marcus, Versatile Berlin-Born Viennese Inventor,
Was First to Perfect Gasoline-Driven Motor Vehicle; Solved
The Problem of Carburetion and Electro-Magnetic Ignition

By PHILIP SLOMOVITZ

•

Michigan, in June,

will celebrate the

Golden Jubilee of au-

tomobile manufactur-

ing in this state. Form-

er U.

S. Senator

Prentiss M. Brown

heads the celebration

Siegfried Marcus and His First Automobile.

committee. The occa-

sion serves to recall

A

the activities of the

S THE STATE OF MICHIGAN
plans for the great celebration of the Golden
Jubilee of the Automobile, historic justice de-
mands that we 'turn back the pages of time to
1864 and 1875, when a Jewish mechanic in Vienna
invented and then improved the benzine-driven
motor vehicle.
While the beginning of the automobile industry
in Michigan is credited to March 7, 1896, when
Charles King frightened pedestrians by appearing
on our streets with the first horseless carriage,
the invention of the automobile by the Viennese
Jewish mechanic preceded this event by at least
21 years.

*

*

inventor of the first

practical automobile—

Siegfried Marcus—the

great Viennese invent-

or of the last century,

creator of articles

which antedated many

modern inventions—

whose life story is re-

corded in this article.

*

3

IEGFRIED MARCUS
is the mechanical genius who introduced the
great invention which revolutionized science and
industry in the world.
Born in Mecklenburg, Germany, in '1831, Sieg-
fried worked as a mechanic for • Siemens and
Halske in Berlin, until he moved to Vienna in
1852. His inventions included a mechanism for the
discharge of deep-sea mines by electricity, the
thermos flask, telegraph relays and scores of other
articles.
His first benzine-driven car was patented in
1864. His second and improved car was completed
in 1875, when he drove it on Vienna's streets.
His auto patents were registered in Germany
and the town council of Mecklenburg honored
the inventor by affixing a tablet to the house in
which he was born.
His first automobile was in the possession of
the Vienna Automobile Club, but there is no way
of knowing . what has happened to it since the
advent of Nazism, the Nazis having gone out of
the way to ignore any mention of the Jew Sieg-
fried Marcus' great gifts. Some of the available
records state that his 1875 automobile was pre-
served in the Vienna Industrial Museum.. •

-

* * *

W

HEN THE FIRM
of Siemens and Halske engaged in establishing
the first telegraphic communication between Ber-
lin and Magdeburg in 1848, Marcus contributed a
number of improvements to the development of
the telegraph.
In 1860, he set up his own laboratory in Vienna.
His creativeness had led him to the development
and patenting of an electric lamp in 1877. He per-
fected a loud speaker microphone. It is believed
that had he been less versatile, and had he con-
centrated on the automobile, rather than spread-
ing out his wings as an inventor in many direc-
tions, his name would have gone down in history
as the greatest perfector of the autmobile.- He is
known to have had 38 patents in Austria alone,
and 76 in a dozen other countries. • The Austrian
Academy of Sciences awarded him a gold medal.

A

PRIZE OF
2,500 gulden, awarded Marcus for the invention
of the thermos pillar by the . Imperial and Royal
Academy of Sciences, and the purchase of the
telegraph relay by the Austrian postal authori-
ties, indicate that the eminent Jewish inventor of
the last century was well provided for. However,
he was not compensated for many of his other
inventions, including the electric lamp.
His mechanical shop was a sanctuary. The biog-
raphy of Marcus, written by Kurzel-Runtscheiner,
enumerates .his activities and lists the many in-
yentions .of
• the. Jewish mechanical genius.

HREE COPIES
of the 1875 Marcuscar model were built—one in
Marcus' shop and the other two in Blansko,
Czechoslovakia, in the iron %factories of Prince
Salm. The latter carefully followed Marcus'
sketches.
In a sense, Marcus was shortsighted in his out-
look for the future. When he was asked to go to
Blansko to perfect his invention, he refused, be-
ing totally satisfied that he had solved the tech-
nical problems of the automobile.
The Austrian Automobile Club bought the
Blansko-made automobile and gave it a place of
honor in the Vienna Technological Museum.

T

WO GERMAN
inventors, Daimler and Benz, in later years per-
fected automobiles. But it is generally conceded
that the Marcus car was superior to theirs, and it
is not known whether the Germans were influ-
enced by the Jewish automobile creator.
In any event, it was Marcus who first solved
the problem of the internal combustion engine on
the principle of two and four cycles.
A statue in honor of Siegfried Marcus, who
died in 1898, was erected in front of the Techno-
logical University in Vienna, and was still there
at the time of the invasion of Austria by the
Nazis. If it is still standing, it marks one of the
rare phenomena of the Nazis having failed to
destroy a tribute to a Jew. Their usual policy
was typified when they removed the statue of
Heinrich Heine in Berlin.

*

S

Henry Ford . . .
driving automobile
he made from bi-
cycle par ts more
than 50 years ago.

William Durant
. founded General Motors,

Michigan's Pioneers In
Auto Manufacturing

S

IEGFRIED MARCUS,
as the inventor of the automobile, succeeded nu-
merous others who had attempted to introduce
the motor vehicle to the world. Jean Lenoir made
a gas motor vehicle in 1860 and took a trip in it
two years later. However, the gas had to be car-
ried in a separate container, not being produced
by the motor.
Marcus, on the other hand, solved the major
automobile problems by using gasoline as fuel,
by producing the mixture of gasoline vapor and
air within the motor, and by introducing the
electro-magnetic ignition.

He called the mixture of gasoline and air "can-
bureted air," and his first machine, which he
made in 1864, became the forerunner of our mod-
ern automobile. The patent for his- electro-mag-
netic ignitor was awarded to Marcus on June 21,
1864.

*

*

IEGFRIED MARCUS
belongs in the category of the great Jewish in-
ventors of all time. He was in a class with Emil
Berliner. In a larger sense, he was like the late
David Schwartz, the Jewish inventor of the rigid
airships, the principle of which was stolen from
him by Count Zeppelin.
Schwartz, also a Viennese, completed his airship
in 1895 and went to Berlin to induce the German
government to accept it for a test flight. His

*

T

HE "FIRST MARCUSCAR"
is the name by which this first vehicle was re-
ferred to. It was an expensive experiment, be-
cause gasoline had to be imported from German
pharmacies at a high price.' We are told that the
first Marcus automobile succeeded in completing
a trial run of 200 meters.

The second Marcuscar was greatly advanced,
succeeding in vaporizing gasoline by rotating
atomizers, and traveling long distances. It covered
12 kilometers, and made several sensational trips
which attracted attention. However, the police
finally prohibited its tours because its iron wheels
made a loud racket.

Horace E. Dodge
. . . an early pioneer.

4e,
Louis Chevrolet . .. his
car became most popular.

proposal was rejected and he returned to Vienna
a discouraged, impoverished and ridiculed man.
His wife returned to plead his cause and the
Schwartz-built machine made its flight on Nov.
5, 1897. It crashed, but it did not destroy the
hopes of the inventor.
Count Zeppelin watched the flight, took an
interest in the machine, secured an outline of the
invention a n d
completed h i s
first airship built
o n Schwartz's
principles in 1900.
Thus, the auto-
mobile and the
Zeppelin were
the creations of
Jews both of
whom are among
the world's for-
gotten inventors.
History, however,
PRENTISS M. BROWN
will give due rec-
Chairman of Michigan Auto
ognition to their
Golden Jubilee celebratiou,
creative genius.

