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April 26 in German History
April 26, 1774
Birth of Leopold Freiherr von Buch in
Angermünde, Germany. Buch's travels and reports were
instrumental in the development of the study of geography in
the 19th century. He studied at the Freiberg School of
Mining. For a short time he was the inspector of mines, but
soon turned full time to his researches in geology.
April 26, 1787
Birth of Ludwig Uhland in Tübingen,
Germany. Uhland was one of the outstanding poets of the
Romantic period. In addition to his prodigious output of
poetry, Uhland was also active in politics and a practicing
lawyer. In 1848 he was a member of the German National
Assembly at the Paulskirche in Frankfurt am Main. His
interest in the medieval period of Germany prompted wide
spread attachment to the middle ages among his
contemporaries.
April 26, 1812
Birth of Alfred Krupp (1812-1887), the "Cannon King", in Essen, Germany.
Krupp had inherited a steel company from his father at age 14
(1826). He soon had the steel making company making a variety
of steel products and grew the company quickly. At the World
Exhibition in London in 1851 he showed the largest steel
ingot which had ever been cast, 4, 300 pounds. It was the
growth of rail transportation, which allowed the company to
grow most rapidly as Krupp developed a world market for train
wheels. The second great growth came as he decided to
manufacture cannons and to market them world wide. Krupp
cannons were first used in Europe in the Franco-Prussian war.
By the time of his death he had armed 46 nations with Krupp
cannons.
April 26, 1829

Birth of Theodor Billroth (1829-1894) in Bergen auf
Rügen, Prussia. He was a surgeon and an amateur musician. As a surgeon, he is generally regarded as the founding father of modern abdominal surgery. As a musician, he was a close friend and confidant of Johannes Brahms, and one of the first to attempt a scientific analysis of musicality.
April 26, 1863
Birth of Arno Holz in Rastenburg, Germany. Arno Holz was a German naturalist poet and dramatist. He is best known for his poetry collection Phantasus.
April 26, 1876
Birth of Arthur Moeller van den Bruck in
Solingen, Germany. It was Moeller's book of 1923 Das
Dritte Reich which provided a nickname for Hitler's
Germany.
April 26, 1889
Birth of Ludwig Wittgenstein in Vienna,
Austria. Wittgenstein studied in England and later in his
career returned to England as a professor. He is noted for
his linguistic philosophy.
April 26, 1900
Birth of Douglas Sirk (original name, Claus
Detlef Sierck) in Hamburg, Germany. Sirk began his career as
a theater and film director in Germany. In 1937 he fled
Hitler's Germany, making his way to the United States in
1939. He began directing films in Hollywood in 1943. He
achieved recognition as a director with Universal Studios. His
credits include Magnificent Obsession (1954), There's
Always Tomorrow (1955), Written on the Wind (1956),
The Tarnished Angels (1957), and Imitation of Life (1959).
April 26, 1908
Death of Karl August Möbius in Berlin,
Germany. Möbius, a zoologist, discovered symbiosis in marine
invertebrates. In 1863 he was one of the founders of the
Hamburg zoo. He designed Germany's first public aquarium.
April 26, 1933
Birth of Arno Penzias in Munich, Germany.
Penzias won the Nobel Prize in 1978 for discovery of
background thermal energy throughout the universe a fact
which supported the big-bang theory. Penzias immigrated to
the United States as a boy and studied at Columbia
University. He worked for AT&T Laboratories.
April 26, 1940
Death of Carl Bosch in Heidelberg, Germany. He won the Nobel
Prize in Chemistry in 1931 and is the developer of the Haber-Bosch process
(synthesis of Ammonia).
April 26, 2004
Heinz Fischer is elected the new president of Austria.
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