Hans Knöll
Encyclopedia
Hans Knöll was a German physician
and microbiologist
. He was the director of the Central Institute of Microbiology and Experimental Therapy in Jena
from 1953 to 1976, a member of the Academy of Sciences of the German Democratic Republic (i.e. of East Germany), and professor of bacteriology at the University of Jena. He was awarded the National Prize of the GDR in 1949 and 1952. In the late 1960s he got involved in an effort to save the historic center of Jena, protesting against the "socialist" urban development plans.
(SA). He quit the latter in 1935 (after the Night of the Long Knives
). Little else is known about his political involvement during this period because his name does not appear in the 200,000-page records recovered from the Nazi Party Chancellery. He gained the Dr. med. degree in 1938. During his studies he was also an assistant at the Institute of Colloid Research at Frankfurt under Raphael Eduard Liesegang
. In 1937 Knöll started cooperating with Jenaer Glaswerk Schott and Gen. which developed all-glass bacterial filters. He developed an accurate measuring procedure for checking the filters. In return the company offered him the opportunity to establish and manage its bacterial lab—a full time job Knöll began in November 1938. At the glass works he established a still existing collection of defined strains of different microorganisms as basis for filter checking.
The Schott glass works were associated with Carl Zeiss AG. This led Knöll to cooperate with the Zeiss factory in the development of phase contrast
and fluorescent microscopy. In 1944 he participated in the isolation of nucleosides in living bacteria using phase contrast microscopy. In the same year this successful cooperation led to the transformation of the four-employee lab into the Institute of Microbiology, also known as the Schott-Zeiss-Institute because it was financially supported by the two firms.
During World War II, Knöll's attention was also drawn to penicillin
. In 1942 his institute delivered penicillin
on laboratory scale. Nazi Germany did not manage to achieve industrial scale production of penicillin before the war ended. After end of the war, Jena fell into the Soviet occupation zone, and the Soviet military administration ordered an immediate expansion in penicillin production. As a result of the rapid increase in the size of the operation, the fermentation section of the Institute of Microbiology became known as Jenapharm
in 1947. In 1950 the Institute of Microbiology officially became an independent nationally owned factory, the VEB Jenapharm, and Knöll was appointed its director. The company's portfolio quickly grew to include streptomycin, vitamins, analgesics, and transfusion solutions. Its workforce expanded to hundreds of employees by the end of 1940s.
In 1949 Knöll obtained his Habilitation
degree, and a year later he became professor of bacteriology at the University of Jena, but he also continued to lead Jenapharm. There Knöll initiated BCG
production, which was used for the tuberculosis
vaccination regime in the GDR. The scope of this operation was large enough that a separate building was erected on Jena's Beutenber Hill in 1952.
A year later Knöll left Jenapharm to become the director of the newly founded Institute of Microbiology and Experimental Therapy (IMET) built on the same Beutenber Hill, according to his directions. In 1956 the institute became part of the East German Academy of Sciences, and its name changed to Central Institute of Microbiology and Experimental Therapy (ZIMET). With this occasion Knöll became a member of the Academy. In the twenty years that Knöll led ZIMET, the institute became one of the largest in the GDR with over 1000 employees, and engaged in research and development in antibiotics, biotechnology, experimental therapy, medical and environ microbiology, microbial genetics, and steroids. At ZIMET Knöll continued to work on problems concerning the miniaturization and automation of microbiological methods. He developed a system of apparatuses for the selection of antibiotic producing microorganisms, and the evaluation of antibiotic activity. He is credited with a complete description of the life cycle of Sarcina maxima in 1973.
Immediately after World War II ended, following Soviet leadership, reconstruction in Jena had emphasized preserving the historically developed structure of East German cities, as well as regional building styles. This policy changed in the 1960s when the central government put emphasis on new and modern buildings. In Jena this change was materialized by an urban plan centered around building a massive skyscraper, the Jen-Tower
, within the intimate urban core of the city in 1968–1969. The skyscraper was meant to be a research facility for the VEB Zeiss, and also to symbolize architecturally the victory of socialism in Germany. Walter Ulbricht
, the Socialist Unity Party
leader, personally pushed for these developments in early 1968 during a visit to Jena. To accommodate this massive structure, VEB Zeiss would raze much of the old inner city. The activists that fought against the tower's construction nicknamed it "penis jenensis" taking advantage of its tall cylindrical shape.
Collegium Jenense was a thirteenth-century Dominican cloister
that was the principal site of the University of Jena from its founding until the mid-nineteenth century. Both Goethe and Alexander von Humboldt
had lectured within its walls. The Collegium was not located exactly on the building site of the Zeiss skyscraper, but it was mean to be demolished to make room for an adjacent recreational center that was intended to be connected to the tower. In 1969 Knöll dedicated himself to saving this site. Taking advantage of his notoriety he pressured the architect Hermann Henselmann
, the city's mayor, the university’s rector, Zeiss' general director and other local authorities. He also enlisted several colleagues in this effort, including the physicist Max Steenbeck
who also served as technical adviser to Walter Ulbricht. The authorities tried to choke off his efforts by deprecating them. They accused Knöll of “deviously” misinforming his fellow citizens about the collegium’s fate, and questioned his Institute’s overall loyalty to the regime.
Taking advantage of the economic difficulties that VEB Zeiss faced at the time, Knöll demanded immediate assurances that the Collegium would not be demolished until the firm actually had the money to build the recreation center. This was an effective tactic and two years later the state officially conceded that the recreational center would not be built and that the collegium would be spared. The height and breadth of the tower was also reduced. Nevertheless when it was completed in 1971 it had 27 stories. After its completion the tower became a white elephant
, and VEB Zeiss sought to escape the cost of maintaining it. The Council of Ministers shifted ownership of the building to the University of Jena, despite its protestations.
Physician
A physician is a health care provider who practices the profession of medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, injury and other physical and mental impairments...
and microbiologist
Microbiologist
A microbiologist is a scientist who works in the field of microbiology. Microbiologists study organisms called microbes. Microbes can take the form of bacteria, viruses, fungi, and protists...
. He was the director of the Central Institute of Microbiology and Experimental Therapy in Jena
Jena
Jena is a university city in central Germany on the river Saale. It has a population of approx. 103,000 and is the second largest city in the federal state of Thuringia, after Erfurt.-History:Jena was first mentioned in an 1182 document...
from 1953 to 1976, a member of the Academy of Sciences of the German Democratic Republic (i.e. of East Germany), and professor of bacteriology at the University of Jena. He was awarded the National Prize of the GDR in 1949 and 1952. In the late 1960s he got involved in an effort to save the historic center of Jena, protesting against the "socialist" urban development plans.
Career
In 1931 he started studying medicine at the University of Frankfurt on Main. A year later he joined the Nazi Party and the SturmabteilungSturmabteilung
The Sturmabteilung functioned as a paramilitary organization of the National Socialist German Workers' Party . It played a key role in Adolf Hitler's rise to power in the 1920s and 1930s...
(SA). He quit the latter in 1935 (after the Night of the Long Knives
Night of the Long Knives
The Night of the Long Knives , sometimes called "Operation Hummingbird " or in Germany the "Röhm-Putsch," was a purge that took place in Nazi Germany between June 30 and July 2, 1934, when the Nazi regime carried out a series of political murders...
). Little else is known about his political involvement during this period because his name does not appear in the 200,000-page records recovered from the Nazi Party Chancellery. He gained the Dr. med. degree in 1938. During his studies he was also an assistant at the Institute of Colloid Research at Frankfurt under Raphael Eduard Liesegang
Raphael Eduard Liesegang
Raphael Eduard Liesegang was a German chemist, photographer and entrepreneur born in Elberfeld. He is known for his work on Liesegang rings He also helped develop the methods of capillary analysis, a precursor to paper chromatography published a paper on the possibility of television , contributed...
. In 1937 Knöll started cooperating with Jenaer Glaswerk Schott and Gen. which developed all-glass bacterial filters. He developed an accurate measuring procedure for checking the filters. In return the company offered him the opportunity to establish and manage its bacterial lab—a full time job Knöll began in November 1938. At the glass works he established a still existing collection of defined strains of different microorganisms as basis for filter checking.
The Schott glass works were associated with Carl Zeiss AG. This led Knöll to cooperate with the Zeiss factory in the development of phase contrast
Phase contrast microscopy
Phase contrast microscopy is an optical microscopy illumination technique of great importance to biologists in which small phase shifts in the light passing through a transparent specimen are converted into amplitude or contrast changes in the image.A phase contrast microscope does not require...
and fluorescent microscopy. In 1944 he participated in the isolation of nucleosides in living bacteria using phase contrast microscopy. In the same year this successful cooperation led to the transformation of the four-employee lab into the Institute of Microbiology, also known as the Schott-Zeiss-Institute because it was financially supported by the two firms.
During World War II, Knöll's attention was also drawn to penicillin
Penicillin
Penicillin is a group of antibiotics derived from Penicillium fungi. They include penicillin G, procaine penicillin, benzathine penicillin, and penicillin V....
. In 1942 his institute delivered penicillin
Penicillin
Penicillin is a group of antibiotics derived from Penicillium fungi. They include penicillin G, procaine penicillin, benzathine penicillin, and penicillin V....
on laboratory scale. Nazi Germany did not manage to achieve industrial scale production of penicillin before the war ended. After end of the war, Jena fell into the Soviet occupation zone, and the Soviet military administration ordered an immediate expansion in penicillin production. As a result of the rapid increase in the size of the operation, the fermentation section of the Institute of Microbiology became known as Jenapharm
Jenapharm
Jenapharm is a pharmaceutical company from Jena, Germany. Founded in 1950 in East Germany, the company focused from the beginning on the production and development of steroids...
in 1947. In 1950 the Institute of Microbiology officially became an independent nationally owned factory, the VEB Jenapharm, and Knöll was appointed its director. The company's portfolio quickly grew to include streptomycin, vitamins, analgesics, and transfusion solutions. Its workforce expanded to hundreds of employees by the end of 1940s.
In 1949 Knöll obtained his Habilitation
Habilitation
Habilitation is the highest academic qualification a scholar can achieve by his or her own pursuit in several European and Asian countries. Earned after obtaining a research doctorate, such as a PhD, habilitation requires the candidate to write a professorial thesis based on independent...
degree, and a year later he became professor of bacteriology at the University of Jena, but he also continued to lead Jenapharm. There Knöll initiated BCG
Bacillus Calmette-Guérin
Bacillus Calmette-Guérin is a vaccine against tuberculosis that is prepared from a strain of the attenuated live bovine tuberculosis bacillus, Mycobacterium bovis, that has lost its virulence in humans by being specially subcultured in an artificial medium for 13 years, and also prepared from...
production, which was used for the tuberculosis
Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...
vaccination regime in the GDR. The scope of this operation was large enough that a separate building was erected on Jena's Beutenber Hill in 1952.
A year later Knöll left Jenapharm to become the director of the newly founded Institute of Microbiology and Experimental Therapy (IMET) built on the same Beutenber Hill, according to his directions. In 1956 the institute became part of the East German Academy of Sciences, and its name changed to Central Institute of Microbiology and Experimental Therapy (ZIMET). With this occasion Knöll became a member of the Academy. In the twenty years that Knöll led ZIMET, the institute became one of the largest in the GDR with over 1000 employees, and engaged in research and development in antibiotics, biotechnology, experimental therapy, medical and environ microbiology, microbial genetics, and steroids. At ZIMET Knöll continued to work on problems concerning the miniaturization and automation of microbiological methods. He developed a system of apparatuses for the selection of antibiotic producing microorganisms, and the evaluation of antibiotic activity. He is credited with a complete description of the life cycle of Sarcina maxima in 1973.
Preservationist activism
Jen-Tower
The JenTower is a skyscraper in Jena, Germany.-Common names:The tower has been known by many names, official and unofficial. From 1972 Until January 2005, the tower was called the Intershop Tower after its principal tenant, Intershop Communications AG. On November 30, 2004, the building was...
, within the intimate urban core of the city in 1968–1969. The skyscraper was meant to be a research facility for the VEB Zeiss, and also to symbolize architecturally the victory of socialism in Germany. Walter Ulbricht
Walter Ulbricht
Walter Ulbricht was a German communist politician. As First Secretary of the Socialist Unity Party from 1950 to 1971 , he played a leading role in the creation of the Weimar-era Communist Party of Germany and later in the early development and...
, the Socialist Unity Party
Socialist Unity Party of Germany
The Socialist Unity Party of Germany was the governing party of the German Democratic Republic from its formation on 7 October 1949 until the elections of March 1990. The SED was a communist political party with a Marxist-Leninist ideology...
leader, personally pushed for these developments in early 1968 during a visit to Jena. To accommodate this massive structure, VEB Zeiss would raze much of the old inner city. The activists that fought against the tower's construction nicknamed it "penis jenensis" taking advantage of its tall cylindrical shape.
Collegium Jenense was a thirteenth-century Dominican cloister
Cloister
A cloister is a rectangular open space surrounded by covered walks or open galleries, with open arcades on the inner side, running along the walls of buildings and forming a quadrangle or garth...
that was the principal site of the University of Jena from its founding until the mid-nineteenth century. Both Goethe and Alexander von Humboldt
Alexander von Humboldt
Friedrich Wilhelm Heinrich Alexander Freiherr von Humboldt was a German naturalist and explorer, and the younger brother of the Prussian minister, philosopher and linguist Wilhelm von Humboldt...
had lectured within its walls. The Collegium was not located exactly on the building site of the Zeiss skyscraper, but it was mean to be demolished to make room for an adjacent recreational center that was intended to be connected to the tower. In 1969 Knöll dedicated himself to saving this site. Taking advantage of his notoriety he pressured the architect Hermann Henselmann
Hermann Henselmann
Hermann Henselmann was a German architect most famous for his buildings constructed in East Germany during the 1950s and 60s.-Early years:...
, the city's mayor, the university’s rector, Zeiss' general director and other local authorities. He also enlisted several colleagues in this effort, including the physicist Max Steenbeck
Max Steenbeck
Max Christian Theodor Steenbeck was a German physicist who worked at the Siemens-Schuckertwerke in his early career, during which time he invented the betatron in 1934. He was taken to the Soviet Union after World War II , and he contributed to the Soviet atomic bomb project...
who also served as technical adviser to Walter Ulbricht. The authorities tried to choke off his efforts by deprecating them. They accused Knöll of “deviously” misinforming his fellow citizens about the collegium’s fate, and questioned his Institute’s overall loyalty to the regime.
Taking advantage of the economic difficulties that VEB Zeiss faced at the time, Knöll demanded immediate assurances that the Collegium would not be demolished until the firm actually had the money to build the recreation center. This was an effective tactic and two years later the state officially conceded that the recreational center would not be built and that the collegium would be spared. The height and breadth of the tower was also reduced. Nevertheless when it was completed in 1971 it had 27 stories. After its completion the tower became a white elephant
White elephant
A white elephant is an idiom for a valuable but burdensome possession of which its owner cannot dispose and whose cost is out of proportion to its usefulness or worth...
, and VEB Zeiss sought to escape the cost of maintaining it. The Council of Ministers shifted ownership of the building to the University of Jena, despite its protestations.