Come in, Gräfelfing

Early tests on airships

In 1909, Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin (1838–1917) became aware of the DVG and asked Dieckmann to investigate whether radiotelegraphic transmitters could be used on airships. Initial experiments in Gräfelfing proved promising, so Dieckmann took the transmitters with him to Lake Constance – the home of the Count – to test them on board his airships. These tests were successful, and the Count gradually began to equip his airships with radiotelegraphic transmitters. In May 1912, for the first time in history, passengers on LZ 11 Viktoria Luise not only had the thrill of travelling on an airship, but were also able to send private telegrams to people on the ground during the flight. Whether the novelty of air travel or the possibility of communicating with acquaintances and relatives while en route was the greater attraction is hard to say. What is certain is that radio technology revolutionised aviation. It was now possible for airships and aeroplanes to communicate with each other and receive information from the ground. Now, nothing stood in the way of orderly air traffic control.

The development of the first aircraft autopilot functions at the DVG marked another major contribution to the modernisation of aviation. This development began on Lake Ammer. Before venturing into automatic flight control, Dieckmann had already developed a remote control system for motorboats. He intended the system to demonstrate the possibility of automating steering manoeuvres. In 1929, the DVG team demonstrated such a remote-controlled motorboat to the Hungarian Navy on Lake Balaton. Using a remote control and command transmission system, the team started the motorboat's engine, carried out various control manoeuvres, and even activated a machine gun to fire single shots and burst rounds. From then, it was only a matter of time before aeroplanes were equipped with autopilot functions.

For those who find radio technology somewhat abstract, here is another outcome of the work carried out at the DVG. In this case, however, we have to travel a little further back in time, to around 1905. Back then, Max Dieckmann was working as an assistant to the physicist Ferdinand Braun (1850–1918), who taught in Strasbourg. In 1897, Braun had developed a cathode ray tube, which later also became known as the Braun tube. Dieckmann used this tube in 1906 to reproduce silhouettes in a format of three by three centimetres. He pursued this idea further in 1925, when he used a Braun tube to construct a device that can be found in almost every household today: the television. This was exhibited that same year at the German Transport Exhibition in Munich.

Radio research continued to grow in importance throughout the 1930s. The Oberpfaffenhofen Aeronautical Radio Research Institute (Flugfunk-Forschungsinstitut Oberpfaffenhofen; FFO) was founded in 1937, and Dieckmann was entrusted with its management. The DVG existed parallel to the FFO during this period. In 1942, the government of the German Reich bought the DVG from Dieckmann and incorporated it as a branch of the FFO. After the end of World War II, the FFO was initially closed, but was able to resume its work in 1954. After a short interim phase in Munich-Riem, it was transferred back to Oberpfaffenhofen in 1956.