German Grundlichkeit Trivia Quiz

Answer: Melitta Bentz

Melitta Bentz (née Amalie Auguste Melitta Liebscher, 1873-1950) was a housewife in the Dresden area. She desired to offer her family the best possible coffee, but she was not satisfied with the percolator nor with the early espresso machines, and using linen filters was not the solution either: these were too difficult to clean. So she experimented with some other materials, and came up with the paper coffee filter sachet. She patented her invention in 1908 and founded a company to produce these sachets.
Despite some setbacks during both World Wars, the Melitta company thrived, and between 1908 and 1950 the net worth of the company fabulously grew. After Melitta's death, the company was run by her children and by their children afterwards.
Frans Rombouts was a Flemish entrepreneur, founder of Rombouts Koffie company. Egbert Douwe was a Dutch grocer who founded the company Douwe Egberts, famous for its coffee brands. Henri Nestlé was a Swiss confectioner, one of the founders of the Nestlé group (with the Nescafé and Nespresso coffee brands).

Answer: Artur Fischer

Thomas Alva Edison (1847-1931) is the first name to come into mind with regards to the most patents obtained: he took 1,093 patents during his life.
But at least one person did better, and it was a German: Artur Fischer (1919-2016). In 1946 he started his professional career with a company that used scrap metal to make switches and lighters. Two years later Fischer founded his own eponymous company. One of his first inventions was the synchronous flashlight for cameras, which coordinated the flash with the shutter operation. Fischer's best known invention is the expandable wall plug: a plastic socket one puts into the wall, and when one turns a screw in the socket, the plastic expands to assure a better fit.
Hildegard von Bingen (1098-1179) was a monastic polymath. She composed music, wrote about theology and developed a new language. Gutenberg (about 1400-1468) is credited with the invention of the movable-type printing press (using separate items for each alphabetical character). Agricola (1672-1738, born Georg Bauer) studied medicine and also was active in botany. None of these three people obtained any patents, as there wasn't yet an official institute for patenting procedures and inventions in Germany: the Deutsches Patent- und Markenamt was only founded in 1877, and after 100 years, it was complemented by the European Patent Office (which groups the filing procedure for all countries involved in the European Patent Organisation).

Answer: Otto von Guericke

Otto von Guericke (1602-1686) was born into a wealthy family in Magdeburg, a city in Sachsen-Anhalt (north-eastern part of Germany). He studied philosophy and law, and also mathematics, physics and (fortification) engineering. In 1626 he entered politics in his hometown, and in 1646 he became Burgomeister (mayor) of the city, an office he held until his retirement in 1678.
Von Guericke was fascinated by the supposed phenomenon of a vacuum implied in the works of the astronomer Copernicus. He first tried in vain to obtain a vacuum by pumping water out of a barrel, but then succeeded with a pump that sucks the air out of an enclosed container. In 1657 he demonstrated his invention and proved the existence of atmospheric pressure: he put two half spheres together, pumped the air out, and showed that even sixteen horses together could not pull the half spheres apart.
Galilei (1564-1642) was an Italian physicist and philosopher. Boyle (1627-1691) was an Irish physicist and chemist. Tesla (1856-1943) was a Serbian (later American) engineer. All these have spent some of their investigations on the vacuum.

Answer: Felix Hoffmann

Hoffmann (1868-1946) studied chemistry and pharmacy. In 1894 he joined Bayer AG as a research chemist. In 1897 Hoffmann and his team (led by Heinrich Dreser) developed the procedure to make diacetylmorphine in marketable quantities, whilst unaware of the first discovery in 1874 by the English scientist C.R. Alder Wright. Hoffmann coined the name heroin for this new substance, about twice as potent as morphine but (as they then thought) with less chance of addiction. Bayer commercialized heroin as a prescription-free cough medicine during several years.
The same year the team with Hoffmann (and led by Arthur Eichengrun) synthesized acetylsalicylic acid, a new painkiller with less side effects (heartburn) as the pure salicylic acid. This new medicine was named aspirin and commercialized since 1899.
There is a certain discussion on the respective roles of Felix Hoffmann and Arthur Eichengrun in the synthesizing of aspirin. The Bayer company for which they both worked, first credited Hoffmann, but an independent investigation by a Scottish professor indicates that Eichengrun is more likely the discoverer.
Hahnemann (1755-1843) is best known for promoting homeopathy. Haber (1868-1934) developed the process of making ammonia in industrial quantities. Hertz (1857-1894) experimented with electromagnetic waves.

Answer: Robert Koch

Heinrich Hermann Robert Koch (1843-1910) studied natural sciences and medicine. He started the first research on bacteriology, using specific containers filled with nutrition to support the culture of isolated bacteria. Koch identified the bacteria responsible for causing anthrax, tuberculosis and cholera.

He also tried to develop a cure for tuberculosis, but failed in this attempt: not only did he omit to publish the exact composition, the results also were less than satisfactory. Kepler (1571-1630) was a German astronomer and mathematician. Krupp (1812-1887) was one of the main leaders of the eponymous steelworks group. Junkers (1859-1935) was a pioneer in aviation, and founded an eponymous aircraft factory.

Answer: Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibnitz

Leibnitz (1646-1716) was a philosopher and mathematician. His major mathematic discovery was the differential calculus: the calculation using infinitesimal small differences to solve an equation.
In philosophy, Leibnitz introduced the term "monad": the simplest structure possible.
Liebig (1803-1873) was a chemist, best known for the invention of bouillon cubes.
Langerhans (1847-1888) was a biologist, who discovered the islands of Langerhans: the glands that produce insulin.
Lilienthal (1848-1896) was an aviation pioneer, mostly active in the field of gliders.

Answer: Karl Marx

Karl Marx (1818-1883) was a philosopher, economist and political theorist. His well-known theory is that those who provide labour (the "proletarians") and those who employ people (the "capitalists") are at odds with each other, as they have opposing interests: the capitalist wants to produce with as little (personnel) cost as possible, while the proletarian seeks of course a salary as large as possible. According to Marx' interpretation, things will get worse for the proletarians all the time, until they revolt, overthrow the capitalists, and take all factories in their own hands.
Mendel (1822-1884) was a scientist who founded the scientific study of genetics. Although his name sounds German, he was in fact an inhabitant of Austrian Silesia (nowadays part of Poland and the Czech Republic). Moebius (1790-1826) was a mathematician, best known for his ribbon (with a paradoxical twist). Meitner (1878-1968) was a Swedish physicist (born as an Austrian), who collaborated with Otto Hahn and Otto Frisch on the feasibility of nuclear fission.

Answer: Paul Gottlieb Nipkow

Nipkow (1860-1940) studied optics and electro-physics. While he was still a student, he invented the "electric telescope" (later renamed Nipkow disk), a device to scan images and translate them in a series of points (today we would say "pixels"). Nipkow patented his invention in 1885. But it took still more than forty years before the first television would be made, and soon afterwards the Nipkow disk was replaced by fully electronic devices.
Ohm (1789-1854) was a physicist and mathematician. He is best known for his equation between electric current, electric potential and resistance.
Oetker (1862-1918) was the founder of the company Dr. Oetker, a firm he founded to commercialize the baking powder he created.
Noether (1882-1935) was a mathematician, who operated on abstract algebra.

Answer: Julius Petri

Petri (1852-1921) was a surgeon, microbiologist and physician. Between 1877 and 1879 he worked with Robert Koch in the Kaiserliches Gesundheitsamt (Imperial Health Office). When the people in this office started using containers to develop bacterial cultures in a nutrient based on agar (a jelly made from algae), Petri came up with a glass dish and fitting lid. Nowadays Petri dishes exist in glass (reusable after sterilization) or plastic (most of these only fit for using a single time). Planck (1858-1947) was one of the first to study quantum theory. Roentgen (1845-1923) experimented with radioactive substances and discovered the X-rays. Reuter (1816-1899) was born and educated in Germany, but later adopted British nationality.

He founded a well-known news agency.

Answer: Ernst Werner von Siemens

Siemens (1816-1892) was eager to improve recent inventions. He thus contributed to telegraphy, electrical elevators, the dynamo, the trolleybus, railways... Siemens AG is also active in healthcare applications, home automation, building technology (including air conditioning) and so many more terrains.
Schliemann (1822-1890) was a business man and amateur archaeologist, who excavated (one of the cities built at) Troy and Mycenae.
Wegener (1880-1930) was a geologist, best known for his theory of continental drift.
Zeppelin (1838-1917) was a Prussian general instrumental in the development of airships (steerable balloons).