17. Anechoic Plates
Anechoic plates are plates made of polymer or rubber, containing thousands of small holes all over their surface and were added to military submarine hulls.
They have two main functions:
1. Absorb the sound waves emitted by enemy sonar, reducing and distorting the feedback signal, causing the accuracy and range of the enemy sonar to be compromised.
2. Decrease the sound emitted by the vessel itself and its engines to reduce the range at which it can be detected by enemy sonar.
The anechoic plates were developed by Kriegsmarine, navy of Nazi Germany, during World War II. They were known as Alberich, the name of an invisible dwarf of Germanic mythology.
After the end of World War II, anechoic plates were studied and used by several countries, including the Soviet Union and the United States, to upgrade their military vessels. Currently, anechoic plates are still used by various military vessels, music studios, soundproofing projects and the creation of anechoic chambers.
18. Chipboard Wood
Chipboard wood is a material made up of a mixture of wood waste, such as dust and sawdust, glue and resin. This mixture is pressed, forming panels that can receive any type of coating, giving color and a smooth surface. It is generally used in the manufacture of low-quality furniture. Its advantage is its low cost and ease of manufacture as it can be made with wood scraps, sawdust and shavings.
Although a simpler version was created in 1887 in Germany, it was in the period of World War II that the Germans created the sturdy resin-based chipboard that is manufactured to this day. During this period, the production and use of the material increased sharply, as the German population suffered from several hardships, including quality wood, which was expensive and used mainly for military purposes.
The inventor Max Himmelheber, who was also a pilot of the Luftwaffe, produced the first chipboard sheets, which were little more than sawdust, wood chips and resin. The first commercial piece was produced during World War II at a factory in Bremen, Germany. The material has evolved over the years and is still used around the world today, avoiding cutting millions of trees and helping to recycle discarded furniture and wood objects.
19. Plankalkül
Plankalkül is a programming language created by Konrad Zuse between 1942 and 1945. It was the first high-level programming language to be designed for a computer. “Kalkül” means formal system, so Plankalkül means “formal system for planning”.
Konrad Zuse had created some computers with electromagnetic relays, and in 1938 built the Z1 computer (we’ll talk more about it in this eBook). When he finished his project, he realized the need to create a logical language based on propositional calculus. He decided to create the Plankalkül language as part of his doctoral dissertation, developing a formal notation system for algorithms that could manipulate linear, branched and in loop calculus planes, which was very sophisticated and complex for the time.
Due to the collapse of Nazi Germany in 1945, Konrad Zuse was unable to submit his creation to the PhD, but had the language developed and recorded in a never released book.
After the end of World War II, Konrad Zuse published some scholarly articles in 1948, but didn’t received the prestige that his invention deserved. In the 1970s, with the advancement of computer processing, Plankalkül was published and compiled, being relaunched by students at the Free University of Berlin, in 2000, for academic purposes.
20. Olympic Torch Relay
The Olympic Torch Relay is the event of leading the Olympic flame from the city of Olympia, Greece, to the city where the Olympic Games will be held. The relay was first held at the Berlin Games in 1936 and continues to this day.
The torch relay was idealized and executed with great care by the Nazi Party to project the image of the Third Reich as a modern, economically dynamic state with growing international influence. The organizer of the 1936 Games, Carl Diem, drew on the tradition the Greeks held in 80 B.C, as an attempt to connect the ancient Olympics to the Third Reich.
Hitler, a great connoisseur of classical art, had the Nazi belief that classical Greece was a forerunner of the Aryan lineage and of the Germanic people, and projected it in all the symbolism and novelty that the relay brought as a way of showing the world this connection. Although the event was a Nazi propaganda, it was very well received by the public, being incorporated into all subsequent games.
The 1936 Olympic torch relay was held in 8 days by 3422 torchbearers, traveling through the cities of Olympia, Athens and Thessaloniki, in Greece, Sofia, in Bulgaria, Belgrade in Yugoslavia (now Serbia), Budapest in Hungary, Vienna, in Austria, Prague, in Czechoslovakia (now Czech Republic), Dresden and Berlin, in Germany.
21. Seetakt
The FuMG 38G Seetakt (Funkmessgerät) radio measuring device was one of the first Kriegsmarine naval radars, in World War II.
Hans Erich Hollmann, an electronic specialist, began working in the late 1920s in the microwave field, which would become the basis of most radar systems. He was especially interested in using microwaves for informational techniques, along with his research partner Hans-Karl von Willisen. They were also interested in the field of radar-like systems.
In 1934 Hans Erich Hollman, Hans-Karl von Willisen, and Paul-Günther Erbslöh founded a company called GEMA m.b.H., which, in the fall of 1934, built the first commercial radar to locate ships. The radar worked at a wavelength of 50 cm and was able to locate ships within a maximum distance of 10 km. In 1935, following Kriegsmarine’s requests, they developed an impulse radar and were able to locate the Königsberg light cruiser at 8 km of distance and with an accuracy of 50 m, which was enough to set the ships’ firing direction. The same system was able to locate a plane 28 km away and 500 m high. Military utility did not go unnoticed: a terrestrial version called Freya was developed, while naval versions was called Seetakt.
In January 1938, the first mass-produced device, which operated at a wavelength of 60 cm and a frequency of 500 MHz, was installed on the Admiral Graf Spee cruise. Seetakt radar at Graf Spee could locate naval targets 25 km away, which put Kriegsmarine well ahead of the British Navy and the US Navy in terms of using radar on their ships. During World War II, about 200 Seetakt radars were produced, placed on surface vessels, submarine and at shore for coastal defense.
22. Acoustic Torpedo
