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The Life and Work of Konrad Zuse (by Horst Zuse) |
| Konrad Zuse was born in in Berlin on June 22, 1910. No ideas of computers or related problems can be found in his records prior to 1934. It is unquestionable that he was a creative student at school, he built cranes and made a lot of paintings. One example of his early paintings is a cartoon of the Schützenfest (riflemen's meeting) in Hoyerswerda from 1926 (Fig.4). | |
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| Fig.3. (Left) Post office in Hoyerswerda/Germany (1928). Konrad Zuse lived with his parents and his sister Lieselotte below the roof of this building. In the near future, this building will be the Konrad Zuse Computer Museum. Fig.4. (Right) One of Konrad Zuse's cartoons showing the riflemens meeting in Hoyerswerda (1926). | |
| Konrad Zuse made his school leaving examination in 1928 in Hoyerswerda / Saxonia. During his study he changed his directions three times. Sometimes he said that he did not know what to study. Very often he said that he fluctuated between becoming an engineer and an artist. Fig.5. shows one of his the paintings he created for advertising in 1926. With such paintings he earned additional money for his study. Finally he decided to study civil engineering, was awarded his diploma in 1935, and obtained a position with the Henschel Flugzeugwerke (Henschel Aviation Company) in Berlin in 1935. At this time he was not familiar with relays or even electrical engineering. | ||
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My father first started thinking about computers as early as 1934. This was prompted by the many calculations he had to perform as a civil engineer, Today it is clear to me that he really hated performing these calculations and he wanted to make things easier for engineers and scientists.
This is a little similar to Charles Babbage, who said in 1812: I wish to God these calculations had been performed by steam. However, my father did not become aware of Babbage's work until 1945/46. |
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