Manfred von Ardenne was born in Hamburg on 20 January 1907, the first child of a family of Prussian officers. His father, Egmont Baron von Ardenne, was appointed to the Ministry of War in Berlin in 1913, and the family moved into a rented apartment in Berlin Hasenheide.

His mother Adela, née Mutzenbecher, devoted all her attention to the family and the children. Manfred von Ardenne had four siblings: Magdalena (1909-1985), Ekkehard (1914-1940), Gothilo (1917-1939) and Renata (1924-1999).

The younger brothers also followed a military career and died in the Second World War. Both served in the legendary Potsdamer Infanterie-Regiment 9, which was later the regiment of some of the conspirators in the plot to assassinate Hitler on 20 July 1944.

At a meeting between Manfred von Ardenne and Richard von Weizsäcker, the latter emphasized his respect for his former superior, Ekkehard von Ardenne, who did not hide his distance from the “brown regime of violence” even when addressing the troops, and who was also friends with his brother Heinrich von Weizsäcker.

The life story of his grandmother, Elisabeth Baronin von Ardenne, née von Plotho, was used by Theodor Fontane as the basis of his novel Effi Briest.

THE FIRST PATENT

In 1923, at only 16, the young researcher registered his first patent for a “method for sound selection, especially for the use of wireless telegraphy”.

From 1924, Manfred von Ardenne earned his living by selling his first books and technological developments and discoveries, and voluntarily paid the rent for his thirty square meter laboratory to his parents.

STUDIES AND RESEARCH

The two radio pioneers Georg Graf von Arco and Geheimrat Walther Nernst put pressure on Manfred von Ardenne to take a degree. Thanks to their help he enrolled at the University in Berlin in 1925 without a school leaving certificate, and attended lectures on physics, chemistry and mathematics. After four semesters of basic studies he was seized with impatience and went back to his private research.

In 1926, the 19 year old became well-known through his idea of the multi-system electron tube. This was the technological basis for what was later to become the mass-produced Loewe-Opta radio set. It was also one of the first integrated circuits in the history of electronics.

FIRST ELECTRONIC TELEVISION TRANSMISSION

Von Ardenne succeeded in presenting the first completely electronic television transmission in the world, as he suddenly realized that all the essential components were available in his laboratory in Lichterfelde. His close collaborator Emil Lorenz was present. Manfred von Ardenne on the events of that day:

“In feverish haste we took two electron beam tubes out of the stores, assembled two installations to produce the deflection tensions out of components from the low frequency lab, prepared one of the broadband amplifiers and borrowed a lens with high light intensity and a low inertia photocell from the optical lab.

On the same evening, 14 December 1930, Emil Lorenz and I had a decisive experience. I held a pair of scissors in front of the screen of my bright spot scanner and saw exactly how its contours appeared on the fluorescent screen of the receiver tubes at the other end of the room. We repeated the experiment with a slide and had even greater success.”

The following year, Manfred von Ardenne presented his ground breaking discovery at the "Internationale Funkausstellung (IFA)" trade show in Berlin, which made the front page of the New York Times.

SURVIVAL AND SCANNING ELECTRON MICROSCOPE

The von Ardenne family had no sympathy with National Socialism. When Hermann Göring invited Manfred’s father to take up a leading position in the NSPAD, he refused categorically. Egmont Baron von Ardenne had got to know the later Reichspostminister and physicist Wilhelm Ohnesorge during the First World War. Later, Manfred von Ardenne made use of this contact as a source of money for his research work and for securing the existence of his laboratory, but without any kind of political background. He also turned down an invitation from his benefactor to join the Party.

In 1937, von Ardenne developed the first high-resolution scanning electron microscope, without which biological research would be unimaginable right up to the present. It was followed two years later by the universal electron microscope with the highest resolution in the world.

MANFRED VON ARDENNE INSTITUTE

The new beginning in the German Democratic Republic was made easier by a series of concessions and privileges on the part of leading politicians, who promised themselves an international image triumph thanks to the decision of the scientist.

The researcher chose Dresden as a new home for himself and his family as well as a new location for his institute. He had already begun planning during internment in 1951 and he asked his brother in law Otto Hartmann, who lived in West Berlin, to find a suitable property. He in his turn engaged Johannes Richter, an engineer from Zwickau, who found two attractive properties at "Weißer Hirsch", a suburb of Dresden.

The answer from the Soviet Union was positive and clear; and although von Ardenne only got to see photographs of the house, he pressed for an immediate purchase. A short time later he set up his research institute at “Weißer Hirsch”, and also lived there with his family.

MAIN RESEARCH AT THE INSTITUTE

Manfred von Ardenne led the institute that bore his name from 1955 to 1990, at times employing about 500 staff. It acquired an international reputation as the birthplace of important innovations.

At the beginning, the focus of the work was in electron, ion, nuclear physics and over microscopy, and later in medical electronics and basic research in biomedicine. The institute pursued research in close connection with industry. Industrial facilities using melting, cutting and coating were developed from different materials, all based on electron and ion sources.

MEDICAL RESEARCH

In the 1960s, von Ardenne met the Nobel Prize winner Otto Warburg several times. Inspired by Warburg’s research into aerobic changes in fermenting agents in cancer cells, he turned to a completely new area of interest: medicine, and especially cancer therapy.

After a period of research over several years, the polymath scientist and his staff developed the systemic Cancer Multi-step Therapy (sKMT), in which cancer cells and metastases were combated in a defined combination of steps, using chemotherapy where necessary.

The basis of this therapy is an extreme hypothermia of the whole body combined with targeted over-acidification of the tumor and an oxygen feed. Manfred von Ardenne worked on cancer research up to the end of his life.

OXYGEN MULTI-STEP THERAPY

In the 1970s, regular clashes with the authoritarian state and the uncertain outcome for the institute which resulted took their toll: Manfred von Ardenne suddenly became severely bedridden without however losing his mental capacities. The doctors treating him could not discover any organic cause and estimated he would live for two more years.

Von Ardenne accepted that his illness was a “general lack of energy” and hit up on the idea of inhaling from an oxygen gas cylinder several times a day. Thanks to his research in cellular energy status while working on systemic cancer multi-step therapy, he knew the importance of oxygen as an agent against debilities and was proved right. With a few days he regained his old quality of life, and from this experience developed the Oxygen Multi-step Therapy, which is today an internationally well known and widely used natural medical treatment.

The scientist was able to protect his institute - which as a private enterprise was unique among the socialist states - from nationalization and survived as a businessman under socialism up to German reunification.

For relaxation, the inventor liked to listen to classical music – Mozart above all: "I have the highest admiration for Mozart’s genius. It is incredible that a human being who only lived to be a little over 30 contributed so much to a specific field and that his influence on it has lasted for centuries." With regret he maintained that truly great composers had existed only up to the beginning of the 20th century, and that much in classical music had been exhausted.

Without a doubt, Manfred von Ardenne was more than a charismatic scientist and thinker. A look at his life reveals many facets of his personality which can only be judged in this context with difficulty.

As for the miniaturization of electronic components, the semiconductor and molecular electronics, he foresaw the microchip and the wild developments that are connected with it, which even “specialists find it difficult to keep up with.”

Even more astonishing was his vision of the internet:

“Within a few decades, electronic data processing and storage (including that in miniature design) will increase the capacity of the human brain to an extent that can scarcely be conceived today.  With every passing day, the increasing power and rapid specialization in the sciences demands the use of carefully arranged methods for storing scientific material, which today still strains the brain unnecessarily”, he concluded in his essay.

After the decoding of human DNA, Manfred von Ardenne foresaw genetics as both a blessing and a curse for humanity:

“Now that the synthesis of nucleic acids has been achieved recently, we may hope that the synthesis of important proteins can be achieved within the near future. Given the current status of this work, we can predict the solution to the riddle of the heredity of protein structure. And with that humanity will be granted the great but also terrifying possibility of creating living entities at will.”

Manfred von Ardenne died on 26 May 1997 at the age of 90. The funeral took place in the chapel of Bad-Weißer-Hirsch cemetery. The theologian Klaus Peter Hertzsch gave the address before about 500 people who had come to pay their last respects. To the members of his family he left behind the results of a life rich in invention together with a famous name.

In Dresden, there is a "Manfred-von-Ardenne-Ring" and in Hamburg a "Manfred-von-Ardenne-Platz" in memory of the technological pioneer. A secondary school in Berlin bears his name and there is a "Manfred-von-Ardenne-Gewerbezentrum" in the "Innovationspark Wuhlheide" in Berlin. The “URANIA-Vortragszentrum" in Dresden holds an annual event on the day of the death of Dresden’s honorary citizen, and since 2002 the European Society of Thin Films has awarded the "Manfred-von-Ardenne Prize for Applied Physics".

THE VON ARDENNE COMPANIES

The entrepreneurial spirit of the polymath is represented by VON ARDENNE GmbH, whose shareholders are Manfred von Ardenne’s descendants. Today, the internationally successful company is led by Pia von Ardenne-Lichtenberg.

The life’s work of Manfred von Ardenne in medicine is being carried on in the Von Ardenne Institute for Applied Medical Research (Institut für Angewandte Medizinische Forschung), which is led by Dr. Alexander von Ardenne.

Since 1991, ardenne tec has been active on the market selling security technology.