Siegfried Marcus

Siegfried Marcus
Siegfried Marcus 1831-1898
Born	18 September 1831 Malchin, Grand Duchy of Mecklenburg-Schwerin
Died	1 July 1898 (1898-08) (aged 66) Vienna, Austria
Engineering career
Significant advance	Automobile

Siegfried Samuel Marcus (18 September 1831 – 1 July 1898) was a German inventor. Marcus was born of Jewish descent in Malchin, in the Grand Duchy of Mecklenburg-Schwerin. He made several gasoline-powered vehicles, the first one in 1864, while living in Vienna, Austria.

Marcus was born in Malchin, in the Grand Duchy of Mecklenburg-Schwerin into a Jewish family. Today Malchin is part of Germany. He began work at age 12 as an apprentice mechanic. At 17 he joined Siemens and Halske, an engineering company that built telegraph lines. He moved to Vienna, the capital of the Austrian Empire, in 1852, working first as a technician in the Physical Institute of the Medical School. He then worked as an assistant to Professor Carl Ludwig, a physiologist. In 1860 Marcus opened his own workshop which made mechanical and electrical equipment. The first was located at Mariahilferstrasse 107 and the second at Mondscheingasse 4.

His chief improvements include telegraph relay system and ignition devices such as the "Wiener Zünder", a blasting machine. Marcus was buried at the Protestant Cemetery at Hütteldorf, Vienna. Later, his remains were transferred to an "Honorary Tomb" of Vienna's Central Cemetery.

Because of Marcus' Jewish ancestry, his name and all memorabilia, particularly in Austria, vanished under the Nazis. In 1937 the Austrian Harand Movement Against Racial Hatred had issued a series of stamps featuring prominent Jews, including Marcus, who had contributed to mankind in response to the Ewige Jew (eternal Jew) exhibition by Julius Streicher in Munich. Marcus was credited as having invented the petrol driven motor car. With the German occupation of Austria in March 1938, the memorial in front of the Vienna Technical University was removed. After World War II, the monument was rebuilt and his car, which had been hidden, was returned to display.