The eventful life of the inventor of the modern printed circuit board would actually be worth a novel. On the occasion of the 80th anniversary of his groundbreaking patent, we will at least mention a few stages of his story.
Eisler was born in Vienna in 1907 to the Slovakian-Czech couple Wilhelm and Caecilie Eisler. He embarked on a career in engineering at an early age and graduated from the Technical University of Vienna in 1930 at the age of 23 - at a time that was characterized by the prehistory of National Socialism. As a Jew, the talented Eisler had no prospects: job offers for young engineers went exclusively to members of the strictly anti-Semitic German Nazi student organizations. Eisler did not see himself as a religious Jew, but a proud one. The job offer from the record label HMV led to his first brief employment in Belgrade. After his return, he worked with other technicians on a radio journal. He also learned printing techniques - something that was to have a decisive influence on his later life. The journal was soon taken over by the Social Democratic 'Vorwärts' publishing house, and the situation came to a head in 1933 when the Christian Socialist Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuß turned Austria into a de facto dictatorship ('Austrofascism'). The publishing house in Vienna's 5th district 97 was occupied by the police and hostilities against the Jewish population grew. Eisler tried to leave Austria, but was denied a visa for a long time. It was not until 1936 that he was able to emigrate to the United Kingdom, partly thanks to the prospect of a job at 'The Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company'. They were interested in his patent for a reduction in the frequency modulation bandwidth and acquired it for £250.
According to Eisler, the telecommunications industry was already producing electrical circuits on a massive scale before the First World War, as was the radio industry. Circuits became increasingly complicated. Eisler recognized the importance of automation instead of producing circuits by hand. The ability to produce exact copies in large quantities using the printing process would open up huge opportunities for electronics - especially as the materials, expertise and machines had long been available to produce printed circuits affordably.
For his first model, Eisler used a Bakelite plate and, after researching the British Museum, replaced the connecting wires with lines produced using the printing process. He produced a functioning radio as a test object and presented it to radio producers. However, Eisler's concept was not understood; printed circuits were considered too fragile and high development costs were feared.
In order to keep his head above water financially, he accepted an offer from Oscar Deutsch, the founder and chairman of the well-known cinema group 'Odeon Theatres'. Now he had little time for printed circuits. Eisler succeeded in reducing the noise of the audience in the movie theater with a 'sound level control device'. He also developed a tiger-skin-like covering for cinema seats, on which the ice cream and chocolate stains of careless visitors could not be seen in the half-light.
In Vienna, reprisals and acts of violence against Jews increased. In 1938, the half-forced, half-expected 'Anschluss' of Austria to fascist Germany took place. Eisler sought asylum for his relatives in the United Kingdom. His father was seriously ill and his sister committed suicide before the outbreak of war. Eisler himself was met with hostility during his emigration. In Vienna he had been defamed as a Jew - in the United Kingdom he was regarded as a German and therefore as a 'potential enemy' and interned for some time. He left Odeon as he felt no support - he speaks of the "absence of civil courage of my Odeon colleagues".
After Eisler returned from internment to bomb-ravaged London, he had a clear goal in mind: he wanted to help defeat Nazi Germany. In his opinion, the 'Battle of Britain' could only be won with the help of radar. Electronics were crucial for this - but manpower and machines were scarce during the war. The invention of printed circuits seemed to be the key to the mass production of electronic devices. Once again, however, Eisler was turned away by electrical companies. It was not until 1941 that 'Henderson & Spalding', a traditional company for lithography and music printing, hired him. In 1941, he granted the company the right to his patents. However, the invention remained unrecognized in the UK.
Things were different in the USA. Here, the National Bureau of Standards, in collaboration with the company Globe Union, modified Eisler's process and printed silver ink on ceramic plates using a coarser technique. They were used in radar systems and made a decisive contribution to fending off the approximately 4,000 V1 rockets that wreaked havoc in London. Proximity fuzes, which were quickly available thanks to the mass production of circuit boards, also helped in the air defense of Antwerp.
Paul Eisler profited little from the success of the printed circuit board due to the assignment of rights. In his private life, however, he found happiness: he fell in love with the psychologist Frieda Goldman, who was also a Jewish emigrant from Austria. In 1950, he married Frieda - who also set standards: in 1970, she was appointed professor at University College London and became head of the Department of Phonetics and Linguistics. Her sociolinguistic work is considered groundbreaking.
After the war, the company 'Technograph Printed Circuits Limited' split off from Henderson & Spalding and opened its first printed circuit board factory. Eisler tried in vain to enforce his patents for Technograph in the Netherlands and Germany. However, he was later able to give a lecture to German engineers in Hanover. There he showed film footage of how the British air defense over London shot down German aircraft and V1 cruise missiles (Hitler's 'retaliation weapon') - thanks to 'his' proximity fuses. In this way, he made clear what his most important intention had been in inventing the circuit board. According to Eisler, only two audience members in the entire hall applauded after the lecture. He had struck a nerve in Hanover.
Even after parting company with Technograph in 1957, Eisler remained a passionate inventor. He conducted intensive research into electronic limbs for paralyzed Parkinson's patients. This remained a dream of the future. His development of an aluminum foil ('flexible heating film'), which could be used to heat cans or thaw frozen fish in a flash - for the production of fish sticks - was a different story.
Paul Eisler did not receive recognition until later. France awarded him the Pour le Mérite and in Italy he was elevated to 'Academico Corrispondente' of the Roman 'Accademia Tiberina'. He died in London on October 26, 1992. That very morning, he had told a friend about a new idea he had come up with: a microscopic electric motor.
Sources
Paul Eisler: 'My life with the Printed Circuit', Lehigh University Press, Bethlehem (Pennsylvania, USA), 1989 in the annotated edition by Mari E. Williams, London and Toronto, 1991
Jean Medawar; David Pyke: Hitler's Gift. The True story of the Scientists expelled by the Nazi regime, Arcade Publishing, New York, 2012
Utz Maas: Frieda Eisler (article), Verfolgung und Auswanderung deutscher Sprachforscher 1933-1945, Frieda Eisler - Verfolgte deutschsprachige Sprachforscher (zflprojekte.de) (retrieved: 07.09.2023)
