Georg Masing
Professor Georg Masing (1885-1956)
1956 Obituary [1]
Professor Dr. Georg Masing, the distinguished German metallographer and teacher, died at his home in Gottingen on Wednesday, October 3rd.
Georg Masing was born on February 2, 1885, in St. Petersburg, Russia, where his father was a chemist.
He was educated at the Humanistische Gymnasium there, and then studied chemistry in St. Petersburg before going, in the autumn of 1905, to Gottingen University as a pupil of Professor G. Tammann. He received his Doctorate in 1909 for a thesis "On the Formation of Compounds Under Pressure and the Reactions of Metals in the Solid State."
He then entered industry in Berlin, and in 1922 was made head of the Metallographic Department of the Research Laboratory of the Siemens concern. In that capacity he carried out extensive experiments in many fields. As a result of his work Masing was offered the directorship of the Kaiser-Wilhelm Institut fur Metallforschung, Stuttgart, when it was founded in 1933, but he declined the post.
In 1937 the Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Metallkunde awarded him the Heyn Medal, and in the same year he accepted the appointment of director of the Institut fur Allgemeine Metallkunde at Gottingen University. He held that position, in succession to Professor Tammann, until his retirement a few years ago. In December, 1952, the Technical University of West Berlin made him an honorary Doktor-lngenieur.
Masing's works covered a great range of metallurgical subjects, both theoretical and practical, and he was the author of a large number of scientific and technical papers. In 1926 he developed the alloys of beryllium in co-operation with O. Dahl.
In 1953 Professor Dr. Masing received the Platinum Medal of the Institute of Metals, its highest award, in recognition of his outstanding contributions in the field of metallography.