Ludwig Martens
Ludwig Christian Alexander Karl Martens (Russian Людвиг Карлович Мартенс; born December 20 1874jul / January 1 1875greg in Bachmut, .. † October 19, 1948 in Moscow ) was a German - Russian revolutionary and mechanical engineer.
Life
His father was the owner of the steel mills in Kursk. He had four brothers and two sisters. His sister Olga was also revolutionary. Martens made in 1893 in Kursk graduated from high school. He studied in St. Petersburg at the National Technological Institute ( государственный технологический институт ). In marxisitischen circles he met Julius Martov and Lenin. In 1895 he was a member of the League of Struggle for liberation of the working class. In 1896 he was arrested and sentenced to three years in prison. After serving his sentence he was deported to the German Empire, where he was recruited two years in the army. 1902 Martens joined the Social Democratic Party of Germany and began studying at the Technical University of Charlottenburg. In 1906 he went to England and 1916 in the United States, where he found a job in an engineering office in New York. Martens wrote 1916 articles for Novy Mir ( New World), a newspaper of the Russian Social-Democrats in New York City. Beginning of 1917 he was the representative of Count Demidoff San Lonato Company in Perm, one of the largest steel and mining companies of Tsarist Russia. After the February Revolution of 1917 Martens, Leon Trotsky and other Social Democrats returned to the Norwegian steamship Kristianiafjord to Russia.
1919 Woodrow Wilson appointed Alexander Mitchell Palmer Attorney General. In one of the Palmer Raids on 12 June 1919, the Soviet office was searched by the Lusk Committee. After a hearing before a committee of the Senate of the United States decreed on 17 December 1920, the Department of Labor of the United States, deportation and Martens had to leave in January 1921 in the Soviet Union.
In 1921 he became a member of the Presidium of the Supreme Council of National Economy and 1924-1926 he headed the Committee for inventions. He examined the Kursk magnetic anomaly. 1926 Martens was appointed head of the Leningrad Research Institute for diesel engines. From 1927 to 1941 he headed the editorial office of a technical encyclopedia.
1933 Martens wrote a letter to the Gossudarstwennoje Polititscheskoje Uprawlenije in which he campaigned for the arrested Pavel Alexandrovich Florensky and took care of the sons of Vasily and Florensky Kirill.
In 1941 he retired, but was still involved in scientific activities. As Martens 1948 died, he was buried at the Novodevichy Cemetery. His grandson and son of Ludwig Martens, William Ljudwigowitsch Martens, was one of the organizers of the National Committee for a Free Germany.