Helmut Schreyer

Lore & Background

Helmut Schreyer was born on 4 July 1912, the son of minister Paul Schreyer and Martha. He earned his Abitur in 1933 and began studying electronic and telecommunications engineering at the Technische Hochschule in Charlottenburg in 1934. In 1935 he met Konrad Zuse at the company AV Motiv. After earning his diploma in 1938, he worked as a graduate assistant for Prof Wilhelm Stäblein, alongside Herbert Raabe. During World War II, Schreyer applied for exemption from military service, arguing his work was important for the war effort. He submitted a plan to build a large electronic computer, but the Nazi German military rejected it, expecting a short war. He worked on detection technology for unexploded ordnance, an accelerometer for the V-2 rocket (whose prototype was destroyed when he fled to Vienna by train), and technology to convert radar signals into audio signals for fighter pilots. Schreyer advised Zuse on relays, and Zuse built the Z3 computer using 2,600 relays, completed in 1941. Schreyer theorized on using electrical circuit technology for computers but initially considered it infeasible and later could not secure funding. Up to 1942 he built an experimental model using 100 vacuum tubes, which was lost at the end of the war. In 1943 he planned a memory for 1000 words using thousands of electron tubes, but the war ended larger plans. In 1944 he built a circuit to convert decimal to binary numbers.

Reader's Guide

Schreyer's significance lies in his early theoretical and practical work on electronic computing, despite limited resources and wartime constraints. He advised Konrad Zuse on relay technology, which Zuse used in the Z3, the first fully operational, automatically controlled calculating machine. Schreyer's own experimental model using 100 vacuum tubes, though lost, demonstrated the feasibility of electronic computers. His plan for a large electronic computer was rejected by Nazi authorities, and his later plans for a 1000-word memory were halted by the war. After fleeing to Brazil, he taught at the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro, where he supervised students who built Lourinha, the first computer designed and assembled in Brazil. His 1950 book on electronic digital computers, published in Portuguese, contributed to computing education in South America. Schreyer's work, though overshadowed by Zuse, represents a parallel effort in early electronic computing that was cut short by historical events.

Did You Know?

• Schreyer built an experimental computer model using 100 vacuum tubes, which was lost at the end of World War II.
• He fled to Vienna in the final days of World War II and obtained a Brazilian passport from the Brazilian Embassy.
• His prototype accelerometer for the V-2 rocket was destroyed when he fled to Vienna on a train.