University of Technology during the occupation
In November 1939, the German authorities ordered the closure of all universities in Warsaw, including the Warsaw University of Technology.
The outbreak of the war in September 1939 and the German occupation thwarted Professor Wolfke's great plans and work.
Rys. 19. Zniszczony Gmach Fizyki (ok. 1945 r.)
Here is a note from the State Archives of the Capital City of Warsaw Warszawy (Abteilung Wissenschaft und Unterricht, File 719):
At the beginning of November, Dr. Holm, associate professor of the Charlottenburg University of Technology, visited the rector of the Polytechnic with some senior officer and handed over a letter from General Schumman, in which the general ordered the immediate protection of the Physical Institute and Ballistic Laboratory. On the basis of this letter, the entire device of the Ballistic Laboratory was taken, as well as the greater part of the scientific laboratory of both Institutes (Departments) of Physics: Chair and prof. Wolfke and Department II of prof. Kalinowski. The acceptance protocol, which was drawn up, was not left to the University of Technology. The instruments were properly packed and removed.
Professor Wolfke and his family spent almost the entire period of the German occupation in Warsaw. At the beginning of 1940, he was arrested by the Gestapo and imprisoned in Pawiak, from where he was released after 6 months. From November this year, he managed (with the consent of the German authorities) the Research Institute of Technical Physics at the Warsaw University of Technology. Under the guise of officially performed physico-technical expertise there, the plant carried out work for the purposes of the underground. With the opening by the Germans in 1942 in the polytechnic buildings of the State Higher Technical School (vocational), he lectured in physics there. He took an active part in secret teaching, incl. as a promoter of academic scripts. Expelled from Warsaw after the fall of the uprising in 1944, he settled in Kraków. In December 1945, he returned to Warsaw and started organizing the Department of Physics at the Warsaw University of Technology that was being launched. In June 1946, he was allowed to travel abroad to learn about the latest achievements of world physics. He died suddenly of heart disease on May 4, 1947 in Zurich.
Professor Wolfke was a member of many domestic and foreign scientific societies, incl. a member of the Academy of Technical Sciences, a corresponding member of the Polish Academy of Learning and the President of the Polish Physical Society (1934-1939). In 1933 he was awarded the Commander's Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta.
The death of professor Mieczysław Wolfke was a huge loss not only for Polish physics, but also for the whole of science. He was an exceptional personality and one of the greatest representatives of Polish science (a statement by Professor Sz. Szczeniowski).
Rys. 20. Nekrolog prof. Mieczysława Wolfkego
