Karl Steinbuch

Karl W. Steinbuch was a German computer scientist, cyberneticist, and electrical engineer. He was an early and influential researcher in German computer science, and was the developer of the Lernmatrix, an early implementation of artificial neural networks.
From the late 1960s onwards the focus of his activity shifted from scientific research to right-wing political activism supporting the Neue Rechte.

Biography

Steinbuch joined the National Socialist German Students' League and the Nazi Party.
Steinbuch studied at the University of Stuttgart and in 1944 he received his PhD in physics. In 1948 he joined Standard Elektrik Lorenz in Stuttgart, as a computer design engineer and later as a director of research and development, where he filed more than 70 patents. Steinbuch completed the first European fully transistorized computer, the ER 56 marketed by SEL. In 1958 he became professor and director of the Institute of Technology for information processing of the University of Karlsruhe, where he retired in 1980.
In 1967 he began publishing books, in which he tried to influence German education policy. Together with books from colleagues like Jean Ziegler from Switzerland, Eric J. Hobsbawm from the UK, and John Naisbitt his books predicted what he regarded as the coming education disaster of the emerging civic lobby society.
In 1957, together with Helmut Gröttrup, Steinbuch coined the term Informatik, the German word for computer science, which gave informatics, and the term kybernetische Anthropologie.

Wilhelm-Boelsche award - medal in Gold
German non-fiction book award
Gold medal award of the XXI. International Congresses on Aerospace Medicine
Konrad Adenauer award of science
Jakob Fugger award medal
Medal of merit of the state of Baden-Wuerttemberg
member, German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina
member, International Academy of Science, Munich.
grants from a state government grants program, named "Karl-Steinbuch-Stipendium"
at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology named after him

Steinbuch wrote several books and articles, including:

1957 Informatik: Automatische Informationsverarbeitung.
1963 Learning matrices and their applications
1965 A critical comparison of two kinds of adaptive classification networks
1966 : Die informierte Gesellschaft. Geschichte und Zukunft der Nachrichtentechnik
1989: Die desinformierte Gesellschaft
1968: Falsch programmiert. Über das Versagen unserer Gesellschaft in der Gegenwart und vor der Zukunft und was eigentlich geschehen müßte.
1969: Programm 2000.
1971: Automat und Mensch. Auf dem Weg zu einer kybernetischen Anthropologie
1971: Mensch Technik Zukunft. Probleme von Morgen
1973: Kurskorrektur
1978: Maßlos informiert. Die Enteignung des Denkens
1984: ''Unsere manipulierte Demokratie. Müssen wir mit der linken Lüge leben?''