The Chair and the Institute for "Electrical Systems" in Stuttgart

Wartime activities

For the Chair and Institute for Electrical Systems, the beginning of the Second World War also meant the beginning of a permanent struggle to continue research and teaching.

After the outbreak of war, the college was initially closed and lectures were cancelled. Leonhard was conscripted and was sent to work as a chauffeur in Poland, where he was later responsible for operating the technical works in Cracow.
When the College of Technology was reopened early in 1940, Leonhard was able to return to Stuttgart and reassume his research and teaching activities. In the meantime his two previous assistants had left, and even the replacement assistants he was given were constantly being called up to do military service. Despite the constant turnover in staff, more teaching had to be carried out than before the war, as the Engineering Officers' Academy had been moved to Stuttgart from Berlin in 1941.

In 1944 the increasing number of air raids meant that the institute had to be moved from Stuttgart to Ottendorf (in what is now the district of Schwäbisch Hall) literally at the very last minute. The last lorries with the institute's equipment only left Stuttgart around an hour before a devastating air raid that also destroyed the Electrical Engineering Institute. As the lectures theatres were also hit, some of the lectures were moved to Ottendorf. Towards the end of the war, lectures were only held in Stuttgart on Saturdays, in front of a drastically reduced audience.