In the year 1888, the Chair of General and Technical Physics had to be filled, and Professor Albert von Ettingshausen was obligated to hold lectures and problem classes on electrical engineering, in addition to his duties in physics. The chair was housed in the ground floor of the new college building (“Alte Technik”). The lectures on electrical engineering were part of the general education at the College, and had to be completed by students from all departments (the predecessors of today’s faculties). This situation did not change until the retirement of Professor Ettingshausen in 1920.

For the first time since 1884, the professors from the “Technische Hochschule” tried to persuade the Ministry of Education to establish a chair for electrical engineering. This was the beginning of a struggle that remained without success for decades. The last and eventually successful attempt happened in the year of 1917. Graz had in the meantime become the only College without a chair of electrical engineering in the whole of the Austrian monarchy.


30 years had gone by since the construction of the latest building (today’s “Alte Technik”), a question of space emerged and the construction of another building had become inevitable. The preparations therefore took place in the last years of World War I and the construction of the so called “Neue Technik” was started immediately after the ending of the war, where the complete southern part was dedicated to electrical engineering. The address was and still is Kopernikusgasse 24.

As a result of the war and the collapse of the German Reich, only the first stage of study (4 semesters) were offered during the summer semester 1946, the third year was offered for the first time in the academic year 1946/47, the fourths in the following year, and so on.  Finally, in March 1949, the first graduates of the nine semester long degree programme were able to complete their final exams.

The re-emergence of Austria in 1945 brought the formal abrogation of all the German Reich institutions. There was again only one chair out of the three departments of electrical engineering and thus the institute and its teachings were compromised.

In addition, the personnel situation was extremely strained: Among the three professors from the war, Karl Schaefer, Anton Höpp and Johann Wierer; Schaefer died in 1944, but was not replaced; Wierer returned after the war but did not rejoin the College and Höpp was on the orders of the British military authorities to be dismissed from the service in late fall 1945.

In 1945, the study of the field of electrical engineering was continued. In the winter semester, unexpected high number of students (nearly 200) was reported to have enrolled.  With no extra cost and with the staff from 1938, the faculty was able to re-establish the teachings.

According to the staffs from the 1950s, the Technical College of Graz was the only College who was specialized in “power engineering”.  From 1959, it was possible to vote on the direction of the faculty from an emphasis on “construction and operation of electrical facilities” and towards an emphasis on “electrical mechanical engineering”. The reoccupation of three professorships lasted until 1950. In 1947, Prof. Oberdorfer was appointed as the Professor of the Construction and Operation of Electrical Equipment. In 1949, Prof. Grabner was appointed the Professor of General Electrics and Electrical Engineering. In 1950, Prof. Klaudy was appointed Full Professor of Theoretical Fundamentals of Electrical Engineering. Grabner and Oberdorfer, both Austrians, had held professorships at the Technische Hochschule Berlin-Charlottenburg during the war and returned to Austria immediately at the end and after the war, respectively. According to the staffs from the 1950s, the Technical College of Graz was the only College who was specialized in “power engineering”. From 1959, it was possible to vote on the direction of the faculty from an emphasis on “construction and operation of electrical facilities” and towards an emphasis on “electrical mechanical engineering”.

In 1961. the Emeritus Prof. Grabner with two more years of supplied teaching was appointed the chair of electrical engineering, until 1963 when Prof. Gerhard Aichholzer became his successor.  During the active period (1963-1986) of Prof. Aichholzer (Prof. Aichholzer was in the years of 1966/67, the Dean of the Faculty of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering and the Dean of the Faculty of Electrical Engineering in 1976/77), there was a huge boom in electrical engineering in Graz.

Within the decade from 1963 to 1973 it came to the new construction of five institutes, which were then still known as professorships:

    ♦ 1963 High Frequency Technology and Electronics.
    ♦ 1968 Communications and Wave Propagation.
    ♦ 1972 Electro- and Biomedical Engineering and Electrical Engineering and Measurements.
    ♦ 1973 Control Systems.

As part of the general college study law in 1966 and the engineering study law in 1969, the structuring of the course in electrical engineering became the five so-called optional subject groups, namely:

    ♦ Construction and operation of electrical systems,
    ♦ Electromechanical engineering,
    ♦ Telecommunications and Electronics,
    ♦ Healthcare information,
    ♦ Electrical Fundamental Research.

Staffing was increased from three professors of electrical engineering with 5 academic staff in 1950 to 9 professors with a total of nearly 50 scientific staff in 1975, in order to build up the electrical engineering at the Technical College of Graz.

Prof. Aichholzer, who took over from Prof. Grabner, renamed the Institute for Electromechanical Engineering in 1973 to the Institute for Electromagnetic Energy Conversion. He retired in 1986 and his successor, Prof. Manfred Rentmeister was appointed in 1987. After 10 years, he gave the institute its previous name: “Electric Machines and Drives”.

Prof. Rentmeister was also appointed from 1994 to 2003 as the Dean of the Faculty of Electrical Engineering. In 2002, under his tenure, he achieved the renaming of the Faculty of Electrical Engineering into its current form: the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology.

After the retirement of Prof. Rentmeister in 2005, the institute was initially headed by Tit. A.o. Prof. Hansjörg Köfler until he was replaced in April 2010, provisionally by Prof. Lothar Fickert (Head of the Institute of Power Systems).

In April 2010, Prof. Annette Mütze, who had previously worked in Germany, the USA and UK, was appointed as Professor of Electrical Drives and Machines and took over the leadership of the institute.