Klaus Landsberg

In 1936, he was called upon to assist in the history-making telecast of the Berlin Olympic Games, an event that marked television's rounding of one of the proverbial corners. Farnsworth Television, Inc. hired Klaus Landsberg as Television Development Engineer in Philadelphia in 1938. In 1939 he went to New York for the National Broadcasting Company television division. It was during this period that Landsberg helped NBC make possible the first public TV demonstrations in America - at the New York World's Fair. Allen B. DuMont recognized Landsberg's qualifications and signed him as Television Design and Development Engineer for the New York DuMont Laboratories - Pioneer United States TV organization. Here he supervised technical operations of the television unit at the U.S. Army Maneuvers in Cantons N.Y. and developed the automatic synchronizing circuits. Next he put in readiness DuMont's New York Station WABD, and assisted in, producing the first shows for this station. Paramount sent Landsberg to Hollywood to organize W6XYZ, the Paramount Picture TV station... this was in 1941. It was here that Klaus Landsberg's extensive background in show business, radio and television really began to be utilized to the fullest extent. From the very beginning when he designed the KTLA transmitter (then W6XYZ) - the worlds most powerful - to the present day when he received the 1949 Emmy Award from the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences for KTLA's Overall-Station Achievement. Klaus Landsberg earned the title "Mr.Television", which his co-workers have given him. W6XYZ was on the air for five years on an experimental basis before it became KTLA, Los Angeles' first commercial station to go on the air, in January of 1947.