Wolfgang Martini (September 20, 1891 – January 6, 1963) was a Career Officer in the German Air Force and largely responsible for promoting early radar development and utilization in that country.

When he graduated in 1910, he joined the Imperial German Army as a cadet, and proficiency in radio communication led him to be promoted to a lieutenant and then company commander in a telegraph battalion.

In the mid-1930s, the company Gesellschaft für Electroakustische und Mechanische Apparate (GEMA) started the development of a Funkmessgerät (radio indicator), as the British and the Americans did at the same time.

The pulse-modulated system was based on earlier work of Dr. Rudolf Kühnhold, a scientist with the Kriegsmarine (German navy), and was done in the greatest secrecy, not even informing the other armed forces of its existence.

He ordered the development of a similar system (ultimately called Freya) for the Luftwaffe, and from this time on was the primary promoter of radar technology in the German High Command.

[3] In late 1944, fearful that records of wartime radar development would be destroyed or lost after the eventual surrender of Germany, General Martini and Dr. Leo Brandt of GEMA had key documents buried in a waterproof metal casket.

One of these, Sir Robert Watson-Watt, considered “the father of British radar,” included the following in his 1959 autobiography: Martini died of a heart attack on January 6, 1963, in Düsseldorf.