August Johannes Biehle

August Johannes Biehle (Bautzen, 18 June 1870 – Bautzen, 4 January 1941) was a German acoustician whose work focused on the study of bell sound and sacred spaces. His career combined musical training with scientific research into acoustics as applied to liturgy and church construction.

After studying at the Dresden Conservatory, he held the post of Stadtkantor in his native Bautzen from 1898 to 1914, where from 1908 he also bore the title of church music director. During those years he organised music festivals in 1905, 1907 and 1912. He then turned his career towards acoustics, particularly that of bells, a field in which he is regarded as a pioneer, and trained at the Technische Hochschule in Dresden.

From 1916 he taught acoustics at the Technische Hochschule in Berlin, where he was appointed professor in 1922. In 1918 he took on a teaching role in church music at the University of Berlin and, in 1920, began advising the Prussian Ministry of Culture on matters concerning bells and organs. In 1927 he founded the Biehle Institute, affiliated with both Berlin institutions, devoted to the study of churches, organs, bells and acoustics.

His legacy rests chiefly on his writings, among them Theorie des Kirchenbaues (1913), Wesen, Wertung und Gebrauch der Glocken (1916) and Die Analyse des Glockenklanges (1918), which laid the foundations for the acoustic analysis of bells.