Wilhelm Paulcke

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Wilhelm Paulcke, 1898

Wilhelm Paulcke (born April 8, 1873 in Leipzig , † October 5, 1949 in Karlsruhe ) was a German geologist , avalanche researcher and pioneer of alpine skiing and military ski mountaineering in Europe. The founding of the German (DSV), the Austrian (ÖSV) and the Central European Ski Association (MESV) in 1905 go back to him.

Early years

Wilhelm Paulcke was born as the son of the pharmacist Rudolf Hermann Paulcke. When he was three years old, his mother Johanna Maria Paulcke died at the age of 25. The following year the father married the widowed Dresden woman Anna Schmalfuß. He ran the Engelapotheke in Leipzig , to which a pharmaceutical company was affiliated.

When Wilhelm Paulcke was seven years old, the family moved to Davos in the Swiss mountains because the boy was sick. It was there that the cornerstone for his enthusiasm for snow and skiing was laid. At Christmas 1883 he received a pair of Norwegian skis made of ash wood with sea ​​tube binding , which he wanted and which his Norwegian teacher had brought from her home country. Shortly afterwards he was on skis for the first time. Paulcke's stepmother died in 1885, and the family, which consisted of father, son and a daughter, moved to Munich ; two years later the father died. Paulcke chose a friend of his father's, who lived in Baden-Baden , to be his guardian and moved in with him. There he attended the Hohenbaden high school and achieved excellent grades. He went on climbing and ski tours in the Black Forest and soon belonged to a group of skiers whom Raymond Pilet , who had first climbed the Feldberg and was the French embassy secretary at the time , was giving ski lessons. In 1893 Paulcke volunteered for one year of military service and instructed officers and chief hunters in skiing. He then resumed his studies in zoology , botany and geology in Freiburg , but often went to the Black Forest on weekends to ski.

The two Paulcket towers

Around 1885 Paulcke succeeded in developing the Battertfelsen for mountaineering . Around this time the today called was probably Paulcketurm am Hirschsprung in Southern Black Höllentalbahn first climbed by him, which is considered the birth of climbing in the Black Forest. On January 5, 1896, when he reached the Oberalpstock summit , he succeeded in climbing a three-thousand-meter peak for the first time.

In 1906 Paulcke managed to climb a tower south of the Fluchthorn in the Silvretta for the first time . This very bizarre, red-brown tower, 3072 meters high, is still referred to as the Paulcket Tower on the maps to this day .

Professional career

Paulcke received his doctorate in Freiburg im Breisgau in 1899 , completed his habilitation in 1901 at the TH Karlsruhe , where he was professor of geology and mineralogy from 1906 to 1935 and rector of the university in 1919/20. He was also the initiator of university sports and the university sports facility in Karlsruhe.

In his avalanche research Paulcke coined the principle: "The wind is the builder of avalanches." In 1928 he made the first educational film about avalanches with Willo Welzenbach .

Military and politics

Shortly after 1900, Wilhelm Paulcke successfully initiated ski patrols for hunter battalions. On Wilhelm Paulcke's initiative, the training of military skiers for the army was set as the association's goal in the first statutes of the DSV. It was Paulcke who, in 1914/1915, issued the first ski parade regulations for newly formed snowshoe battalions; From this, Carl Joseph Luther developed the first official DSV curriculum after 1918.

During the First World War , Paulcke himself commanded one of the Jäger battalions as a captain . A highlight of his soldier life was the visit of Archduke Karl . At the end of 1915 he was sent to the Ottoman Empire to train ski formations there. He also organized the production of skis there, so that Paulcke also contributed to the development of skiing in Turkey. He was later wounded and had to lie in a hospital for a long time .

Wilhelm Paulcke was oriented towards the German nationality and after the war he was in favor of the revision of the Versailles Treaty . In 1936 he felt honored to meet the “ Führer ” on the occasion of the 1936 Winter Olympics in Garmisch-Partenkirchen , and was euphoric after this encounter. He was awarded the Goethe Medal donated by Reich President Paul von Hindenburg and in 1943 he received the Great Letter of Honor from the National Socialist Reich Association for physical exercise .

In his autobiography from 1936, Paulcke mentioned his former skiing comrades and then “race hygienists ” Erwin Baur and Eugen Fischer (physicians) and called them “the later outstanding researchers of heredity and race theory”.

Club and association activity

In November 1895, the Freiburg Section of the Feldberg Ski Club was founded on the idea of ​​Paulcke, which consisted mainly of students and academics, and was renamed SC Schwarzwald on December 1, 1895, in order to allow other sections from other locations to join. Paulcke took over the office of secretary . This created the first supra-regional organizational structure for skiers in Germany.

In 1899, the SC Schwarzwald came up with the idea of ​​holding German ski championships for the first time, which took place a year later and in which foreigners were also allowed to take part. In addition, the members of the association continued to develop new, popular ideas to promote skiing, such as a highly acclaimed crossing of the Bernese Oberland by Paulcke with four companions in 1897 . He used a ski binding he had designed himself, which, due to its advantages over conventional telemark bindings, was adopted after no fewer than 180 different predecessor models and a few designs.

In 1899 Paulcke published the book Der Skilauf , which earned him the reputation of being an internationally renowned ski capacity. A long-term argument with the skier and educator Mathias Zdarsky , whom he apparently felt as a competitor, was detrimental to his activities . There were also controversies with Henry Hoek within the association . Falkner writes: "Whenever Hoek suggested something, Paulcke wanted exactly the opposite."

From 1900 Wilhelm Paulcke encouraged skiers he knew personally from Germany, Austria and Switzerland to found a cross-border ski association and also drafted conceptual considerations for it. From the beginning, the clubs that were on Zdarsky's side were not included and the Czech and Hungarian clubs, which at that time still belonged to Austria, were left out, a process that strained relations between the associations for decades. The Swiss Association was not originally invited to the founding either, but initially only received a letter for information , but then expressed its own desire to join the planned Central European Ski Association. On November 4th and 5th the simultaneous founding of the DSV, the ÖSV and the Central European Association took place in the Augustiner-Bräu in Munich; the DSV presented eleven clubs with around 2000 members. Paulcke had formulated the statutes for all three associations beforehand and prepared the documents. To protest that the Central European Association should not be called the Greater German Ski Association , some delegations had left earlier.

The MESV only existed until 1913, after the Swiss Association left in 1908. From 1920 Paulcke no longer held an important position in the DSV, but was made an honorary member.

Wilhelm Paulcke and Prince Max of Baden

In December 1909, Wilhelm Paulcke met the Baden presumed heir to the throne, Prince Maximilian von Baden , when he was allowed to show him, the protector of the International Winter Sports Exhibition in Triberg , with other guests of honor through the exhibition grounds. Max von Baden, fascinated by Paulcke, immediately engaged him as a personal ski instructor. From then on, the two of them went on long ski and mountain hikes in the Black Forest and Engadine. From at least 1912, the friendship between the two developed into a homosexual relationship, which was also tolerated by their wives, as can be seen from the correspondence between Max von Baden and Maria Paulcke. Max von Baden wrote to Maria z. B. on July 27, 1912 " ... I thank you for this and also for the great thing that it means to me that you are the wife of my beloved friend and that you understand him and my friendship ... ". Maria replied in a letter to Max von Baden at the end of July 1912: “ It is so natural that I should allow this mutual friendship, as your Grand Ducal Highness say; I would have to be a stubborn soul and a raven woman if it were different. For me it is so indescribably beautiful that I can watch and experience this only becoming and growing. "

family

In 1900 Wilhelm Paulcke married Maria Ringier from Switzerland. The couple had two children. Paulcke hardly mentions his wife and children in his autobiography Berge als Schicksal 1936, which could be due to the fact that his wife was considered a quarter Jew according to the ideas of the time.

Paulcke died in 1949 as a result of an accident in his library.

Honors

In 1993, the Paulckeplatz on the university campus was named after him in Karlsruhe . He was an honorary citizen of the Technical University of Karlsruhe . There is a street named after him in Munich. Since 1924 he was an extraordinary member of the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences . Mount Paulcke in Antarctica has been named after him since 1959 .

Publications

  • The skiing . 1899
  • About development laws. Speech at the celebration of the handover of the rectorate Karlsruhe 1920
  • Youth and winter sports . Goettingen 1922
  • With Emil Zsigmondy: The dangers of the Alps .: Experience and advice . Munich 1922
  • Stone age art and modern art. A comparison . Stuttgart 1923
  • Avalanche danger, how it arises and how to avoid it: an explanation for mountaineers and skiers . Munich 1926
  • Mountains as fate . Munich 1936
  • Practical knowledge of snow and avalanches . Berlin 1938
  • Danger book of the mountaineer and skier . Berlin 1942
  • Danger book for mountain climbers and skiers for mountain lovers in summer and winter . Berlin 1953

literature

  • Gerd Falkner: “Wilhelm Paulcke (1973–1949). Initiator of the founding of the German and Central European Ski Association. ”In: SportZeiten . Issue 1/2008. Pp. 79-99
  • Lothar Machtan : Prince Max von Baden, Suhrkamp, ​​2013
  • Ilse Seibold, Eugen Seibold:  Paulcke, Wilhelm. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 20, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-428-00201-6 , p. 117 f. ( Digitized version ).
  • Falkner, Gerd (2012): Ski biographical sketches - The Spiritus rector! The founding father of the German and Central European Ski Association - Wilhelm Paulcke (1873–1949). In: FdSnow 30 (2012) 39, pp. 25–35
  • Falkner, Gerd (2008): The association's founder came from Saxony. The inspirer of the German and Central European Ski Association - Wilhelm Paulcke. In: Falkner, Gerd / Blühm, Klaus - Dieter (2008): Time travel on skis through Saxony. 100 years of the Saxony Ski Association. Aachen, Meyer & Meyer 2008, p. 13 25
  • Falkner, Gerd (2015): Wilhelm Paulcke - ski pioneer and trailblazer for the establishment of Central European ski associations. In: Schöner, Otmar (2015), self-published, Reichenau an der Rax, pp. 40–63 and (sources) pp. 270–272

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ History and legend of the highest altitude alpine skiing in the world , website of the Trofeo Mezzalama.
  2. ^ A b Gerd Falkner : “Wilhelm Paulcke (1973-1949). Initiator of the founding of the German and Central European Ski Associations. ”Pp. 79–99
  3. ↑ "Run Brothers, Run!" - Freedom and regulations: Der Volksskisport in Bayern , Bayerische Staatszeitung - Aktuell, December 5, 2003.
  4. ^ The Battertfelsen - the climbing paradise in Baden-Baden , Alpin Sport TS.
  5. ^ IG Climbing Southern Black Forest: The history of climbing in the Southern Black Forest , accessed on August 6, 2014
  6. ↑ Ascent of Oberalpstock with Norwegian snowshoes and two 0.02 cocaine, on January 5, 1896 ( memento from September 15, 2012 in the Internet Archive ), top-of-uri.ch.
  7. ↑ Günther Flaig, Silvretta alpin, Alpenvereinsführer, Rother Verlag 2000, 12th edition, p. 297 - ISBN 3-7633-1097-5
  8. ↑ Avalanche hazard pattern (pdf) on lawine.tirol.gv.at ( Memento from January 20, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 395 kB)
  9. ^ A b Gerd Falkner: “Wilhelm Paulcke (1973-1949). Initiator of the founding of the German and the Central European Ski Association. ”P. 82 f.
  10. ↑ Gerd Falkner: “Wilhelm Paulcke (1973–1949). Initiator of the founding of the German and Central European Ski Associations. ”P. 83 f. and 88
  11. ↑ Gerd Falkner: “Wilhelm Paulcke (1973–1949). Initiator of the founding of the German and the Central European Ski Association. ”P. 84 f.
  12. ↑ Laurent Schillinger: The ski or five thousand years of snow-covered landscapes
  13. ↑ Gerd Falkner: “Wilhelm Paulcke (1973–1949). Initiator of the founding of the German and the Central European Ski Association. ”P. 86
  14. ↑ Gerd Falkner: “Wilhelm Paulcke (1973–1949). Initiator of the founding of the German and the Central European Ski Association. ”P. 90
  15. ↑ Gerd Falkner: “Wilhelm Paulcke (1973–1949). Initiator of the founding of the German and the Central European Ski Association. ”P. 95 f.
  16. ^ Lothar Machtan: Prince Max von Baden, page 233
  17. ↑ General Landscape Archive Karlsruhe, Paulcke estate
  18. ^ Letter from Maria Paulcke in the General Landscape Archive Karlsruhe, Paulcke estate
  19. ↑ Gerd Falkner: “Wilhelm Paulcke (1973–1949). Initiator of the founding of the German and Central European Ski Association. ”P. 88
  20. ↑ http://digbib.ubka.uni-karlsruhe.de/volltexte/digital/3/1082.pdf
  21. ^ Members of the HAdW since it was founded in 1909. Wilhelm Paulcke. Heidelberg Academy of Sciences, accessed on June 16, 2016 .
personal data
SURNAME Paulcke, Wilhelm
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German geologist and avalanche researcher
DATE OF BIRTH April 8, 1873
PLACE OF BIRTH Leipzig
DATE OF DEATH October 5, 1949
Place of death Karlsruhe