William of Branca

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William of Branca
Grave of Wilhelm von Branca in the Munich North Cemetery

Carl Wilhelm Franz von Branca (until 1895: Wilhelm Branco, 1895–1907: Wilhelm von Branco, born September 9, 1844 in Potsdam , † March 12, 1928 in Munich ) was a German geologist and paleontologist .

origin

The Branca family comes from Cannobio on Lake Maggiore , from where they came to Meiningen in 1690 . His parents were Friedrich Wilhelm Branco (1797–1870), general physician and general practitioner of the king, and his wife Dilia Thelyma Nelly Helene Roedlich (as a poet: Dilia Helena, 1816–1894), a daughter of Major General Hieronymos Franz Seraph Roedlich (1767–1833 ) and Margarethe Johnson (1786–1860). The lieutenant general and military writer Albert von Boguslawski (1834–1905) was his cousin.

Life

After attending school in Gnadenberg ( Herrnhuter Gemeine) and Breslau , he initially embarked on an officer career, but retired in 1863 due to unfit for service. He began studying in Greifswald and training as a farmer at the Agricultural Academy Eldena and finally studied geology in Halle (Saale) and Heidelberg. After receiving his doctorate in 1876, he went to Strasbourg and Rome to see Karl Alfred von Zittel . In 1881 he completed his habilitation in Berlin and was then a private lecturer, also briefly in Aachen. Then he became a state geologist at the Prussian Geological State Institute in Berlin. From 1887 he was a professor at the Albertus University in Königsberg , from 1890 to 1895 at the University of Tübingen , then in Hohenheim and finally from 1899 to 1917 in Berlin. In Berlin he was director of the Geological and Paleontological Institute and Museum of the Friedrich Wilhelms University .

Branca conducted research on paleontology, stratigraphy , volcanism, especially in Swabia ( Nördlinger Ries ), on the evolution of ammonites and fossil vertebrates, and on paleanthropology . From 1909 to 1912 he accompanied the Tendaguru expedition to German East Africa , the largest expedition to record fossil vertebrates to date.

family

In 1872 he married Käthe von Helmholtz (1850–1878), a daughter of the physicist Hermann von Helmholtz (1821–1894) and Olga von Velten (1827–1859). The couple had a daughter. Sophie Edith Olga (born April 18, 1873), teacher in Berlin. After the death of his first wife, he married Paula Kirchhoff (* August 20, 1860; † 1932), a daughter of the physicist Gustav Robert Kirchhoff (1824-1887) and Clara Richelot in 1881 . The couple had a son: Hans Joachim Gerhard von Branca (1885–1953), writer and manager of the German-Austrian working group.

Honors, awards and memberships

Fonts

  • The volcanoes of the Herniker Land near Frosinone in central Italy. Berlin 1877.
  • Contributions to the history of the development of the fossil cephalopods, Part I: The ammonites. In: Palaeontographica, 26, Cassel 1879, 15 - 50, 10 plates
  • Contributions to the history of the evolution of the fossil cephalopods, Part II: The Goniatites, Clymenia, Nautilids, Belemnitides and Spirulids with addendum to Part I. In: Palaeontographica, 27, Cassel 1880, 12 - 81
  • Contributions to the knowledge of the genus Lepidotus , etc. (Atlas.). 1887
  • Schwaben's 125 volcanic embryos and their tuffer-filled eruption tubes; the largest maar area on earth. In: Jahrhefte Vaterländischer Naturkunde. 50th year, Stuttgart 1894 (also printed separately: Schweizerbart, Stuttgart 1894; online ).
  • The volcanic Ries near Nördlingen in its importance for questions of general geology. 1901
  • Effect and cause of earthquakes. Speech on the birthday of His Majesty the Emperor and King Wilhelm II in the auditorium of the Royal Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität zu Berlin on January 27, 1902. Gustav Schade printing works, Berlin 1902.
  • The cryptovolcanic basin of Steinheim. 1905.
  • The application of X-rays in paleontology. 1906.
  • The storage conditions of Bunter Breccie on the Donauwörth-Treuchtlingen railway line ... 1907.
  • Are all boys lying inside ichthyosaurs without exception embryos? 1907.
  • The state of our knowledge of fossil humans , etc. 1910.
  • "Science and Religion." German Review June 1912, 1–12. 1912.
  • “General information about the Tendaguru expedition.” Archive for Biontology III, 3–13. 1914.
  • “Report on the judgments I received from the experts: regarding the suggestions I made in“ Aims of volcanological research ”." Treatises of the Royal Prussian Academy of Sciences. Physico-mathematical class 1914, no. 2, 1-69. 1914.
  • “The giant size of the Tendaguru sauropod dinosaurs, their extinction and the conditions of their formation.” Archive for Biontology III, 73–78. 1914.
  • “Scientific results of the Tendaguru expedition 1909–1912: The so-called. Sacral brain of the dinosaur. Addendum to the treatise: The giant size sauropod dinosaur of Tendaguru. " Archive for Biontology III, 3–22. 1914.
  • Some reflections on the oldest mammals of the Triassic and Liasal periods. Treatises of the Royal Prussian Academy of Sciences Physical-Mathematical Class: No. 5, Verlag d. K. Akad. D. Scientific, Berlin 1915

literature

  • Werner Quenstedt :  Branca, Karl Wilhelm Franz von. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 2, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1955, ISBN 3-428-00183-4 , p. 514 f. ( Digitized version ).
  • Genealogical Handbook of Bourgeois Families, Volume Fourteenth. 1908, 13f
  • Genealogical Handbook of Bourgeois Families, Volume Seventeenth. 1910, p.70 Corrections to Volume 14, p. 13f
  • Winfried Mogge: Wilhelm Branco (1844–1928): geologist - paleontologist - Darwinist. A biography , Berlin: Peter Lang GmbH, Internationaler Verlag der Wissenschaften [2018], ISBN 978-3-631-75520-4 .
  • Winfried Mogge: "In the German soil of Africa". Wilhelm Branca, the Tendaguru Expedition and Colonial Policy . In: Stefan Noack / Christine de Gemeaux / Uwe Puschner (eds.): German East Africa. Dynamics of European cultural contacts and horizons of experience in the colonial area , Berlin a. a .: Peter Lang 2019 (Civilizations & History; 57), ISBN 978-3-631-77497-7 , pp. 125–144.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Quenstedt, Werner (1955). “Branca, Karl Wilhelm Franz von,” In Neue Deutsche Biographie , 2, 514–515. Berlin: Duncker & Humblot.
  2. ^ Member entry of Wilhelm von Branco at the German Academy of Natural Scientists Leopoldina , accessed on April 7, 2016.
  3. ^ Wilhelm von Branca. Members of the predecessor academies. Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities , accessed on April 7, 2016 .
personal data
SURNAME Branca, Wilhelm von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Branca, Carl Wilhelm Franz von (full name); Branco, Wilhelm von
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German geologist and paleontologist
DATE OF BIRTH September 9, 1844
PLACE OF BIRTH Potsdam
DATE OF DEATH March 12, 1928
Place of death Munich