Albert Richter (forest scientist)

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Gravestone in the Chorin monastery cemetery

Albert Richter (born May 6, 1909 in Loßnitz , Saxony ; † August 2, 2007 in Eberswalde , Brandenburg ) was an important German forest scientist . He developed from the 1950s -Jahren a new forest management planning process for the German Democratic Republic (GDR). In addition, Richter has mainly come out with forest history work, including a biography of Heinrich Cotta . As a professor and institute director at the Eberswalde Forestry University (later the Academy-Institute for Forest Sciences and today the University of Applied Sciences) , he proved to be a successful science organizer who set up the largest forest research institute in Eberswalde, which was at times the largest forest research institute in Europe, and which led to international renown. Nevertheless, the non-party national prize winner also experienced numerous political reprisals from the SED rulers.

Live and act

Training and career beginnings

Albert Richter, who came from the former Waldhufendorf Loßnitz, was the son of a district forester . After graduating from the humanistic grammar school in Freiberg , the first semesters of study initially took him to the University of Leipzig , where he studied basic subjects for his subsequent forestry studies in Tharandt . His teachers in Tharandt included Franz Heske , Gustav A. Krauss , Konrad Rubner and Johann Jentsch , his later doctoral supervisor. In 1932 Richter completed his studies as a forest engineer and joined the Saxon State Forest Administration. During his legal clerkship , which he completed with the Great State Forest Examination as a forest assessor, he undertook scientific work on behalf of the State Forestry Administration. This led to his dissertation History of the Organization of the Saxon State Forest Administration , with which he was awarded a PhD in 1935 at Jentsch in Tharandt . received his doctorate . The extensive description of the forest organization from its beginnings in 1541 to 1932

" Is undoubtedly one of the best forest history works of its kind. A similar comprehensive account of an administrative history is not known for any other country "

- ( Gerd Hildebrandt 1989).

In it, Richter consistently abstained from any eulogy about the Nazi regime and the associated zeitgeist. However, a foreword by Jentsch was added to the work, which was obviously intended to remedy this “deficiency”. In the following years, Albert Richter operated within the Saxon state forest management in forest management , and brought it to 1939 to the forester . From 1942 he experienced the Second World War as an officer in the Wehrmacht . In 1937 he joined the NSDAP .

The Cotta biography

After the war back into Saxony, Albert Richter earned his living from 1945 to 1949, first as forest workers and 1949/50 as Forsteinrichter , while also at the national forest survey of the GDR participated. In addition to these activities, he worked in the evening and at night, his best-known work, Heinrich Cotta. Life and work of a German forester . With this still today (2007) authoritative and only detailed biography of this " forest classic " he received his habilitation in 1950 in Eberswalde . It was not only the first independent biography of a German forester in book form since the Dr. Johann Matthäus Bechstein and the Drei 30acker Forest Academy. A double monument by Ludwig Bechstein , but it also became “one of the most beautiful and moving books in forest literature” ( Gerd Hildebrandt ). The idea for this book came from his student days, when he had lived with members of the Cotta family: “The house that a son of Heinrich Cotta had once bought was filled with ancestral household items and forest memories of all kinds. Perhaps liked the antiquity of the furnishings alienating some, for me as a lover of testimonies from the past it was stimulating and soon cozy ” , as Albert Richter recalled in the preface to his Cotta biography. At first, however, the idea of ​​writing an overall account of Heinrich Cotta's life remained. However, Richter continued to deal with the important forest scientist and, in the years that followed, compiled his writings bit by bit, and bought letters and engravings in second-hand bookshops. Service obligations and the war initially ruined the concrete plan to complete the biography on Cotta's 180th birthday in 1943 or on the 100th anniversary of his death in 1944. In the difficult post-war years, Richter then put the plan into practice. “During this time, the figure of Heinrich Cotta became a fatherly friend, from whom I have not been separated by more than a century. He has helped me deal with many of the problems of our time, and I owe him more than I can and like to express in this context. "

Scientific career in Eberswalde

Albert Richter began his university career in 1950 at the Forestry Faculty in Eberswalde as Director of the Institute for Forest Management, combined with a professorship with a full teaching position for forest management, forest surveying and forestry history. From 1953 he also represented these subjects as a professor . After establishing the German Academy of Agricultural Sciences in Berlin, he also took on the role of director of the Institute for Forest Sciences in Eberswalde from 1954. In it, remnants of the former Prussian research institute were combined with newly created research departments and expanded into an efficient large-scale research institute. For this purpose, corresponding new buildings were built between 1953 and 1958 on Alfred-Möller-Straße (today the FH forest campus). Albert Richter proved to be an effective scientific organizer, who succeeded in making Eberswalde temporarily the largest forest research institute in Europe and, thanks to a competent staff, in making it internationally renowned. Well over 500 students have passed through his school and a number of his close pupils and employees have become well-known forest scientists themselves - among them Gerd Hildebrandt , Albrecht Milnik and Ekkehard Schwartz .

Under the methodological leadership of Albert Richter, the Eberswalde scientists developed a new forest management procedure that was introduced in a binding manner for the entire GDR . With the Provisional Operating Regulation (VBRA) issued in 1953, forest management and forest management were able to counteract unacceptable logging requirements and once again operate in accordance with the forest sustainability principle . Although there were content-related disputes about the implementation of the forest management procedure, in 1955 Richter was the first forest scientist to receive the GDR's national scientific prize . He also promoted the further development of the mathematical-statistical method of recording wood stocks and growth and introduced a permanent forestry large-scale inventory in the forests of the GDR. He summarized the methods he developed in 1963 in the textbook Introduction to Forest Management , a GDR standard work in this field. Richter's emphasis on site-appropriate silviculture was entirely on the line that - starting from Friedrich Wilhelm Leopold Pfeil and based on the ecological silviculture by Alfred Dengler - is known as the so-called "Eberswalder School". An important milestone for this was the work on Paths to Site-Appropriate Forestry, which was written together with Egon Wagenknecht , Alexis Scamoni and Jobst Lehmann . Eberswalde 1953 (1956).

As head of the research department for the history of forestry, Albert Richter also founded the forest history fund in Eberswalde. The research tasks that were carried out under his direction until 1969 included investigations into the spread of forests over the past 150 years, the history of communal ownership , the forest ownership structure after 1945 in the GDR and the social situation of forest workers.

But the political pressure exerted by the SED rulers, for whom the forestry faculty in Eberswalde had become increasingly too independent and unpopular, led to the faculty being closed as a teaching institution in 1963, and for political reasons from 1969 onwards all work on the history of forestry had to be stopped and the non-party In this context, Richter finally retired early in 1970 . With this punishment, those in power had suddenly stalled his scientific career and robbed him of years of scientific work. After the turning point in 1963, however, he still managed to transfer almost all of the material and personnel equipment to the new Academy Institute for Forest Sciences and essentially to maintain the research capacity, which he later described as his greatest professional success.

The scientifically and culturally diverse judge also gave the impetus for the later Choriner music summer . The first concert on May 23, 1964 was initially only intended as a corporate cultural initiative to organize a music event for the employees of the Institute for Forest Sciences in Eberswalde. Since these events were also very well received by the closer forestry circles, the music summer developed out of it.

After the turn

Immediately after German reunification , this point in GDR history began to come to terms with the past . In an open letter , the Scientific Council of the Research Institute for Forestry and Wood Management in Eberswalde advocated a rehabilitation of Richter, which was reached immediately. By the Minister for Science, Research and Culture of the State of Brandenburg, Hinrich Enderlein , he was appointed a member of the founding committee of the Eberswalde University of Applied Sciences in 1992 and, at the age of over 80, initially took over the lectures in forestry history.

In recognition of his work on forest history, Albert Richter was awarded the Georg Ludwig Hartig Prize , endowed with 10,000 DM, in 1995 at the meeting of the Hessian Forest Association in Hungen . On the occasion of his 90th birthday, the Landesforstanstalt Eberswalde and the University of Applied Sciences Eberswalde held an honorary colloquium on May 17, 1999 .

In addition to his forestry work, Richter was very interested in local history and was a member of the Verein für Heimatkunde zu Eberswalde eV Due to his passionate collecting activities in various areas - he was particularly impressed by antique coins , glass tokens and calendars - he let the public through coin exhibitions and Participate in lectures.

Albert Richter, who lived with his wife in the Eberswalde “Forsthaus an der Darre”, died on August 2nd, 2007. He found his final resting place in the Chorin monastery cemetery , where he lived on August 13th, 2007 next to his professors Alexis Scamoni and Egon Wagenknecht was buried.

Fonts (selection)

  • History of the organization of the Saxon State Forest Administration , Dresden and Tharandt 1935 (also as a dissertation)
  • Heinrich Cotta. Life and work of a German forester , habilitation thesis, Dresden 1950 (as a book: Radebeul and Berlin 1950; 2nd edition Radebeul and Berlin 1952)
  • Nature and tasks of forestry history teaching and research , meeting reports of the German Academy of Agricultural Sciences in Berlin (Volume 2, Issue 5), Leipzig 1953
  • as co-author: Ways to site-appropriate forest management. Eberswalde 1953 , Radebeul and Berlin 1956
  • About the importance and application of sample surveys in forestry. Held before the plenary session of the German Academy of Agricultural Sciences in Berlin on April 18, 1958 , session reports of the German Academy of Agricultural Sciences in Berlin (Volume 7, Issue 9)
  • Tasks and methods of site-appropriate forest management , meeting reports of the German Academy of Agricultural Sciences in Berlin (Volume 8, Issue 2), Berlin 1958
  • On the meaning of the academy in our time , meeting reports of the German Academy of Agricultural Sciences in Berlin (Volume 10, Issue 12), Berlin 1961
  • Introduction to forest management , Radebeul 1963

literature

  • Author collective: Festschrift for the honorary colloquium on May 17, 1999 in Eberswalde on the occasion of the 90th birthday of Prof. em. Dr.-Ing. habil. Albert Richter . Landesforstanstalt Eberswalde (subject area public relations), Eberswalde and Potsdam 1999
  • Klaus Höppner: Professor Dr.-Ing. Albert Richter passed away . In: Archive for Forestry and Landscape Ecology , Volume 41, 3/2007, p. 137. Online ( Memento from October 11, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
  • Klaus Höppner: Prof. Dr. Ing.Albert Richter † . In: AFZ / DerWald , volume 62, issue 18/2007, p. 1001, ISSN  1430-2713
  • Gerd Hildebrandt : Prof. Dr. Albert Richter 80 years . In: General forest and hunting newspaper . 160th year, issue 6/1989, p. 113, ISSN  0002-5852
  • Ekkehard Schwartz : Professor Dr. Ing.Albert Richter 85 years . In: Forest and Wood . 49th year, issue 8/1994, p. 220, ISSN  0932-9315
  • Gunther Wolff: Professor Dr. Ing.Albert Richter 85 years . In: Contributions to forestry and landscape ecology . Volume 28, issue 2/1994, p. 93, ISSN  0943-7479
  • Collective of authors: Open letter from the Scientific Council of the Research Institute for Forestry and Wood Management in Eberswalde. For the rehabilitation of Prof. (em.) Dr. Ing.habil. Albert Richter . In: DerWald . 42nd year, issue 3/1992, p. 95, ISSN  0863-4807
  • Hans-Jürgen Wegener : Hartig Prize for Professor Dr. Albert Richter. About an event of the Hessian Forest Association in Hungen on September 6, 1995 . In: Forest and Wood . 51st year, issue 2/1996, pp. 53-54, ISSN  0932-9315
  • M. Schütze: Professor Dr.Ing.habil. Albert Richter 80 years . In: Contributions to forestry . 23rd year, issue 3/1989, pp. 145-146, ISSN  0323-4673

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Gerd Hildebrandt: Prof. Dr. Albert Richter 80 years , in: General forest and hunting newspaper . 160th year, issue 6/1989, p. 113
  2. ↑ Harry Waibel : Servants of many masters. Former Nazi functionaries in the Soviet Zone / GDR. Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main et al. 2011, ISBN 978-3-631-63542-1 , p. 267.
  3. ^ A b Albert Richter: Heinrich Cotta. Life and work of a German forester . Neumann, Radebeul and Berlin 1950, p. 5
  4. ↑ a b c d e Klaus Höppner: Professor Dr.-Ing. Albert Richter passed away . In: Archive for Forestry and Landscape Ecology , Volume 41, 3/2007, p. 137. Online ( Memento from October 11, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
  5. ↑ Gunther Wolff: Choriner Music Summer: Impressions - First Concert ; Retrieved November 24, 2007
  6. ↑ Collective of authors: Open letter of the scientific council of the research institute for forestry and wood industry Eberswalde. For the rehabilitation of Prof. (em.) Dr. Ing.habil. Albert Richter , in: DerWald . 42nd year, issue 3/1992, p. 95
  7. ↑ Hans-Jürgen Wegener: Hartig Prize for Professor Dr. Albert Richter. About an event of the Hessian Forest Association in Hungen on September 6, 1995 , in: Forst und Holz . 51st year, issue 2/1996, pp. 53–54
  8. ↑ Werner Achterberg: Prof. Dr. ing. Albert Richter for the 90th In: Eberswalder Yearbook for Local History, Culture and Natural History 1999/2000 . Association for local history in Eberswalde, Eberswalde 1999, ISSN  1616-1882 , p. 169
personal data
SURNAME Judge, Albert
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German forest scientist
DATE OF BIRTH May 6, 1909
PLACE OF BIRTH Loßnitz , Saxony
DATE OF DEATH August 2, 2007
Place of death Eberswalde , Brandenburg