Ernst Schilling (botanist)

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Ernst Carl Magnus Schilling (born April 2, 1889 in Hamburg ; † July 25, 1963 ) was a German botanist and breeding researcher. He was the "defining figure of German bast fiber breeding research in the 20th century". From 1930 until his retirement in 1957 he was director first of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Bast Fiber Research, and later of the Max Planck Institute for Bast Fiber Research , which became part of the Max Planck Institute for Breeding Research from 1951 .

Life

Schilling was born the son of a shipping company director in Hamburg. In 1908 he graduated from Dortmund. He then studied natural sciences at the Universities of Freiburg, Leipzig and Münster under Friedrich Tobler (1879–1957), among others . He received his doctorate in 1914 under Carl Correns in Münster with a thesis on "Hypertrophic and hyperplastic tissue growth on shoot axes caused by paraffins".

At the beginning of the First World War he volunteered and took part in the Russian campaign. In 1916 he was released as a "war disabled" because of an injury. Between July 1916 and January 1917 he worked as an assistant at the Botanical Garden of the University of Münster . In January 1917, however, he was drafted into army service again, so that he had to give up this position again. He was with the troops until November 1918. He then worked from 1919 to October 1920 as an assistant to Viktor Pöschl at the Institute for Commodity Science at the Mannheim Commercial College .

In 1920 he went to the German Research Institute for Bast Fibers in Sorau , where his former teacher Friedrich Tobler appointed him head of department. The research institute for bast fibers was financed entirely by industry until 1927. On October 1, 1930, Schilling became director of the institute, which was incorporated into the Kaiser Wilhelm Society in April 1938 and became the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Bast Fiber Research. After the Second World War, this institute was initially included in the Max Planck Society, until 1951 it was called the Max Planck Institute for Bast Fiber Research. From then until its dissolution with the retirement of Schilling, it became a sub-institute of the Max Planck Institute for Breeding Research in Cologne.

Schilling "saw himself in the tradition of the formative plant physiologist and raw material scientist Julius Wiesner , who had written the standard work of technical botany with his book" Die Rohstoffe des Pflanzenreiches "(1873).

The history of the KWI for bast fiber research and its involvement in the raw materials policy of the National Socialist regime was examined within the framework of a historians' commission, which worked on the history of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society under National Socialism and was appointed by the President of the Max Planck Society .

Publications (selection)

  • The fiber of the plant kingdom . 1924.
  • IV. Chemical questions of bast fiber research , in: Angewandte Chemie, Vol. 47 (1934), Issue 1, pages 7-11 (part of a series "Tasks of Chemistry in New Germany")

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Günther Luxbacher: Raw materials for self-sufficiency - textile research in the Kaiser Wilhelm Society (PDF; 280 kB)
personal data
SURNAME Schilling, Ernst
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Schilling, Ernst Carl Magnus (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German botanist and breeding researcher
DATE OF BIRTH April 2, 1889
PLACE OF BIRTH Hamburg
DATE OF DEATH July 25, 1963