Ferdinand von Richthofen

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Ferdinand von Richthofen, 1880

Ferdinand Freiherr von Richthofen (born May 5, 1833 in Carlsruhe , Opole district , Province of Silesia , † October 6, 1905 in Berlin ) was an important German geographer , cartographer and explorer from the Richthofen family . He is considered the founder of modern geomorphology and coined the term " Silk Road " in his studies of the Chinese Empire . The former Richthofen Mountains , today Qilian Shan, were named after him.

Life

His parents were Karl von Richthofen (1801–1874) and Ferdinande von Kulisch (1807–1885), who before their marriage in 1828 as “Nanny von Kulisch” had been court lady at the ducal Württemberg court in Carlsruhe (Upper Silesia) and a biography of Ferdinand's brother , the 1873 excommunicated cathedral capitular Carl Freiherr von Richthofen (1832–1876), wrote.

Richthofen studied geology in Breslau and Berlin . He received his doctorate in 1856 and initially worked as a geologist. From 1856 to 1860 he carried out geological surveys in South Tyrol ( Alps ) and Transylvania ( Carpathians ). He was involved in the survey conducted by Franz von Hauer , which provided a comprehensive geological description of Transylvania (published in 1863) with an overview map (published in 1861) and was long considered a standard work.

The focus of his work as an explorer was a twelve-year journey from 1860 to 1872, which took him to Asia and North America . As a participant in the Prussian East Asia expedition led by Friedrich Albrecht zu Eulenburg , he first visited East Asia from 1860 to 1862, more precisely Ceylon ( Sri Lanka ), Japan , Formosa ( Taiwan ), the Philippines and Java . On Java, where he met the doctor and naturalist Franz Wilhelm Junghuhn , he traveled through some hitherto unknown parts of the island. During this time, the first focus of my work was dealing with volcanic rocks . He then undertook a land trip from Bangkok to Moulmein in Burma on the Bay of Bengal . He had to give up his plan to travel across Central Asia from Calcutta .

He initially left Asia and worked on mainly geological topics in California and the Sierra Nevada until 1868 . In 1868 he returned to Asia with funding from the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce . From Shanghai he devoted himself to intensive research into the Chinese Empire until 1872 . Richthofen traveled through 13 of the then 18 provinces, sometimes under adverse conditions. A large part of China was opened up to Western science through him. The focus of his investigations in China shifted from geology to geography . In particular, he devoted himself to the interrelationships between rock construction ( stratigraphy ), surface forms (geomorphology), climate , flora and fauna, settlement, economy and culture in the study area. He combined detailed individual observations into a meaningful overall picture. The Lopingium - series of Perm in the Earth's history was first described by him as lithostratigraphic introduced concept; later redefined by other authors as a chronostratigraphic unit.

He set out on his last trip in Beijing in October 1871. This journey took him via Taiyuan along the Fen He river to Xi'an , through the Qin Ling and Daba Shan mountains to Chengdu with the destination Canton . Behind Chengdu, however, the expedition was attacked and robbed. Richthofen decided to break off the trip. Via Luzhou and Chongqing in the Red Basin and then along the Yangtze River , Richthofen finally reached Shanghai via Yichang , Wuhan and Nanjing .

The main aim of his trip to Asia was to record the Chinese coal deposits. With the precise representation of the local economic and population structure, the region, which is still unknown in Europe, was to be brought under the influence of the German economy.

Memorial plaque for Ferdinand von Richthofen at his former place of residence in Berlin-Schöneberg

After his return from China (1872), Richthofen was President of the Berlin Geography Society from 1873 to 1878 . He campaigned for an expansion of the German colonial empire to China, including a memorandum addressed to Otto von Bismarck .

In 1875 von Richthofen became professor of geography in Bonn , then from 1883 in Leipzig successor to Otto Delitsch and from 1886 in Berlin. Students were among others Sven Hedin , Alfred Philippson , Arthur Berson , Fritz Frech and Wilhelm Sievers . Even Alfred Hettner that in him and his successor Friedrich Ratzel habilitated 1887 in Leipzig, belongs to the circle of Ferdinand von Richthofen. In 1862 he was elected a member of the Leopoldina . The Bavarian Academy of Sciences appointed him a corresponding member in 1881. In 1883 he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences . Since 1884 he was a full member of the Royal Saxon Society of Sciences . On December 31, 1894, he was accepted as a corresponding member of the Académie des Sciences . In 1901 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences . The Richthofen Pass , a mountain pass in the west Antarctic Grahamland , is named after him. He was an honorary member of the Thuringian-Saxon Association for Geography.

His most important work is the investigation of the geological structure and geography of China (for example his work on the hard coal deposits there and the Asian loess ).

Grave site in the south-west cemetery Stahnsdorf

Ferdinand von Richthofen died in Berlin in 1905 at the age of 72 and was buried in the Old St. Matthew Cemetery in Schöneberg . In the course of the leveling of the cemetery carried out by the National Socialists in 1938/1939, Richthofen's remains were reburied in the south-west cemetery in Stahnsdorf near Berlin. The tomb there was restored in 2007. It is located in the Alte Umbettung block, department C, legacy burial 127.n.

Honors

The plant genus Richthofenia Hosseus from the Rafflesiaceae family is named after him.

Works

  • China. Results of own trips and studies based on them . 5 volumes with atlas:
  • Explorers Guide . 1886, reprint 1901. (Digitized: [8] )
  • Geomorphological studies from East Asia (4 issues, 1901–1903)
  • Schantung and its entrance gate Kiautschou . Dietrich Reimer , Berlin 1898. (Digitized: [9] )
  • Diaries from China . Edited by Ernst Thiessen. Dietrich Reimer , Berlin 1907. (Digital copies: Volume 1 , Volume 2 )
  • Lectures on general settlement and transport geography . Edited by Otto Schlueter . Dietrich Reimer , Berlin 1908. (Digitized: [10] )

literature

Web links

Commons : Ferdinand von Richthofen  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
Wikisource: Ferdinand von Richthofen  - Sources and full texts

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Ferdinande Baroness von Richthofen (with Wilhelm Friedrich Besser ): Carl Freiherr von Richthofen, formerly canon in Breslau. A picture of life from the church struggles of the present. After handwritten papers and maternal memories. Justus Naumann, Leipzig 1877.
  2. ↑ Michael Sachs: 'Prince Bishop and Vagabond'. The story of a friendship between the Prince-Bishop of Breslau Heinrich Förster (1799–1881) and the writer and actor Karl von Holtei (1798–1880). Edited textually based on the original Holteis manuscript. In: Medical historical messages. Journal for the history of science and specialist prose research. Volume 35, 2016 (2018), pp. 223–291, here: p. 290 with note 224.
  3. ↑ Member entry by Ferdinand Frhr. von Richthofen at the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina , accessed on June 28, 2017.
  4. ^ List of members since 1666: Letter R. Académie des sciences, accessed on February 21, 2020 (French).
  5. ^ Directory of the members of the Thuringian-Saxon Geography Association on March 31, 1885 ( Memento from December 1, 2017 in the Internet Archive )
  6. ^ Hans-Jürgen Mende: Lexicon of Berlin tombs . Haude & Spener, Berlin 2006. pp. 307, 476.
  7. ↑ Lotte Burkhardt: Directory of eponymous plant names - Extended Edition. Part I and II. Botanic Garden and Botanical Museum Berlin , Freie Universität Berlin , Berlin 2018, ISBN 978-3-946292-26-5 doi: 10.3372 / epolist2018 .
personal data
SURNAME Richthofen, Ferdinand von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Richthofen, Ferdinand Freiherr von; Richthofen, Ferdinand Paul Wilhelm Dieprand von
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German geographer and explorer
DATE OF BIRTH May 5, 1833
PLACE OF BIRTH Carlsruhe , Opole district
DATE OF DEATH October 6, 1905
Place of death Berlin