Franz Xaver Michels

Franz Xaver Michels (born July 27, 1900 in Andernach ; † June 15, 1973 ) was a German geologist , engineer and entrepreneur.

Michels obtained his mechanical engineering and electrical engineering diploma at RWTH Aachen University in 1922 and managed his family's natural stone and basalt factories in the Eifel. He was a soldier in the First and as a pioneer officer in North Africa in World War II and from 1941 in captivity in Canada, where he helped organize the camp university. In 1950 he received his doctorate in geology at RWTH Aachen University (the origin of the basaltic ejecta in the white pumice of the Niedermendiger mine field). At his home and company headquarters in Mendig , he ran a geologist's hostel as a branch of the University of Bonn for excursions to the Eifel, and he ran a private museum that still exists today. He advocated nature conservation and monument protection in lectures and public media. In its museum, the German Volcanological Society has an institute Dr. Franz-Xaver Michels opens.

He had been an honorary member of the Geological Association since 1969 and its longstanding treasurer and managing director. Michels was a bearer of the Great Federal Cross of Merit .

literature

• Obituary by Werner Zeil in Geologische Rundschau, 62, 1973, Issue 3, V – VIII