Friedrich Bender (geologist)

Friedrich Karl-Heinrich Bender (born September 17, 1924 in Ziegenhain / Hessen , † May 27, 2008 in Spangenberg ) was a German geologist.

Life

After attending secondary school in Wetzlar, Friedrich Bender was drafted into the Wehrmacht in 1941. He was used on the Eastern Front and fought as a soldier in Russia, the Baltic States and East Prussia. After his escape from Soviet captivity, he began studying geology in Stuttgart and Tübingen in 1945 and received his doctorate in Heidelberg in 1950 with a thesis on the Eisenoolith horizon in the Lias-α of Württemberg. He spent the first years of his professional career at Buderus Eisenwerke in Wetzlar and at the Brigitta and Elwerath trade union in Hanover, where he specialized as a petroleum geologist. In 1952 he went to Turkey and worked there for the geological service of the country and the state oil company TPAO . In 1956 he took over the management of geological mapping and oil exploration in Sergipe and Tucano (Bahia) in northeastern Brazil in the service of Petrobras .

In 1958 he joined the Office for Soil Research (AfB) in Hanover and, after its dissolution, became an employee of the newly founded Federal Institute for Soil Research (BfB), today's Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources (BGR). On their behalf, he was entrusted with the management of the German Geological Mission in Jordan in 1961. His work on the systematic geological mapping of the entire country as well as the prospecting for usable mineral raw materials, groundwater and usable soils ultimately resulted in the establishment of a separate Jordanian state geological service. From 1966 to 1968 he worked as an advisor to the Jordanian government for oil exploration and the further expansion of the state geological service.

In 1968 Friedrich Bender was appointed director and professor and headed subdivision 2 "Regional Geology" at the Federal Institute for Soil Research. In 1973 he took over the supervision of the "Petroleum and Natural Gas" department before he was appointed President of the Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources (BGR) in 1975 . He worked in this role until his retirement in 1985. Under his leadership, BGR's raw materials cooperation with key partner countries was intensified. In the same period from 1975 to 1985 he was head of the Lower Saxony State Office for Soil Research.

His outstanding position in the applied geology of Germany earned Friedrich Bender numerous appointments and honors, such as the Federal Cross of Merit on Ribbon in 1972 or the Federal Cross of Merit 1st Class in 1984. Due to his services for the Kingdom of Jordan, he was awarded a prize in 1966 by King Hussein, who gave him a close personal friendship, awarded the "Grand Officer's Cross of the Order of Independence".

Web links

• Literature by and about Friedrich Bender in the catalog of the German National Library
• Obituary of the German Society for Geosciences on Friedrich Bender (click on "Bender")