Friedrich Wilhelm Stahl

This article deals with the officer and forest scientist Friedrich Wilhelm Stahl. For the political scientist and politician Friedrich Wilhelm Stahl see Wilhelm Stahl (Economist) .

Friedrich Wilhelm Stahl (born August 7, 1798 in Schwarzensee , now a district of Strasburg in the Uckermark , now: District of Western Pomerania-Greifswald in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania ; † January 19, 1867 in Rüdersdorf near Berlin ) was a Prussian officer , Kgl. Prussian chief forester , forest scientist and non-fiction author.

Ancestry, family

Stahl was the son of a forester in Gräflich von Redern's service.

In 1842 he married Emilie Auguste Lüdke (Luedke) (1814–1865), daughter of the Oberamtmann from Altlandsberg near Berlin, Karl Friedrich Wilhelm Lüdke . When he died, Stahl had eight children, of whom the eldest son, Hermann Stahl, had already completed his studies as a forester, which he began in Neustadt-Ebersfelde in 1863. Later he was chief forester in Karlsbrunn in the former Trier administrative district .

The brother Gustav Stahl , formerly Count von Redernscher, then Royal Forester zu Gadow , now a district of the Lanz community of the Lenzen-Elbtalaue district in the Prignitz district in Brandenburg has also emerged as a writer with the Handbuch der Forstwissenschaft and a book about the position of the Prussian Ranger.

Youth, school and vocational training

From their earliest youth, he and his brother had been appointed by their father to be a forestry specialist. Stahl left the first class of the Royal Realschule, from which the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Gymnasium in Berlin emerged, and in 1813 was apprenticed to the Count of Redern's district forester Feist in Görlsdorf , now part of Angermünde .

Professional Activities

Military time

After completing his three-year apprenticeship, he joined the Royal Guard-Hunter-Battalion as a hunter with the intention of earning the right to employment as a sub-forester through a 20-year military service . In spring 1817 he was transferred to the 2nd (Magdeburg) Jäger Battalion, which remained as an occupying force in France until December 1818 after the wars of liberation had ended . After the end of the mission in France, the battalion was relocated back home to move into the new garrison in Halle (Saale) .

In 1820 he was appointed Oberjäger, in 1821 Portepeefähnrich . In 1822 he was accepted into the officer rank by being promoted to second lieutenant . Because of his lack of means, the means for the officers' equipage (personal equipment of an officer with clothing and hand weapons) as well as the purchase of service horses on the “ highest cabinet order ” were financed by the king personally from the military fund.

Because he temporarily gave up the original plan to become a forester, he acquired the necessary military knowledge by attending the division school in Magdeburg . Then he put the previously neglected military accounting in order and was appointed accountant . He held this office for 10 years. In addition, he became an adjutant and led the battalion's judicial affairs instead of an auditor . He was a member of the examination commission for the examination of the qualification to the chief hunter and the volunteer to the Landwehr officer . Finally, he learned the gunsmith's trade through a one-year apprenticeship with a gunsmith and was then appointed a member of the rifle repair commission.

Despite these tasks, he did not give up his goal of becoming a forester. In addition to practical activities in forestry companies, he always attended a few mathematical, legal and cameralistic lectures at the University of Halle .

The July Revolution of 1830 in France, the Belgian Revolution and the ensuing occupation of the Belgian border, for which the 4th Jägerabteilung of the battalion was deployed, led to the expectation of a war with Prussia, so that Stahl found it unbearable to ask for his departure .

Royal Chief Forester

After the battalion returned to Halle, however, the Royal Ministry of Finance allowed them to visit the Neustadt-Eberswalde forestry school free of charge , but made resignation from active military service a condition. After 17 years of service, the King appointed Stahl by the Supreme Cabinet Order of February 10, 1834, as Premier-Lieutenant . He was granted an annual pension of 120 Thalers. He also received permission to continue wearing the uniform of the 4th hunter division.

From Easter 1834 until the end of 1835 he attended the aforementioned forestry school. After he was assigned the operational regulation of the royal forest ranger's office in Linchen / Cöslin administrative district as a trial work , he passed the forest state examination in December 1836. For the purpose of further training, he was employed at several royal forest rangers and then appointed to the Ministry of Finance as an "unskilled worker". There he was entrusted with the revision of the regulation work (sewer work, road construction work, drainage work, etc.) of various forest districts. In 1840 he was appointed head forester and was given the management of what was then the royal forest ranger's office in Rietschen in the Liegnitz administrative district. This office was administered by a representative, because the chief forest master Karl August von Reuss (1793–1874) still needed it in the Ministry of Finance, so that until 1841 Stahl still carried out the taxation revisions of various districts in the Gumbinnen administrative district .

For health reasons, doctors advised against sedentary work and suggested that he exercise more outdoors. Therefore, on May 1, 1841, Stahl was given the management of the Rüdersdorf chief forestry officer. From 1837 to 1857 the office of Rüdersdorf and thus the local forest ranger was combined with the office of Alt-Landsberg . There he met his wife Auguste Lüdke, the unmarried sister of the local chief bailiff Gustav Germanus Lüdke , whom he married a year later.

In his numerous previous taxation work, he had long since missed a method based on more precise measurements and calculations for recording standing timber stocks and determining the wood content of standing timber stocks. Already in the first years of his employment he began with the work necessary for the exhibition of a suitable board by doing the necessary examinations for the pine in his own area or in other Prussian areas, but also by working with the Royal Bay. Forestry commissioner and forestry advisor Anton von Spitzel from the Royal Bavarian Ministerial Forestry Office, from which he received corresponding calculations from the Bavarian forest administration. In order to have the necessary time for his writing activity, he declined the promotion to forest inspection officer and turned down the forest inspection position in Königsberg and later in Bonn that was offered to him in 1847 . The mass tables that appeared in Berlin in 1852 then emerged from this work . In 1856 the first edition of the cubic table appeared, which was then expanded and improved in 5 editions with different tables. In addition, he was busy with other forestry and mathematical work, only a small of which is available in printed form. Some of his findings were received critically. On the other hand, the panels were received very positively,

In 1853, on behalf of the royal finance ministry, he took over the execution of a forest value calculation for the Rietschen forest district intended for sale , for which he was appointed head forester in 1840 and which he saw for the first time.

Until 1872, the old system for weights and measures still applied in Prussia , which was then replaced by the metric system . In preparation for this system change, Stahl wanted to convert his tables. However, it was no longer published.

It was chief forester Stahl who founded the first rifle club in Rüdersdorf in 1848.

In 1863 the king awarded him the Order of the Red Eagle of the 4th class .

Already in 1863 he fell ill with severe pneumonia. To make his service easier, the later chief forester in Hilchenbach and Prussian chief forester and director of the Royal Prussian Forest Academy Hann. Münden , August Peter Bernhardt , (1831–1879) appointed as assistant.

Stahl died of a stroke in 1867.

Works

Writing activity

• Stahl, Oberförster zu Rüdersdorf, New method, to describe the Hokz stocks and to set up timber yield tables , in: Forstliche Blätter , 1862, Vol. 4 pp. 90-122, online in the operation regulation and yield calculation of the high forests
• Stahl, Oberförster zu Rüdersdorf, Kluppe and Meßbrett , in: Forstliche Blätter , 1863, Vol. 6, pp. 138-165 online
• Stahl, Oberförster zu Rüdersdorf, contributions to wood yield science: New procedure for the operational regulation and yield calculation of the high forests to describe the wood stocks and to set up wood yield tables (experience tables). Calculation of the monetary value of the mediocre pine soil in the Rüdersdorf forest district with different rotation times. Tip and measuring board (tree height meter) their manufacture and use , Berlin 1865, digital: [15]
• Steel, royal Prussia. Head forester in Rüdersdorf near Berlin, mass tables for determining the wood content of standing trees : together with instructions for determining the mass content of lying and standing trees as well as entire wood stocks, Berlin 1852, digital [16]
• Stahl, The practical application of Stahl's mass tables , in: Allgemeine Forst und Jagdzeitung, Volume 42, 1866 P. 294ff, digital: [17]
• Stahl, table for determining the wood content of standing pine trunks , in: Allgemeine Forst- und Jagdzeitung , Volume 16, 1850, p. 326, digital: [18]

Inventions

Stahl improved the Friederich'sche Kluppe with a measuring instrument that differed in that it still contained a vernier device in order to be able to read even smaller dimensions for more precise measurements. It was called the " clip of steel". The Rüdersdorfer Waldpflug also comes from steel. The measuring board invented by Stahl for tree height measurements was particularly recommended in the literature.

Biographies

• Julius Theodor Grunert , curriculum vitae of Royal Prussia. Head forester Heinrich Friedrich Wilhelm Stahl zu Rüdersdorf , obituary in: Forstliche Blätter: Zeitschrift für Forst- u. Hunting , Volume 14, No. 19 (Personalalien), 1867, p. 223 ff. Digital: [19]

• Albrecht Minik, In the service of the forest: Life paths and achievements of Brandenburg forest people. 145 biographies from three centuries of Brandenburgische Lebensbilder, p. 129 ff, digital snippet view: [20]

References and comments

1. ↑ Germany, Prussia, Brandenburg and Posen, church book duplicates 1794–1874 ", database with images, FamilySearch [1], accessed on August 3, 2017, Emilie Auguste Luedke, 1814.
2. ↑ Albrecht Milnik, In the service of the forest: Life paths and achievements of Brandenburg forest people: 145 biographies from three centuries, 2006, p. 130, snippet view
3. ↑ Gustav Stahl, Gräflich von Redernscher Förster, Handbook of Forest Science for forest apprentices, foresters and forest owners , Berlin 1858, digital: [2]
4. ^ Gustav Stahl, The position and conditions of the Prussian foresters and hunters: critically examined and accompanied with reform proposals. Potsdam 1847, digital: [3]
5. ↑ cf. to von Reuss : Elke Lier: At eight, Carl von Reuss creates his first forest: Großebersdorf honors his son. In: Ostthüringer Zeitung of July 22, 2012, digital: [4]
6. ↑ on Anton von Spitzel see August Bernhardt, History of forest ownership, forest management and forest science in Germany : Third volume, Berlin Heidelberg 1875, p. 75 ISBN 978-3-662-32133-1 , digital reading sample [5]
7. ↑ W. Jäger, Royal Preuss. Oberförster, contribution to the literature on the assessment of standing trees and entire stands, p. 79 ff in: Kritische Blätter für Forst- und Jagdwissenschaft, Volume 33, 1853, digital: [6]
8. ↑ Wilhelm Weise, Guide for Lectures in the Field of Yield Control, Berlin Heidelberg 1904, p. 37 ff, digital: [7]
9. ↑ Book review of the articles on timber yield (without author) in: Centralblatt der Land- und Forstwirthschaft in Böhmen. Red. By Alois Borrosch, Volume 1, 1866, p. 36 ff, digital: [8]
10. ↑ Homepage of the Schützenverein Rüdersdorf eV, accessed on October 16, 2017, [9]
11. ↑ August Bernhardt, Chronicle of the German Forestry in the Years 1873 to 1875 , Berlin Heidelberg 1876 P. 9, digital reading sample: [10]
12. ↑ ^{a b} On Google Books, the brother Gustav Stahl is given as the author, but he was not the chief forester in Rüdersdorf
13. ↑ Franz von Baur, Die Holzmesskunde , reprint of the original from 1891, p. 19, reading sample [11]
14. ↑ H. Müller, Westermeier's Guide to Förster Examinations , ebook: [12]
15. ↑ Forstliche Blätter: Zeitschrift für Forst- u. Hunting, Volumes 1–2, 1861, p. 219, digital: [13]
16. ↑ Friedrich von Loeffelholz von Colberg, Forstliche Chrestomathie: Contributions to a system-critical verification and illumination of the literature of forest management and the basic and auxiliary sciences involved. Applied mathematics and in specie Forsttaxation, Volume 4, Berlin 1868, p. 91, digital: [14]
17. ↑ The above biographical information is essentially based on this obituary, some of which have been taken over verbatim without specifically identifying them