Fritz Wüst

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Fritz Wüst

Fritz Wüst (born July 8, 1860 in Berg near Stuttgart ; † March 20, 1938 in Düsseldorf ) was an important German iron and steel scientist and founding director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Iron Research (today's Max Planck Institute for Iron Research ).

Training and first professional positions

Fritz Wüst as a member of the Alemannia Stuttgart fraternity .
Fritz Wüst's tomb, from his friends and students

Fritz Wüst attended secondary school and then studied at the TH Stuttgart and the University of Freiburg i. Baden, where he received his doctorate in 1886. In 1879 he became a member of the Alemannia Stuttgart fraternity .

From 1885 to 1891 he held the position of chemist at the Königlich Württembergischen Hüttenwerk in Wasseralfingen . On April 1, 1891, he took up a position as an assistant and teacher for analytical chemistry at the mechanical engineering and smelting school in Duisburg, where he met Wilhelm Borchers . In 1898 he took a year off and went to Sumatra as a gold prospector for a Dutch banking group . After his return he took another six months vacation and worked as a civil engineer in the iron foundry industry. In 1899 Wüst fell ill with malaria and did not resume work in Duisburg until the 1900 summer semester. From January 1901 he represented the sick Friedrich Dürre as professor of iron and steel science at the TH Aachen and became his successor on October 1, 1901.

Wüst's time in Aachen

In 1903/04, Wüst presented drafts for the reform of the iron and steel studies course and a new institute building and established close relationships with the VDEh steel institute in order to obtain its support. At the second teaching conference in January 1904, he received the promise that he would be able to implement his plans to a large extent. As a result, Wüst, together with his friend and colleague Wilhelm Borchers, succeeded in extending the new building project to include metallurgy and thus considerably expanding it. In 1906 the foundation stone was laid and in 1910 the inauguration of the institute, which was celebrated as the first institution in Europe.

After the opening of the new institute building located Wüst focused on eisenhüttenkundliche basic research and significantly shaped the Verwissenschaftlichungsschub of Ferrous Metallurgy before the First World War. In 1917 Wüst suggested the founding of the Friends and Sponsors of the TH Aachen (Faho), in the same year he was also appointed founding director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Iron Research . This was initially located at the Aachen institute before moving into a temporary hall of the then Rheinische Metallwaaren- und Maschinenfabrik in Düsseldorf in 1921 . In 1921 Wüst got into a violent conflict with Gustav Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach , the chairman of the board of trustees of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Iron Research, and had to resign "for health reasons" (when he retired on December 31, 1922 ). In 1922 he was awarded the Carl Lueg Memorial Medal by the VDEh as the first representative of pure science. In 1929 he was elected a corresponding member of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences . Wüst remained honorary professor at the TH Aachen until 1933; he died on March 20, 1938 in Düsseldorf. His final resting place is in the Nordfriedhof (Düsseldorf) .

Further titles and awards

In 1927, Wüst's former Aachen colleague, Rudolf Schenck, named the mineral, also known as iron (II) oxide, after Fritz Wüst: Wüstit .

Works

literature

  • Paul Goerens, Friedrich Koerber, Otto Petersen: Obituary Fritz Wüst . In: Steel and Iron . No. 58 , 1938, pp. 449 f .
  • Stefan Krebs: Technical science as social practice. On the power and autonomy of the Aachen Metallurgy, 1870-1914 , Franz Steiner Verlag, Stuttgart, 2009, ISBN 978-3-515-09348-4 ,
  • Stefan Krebs: Genesis and structure of a technical science field: on the struggle of the Aachen metallurgy for power and autonomy 1870–1914 Dissertation from 2008 online , on the RWTH Aachen publication server

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Willy Nolte : Fraternity members regular role. Berlin 1934, p. 556.
  2. ^ Max Planck Institute for Iron Research Düsseldorf . Max Planck Society reports and communications 5/93, publisher Max Planck Society, Munich 1993, 116 pp.
  3. ↑ Messages from the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Iron Research in Düsseldorf (Ed. Friedrich Körber), XXV. Volume, Verlag Stahleisen mbH Düsseldorf 1942, p. 11.
  4. ↑ Holger Krahnke: The members of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen 1751-2001 (= Treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Philological-Historical Class. Volume 3, Vol. 246 = Treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Mathematical-Physical Class. Episode 3, vol. 50). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2001, ISBN 3-525-82516-1 , p. 265.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Wüst, Fritz
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German metallurgist and founding director
DATE OF BIRTH July 8, 1860
PLACE OF BIRTH Berg near Stuttgart
DATE OF DEATH March 20, 1938
Place of death Dusseldorf