Günther Garbrecht

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Günther Garbrecht (born January 10, 1925 in the Lockstedt camp ; † February 23, 2019 in Groß Schwülper ) was a German civil engineer, structural engineering historian and university professor .

Live and act

Garbrecht grew up in Löcknitz , Pomerania , where his parents ran a butcher shop. From there he attended a grammar school in Stettin , where he obtained his Abitur prematurely, in order to then complete his military service in the air force. After returning from captivity, he began studying civil engineering at the TH Karlsruhe and was able to complete it in 1949. Garbrecht then worked as an assistant at the local Institute for Hydraulic Engineering with Heinrich Wittmann (1899–1967) and learned the methods of hydraulic engineering at the Research Institute for Hydraulic Engineering and Foundation Engineering.

In 1952 he was awarded a doctorate degree from the TH Karlsruhe with a dissertation on water runoff in curved rivers . PhD.

Garbrecht worked from 1954 to 1957 as a consultant at the Technical University of Istanbul and for another three years at the Turkish state hydraulic engineering administration DSI . There he took care of a. about the functionality of old dams. In 1960 Garbrecht was entrusted with the development and management of the hydraulic engineering and water management department of the Middle East Technical University (METU) in Ankara, which was founded in 1956 - a task that he carried out until 1969 and for which METU awarded him an honorary doctorate in 1981. During his creative period in Ankara, Garbrecht met the former President of the German Archaeological Institute (DAI), Erich Max Boehringer (1897–1971), who was in charge of the excavations in Pergamon and invited him to investigate the water management issues of this ancient metropolis. So from 1967 Garbrecht's research into ancient hydraulic engineering began.

In 1969, Garbrecht accepted a professorship for hydraulic engineering and water management from the University of Zambia . At the end of 1971 he succeeded Friedrich Zimmermann (1902–1973) and headed the chair for hydraulic engineering and cultural engineering at the Leichtweiß Institute at the TU Braunschweig, founded by Ludwig Leichtweiß , until his retirement in 1987.

The new building of the Leichtweiß Institute, which was moved into in 1973, offered Garbrecht and his employees excellent opportunities for practical research with the help of model tests, which were reflected in over 200 expert opinions. In addition, research stations in Peru , Zambia and Saudi Arabia made it possible for young scientists to gain experience abroad. During his time in Braunschweig, Garbrecht supervised 18 dissertations, wrote more than 100 publications and reported in more than 200 lectures on the work of the institute on a national and international level.

At the 1978 unification of the Board of Trustees for Water and Culture and the German Association for Water Management (DVW) to the Association for Water Management and Culture (DVWK), which later merged with the Abwassertechnischen Vereinigung (ATV) to form the German Association for Water Management, Sewage and Waste (DWA) should merge, Garbrecht was significantly involved.

Garbrecht's scientific passion was researching the history of hydraulic engineering in collaboration with researching colleagues in archeology. Research in Pergamon was resumed as early as 1972 and continued in many campaigns. For this he was awarded the Frontinus Medal of the Frontinus Society in 1981. In 1982 the construction survey and its interpretation of Sadd el-Kafara in Wadi Garawi , the world's oldest high dam in Egypt, followed . Then he got involved in 1985/86 in the investigation of the water management infrastructure of the historical Resafa in Syria . In the fall of 1987 and spring of 1988, the focus of research on the historical field was then shifted to Israel . Here, the hydrotechnical systems of the royal winter palaces from the Hasmonean era in Jericho were found, documented and analyzed. Between the two campaigns in Jericho, in January / February 1988, the field work to explore the legendary Möris Lake in the Fayoum Depression west of the Nile in Egypt was carried out in a further project. At the end of 1988, work began to research water management in Roman thermal baths. Using the example of the Caracalla Baths in Rome , the water flows within the entire complex could be determined assuming a free, unregulated flow. The results of all these projects were primarily published in 21 reports as part of the reports from the Leichtweiß Institute.

The last project Garbrecht dealt with was based on his work in Turkey while at METU. At that time he had already inspected dams from the Urartian era and documented the remains of the Menua Canal . Together with more recent findings from literature, he succeeded in creating a picture of historical hydraulic structures in Eastern Anatolia in the Kingdom of Urartu from the 9th to 7th centuries BC. To draw.

In 1976 Garbrecht, in cooperation with the study group for the history of hydraulic engineering, water management and hydrology, initiated a conference on hydrotechnical systems from ancient times in Koblenz . This was followed by corresponding events in many countries around the Mediterranean, since 1994 under the heading Cura Aquarum ... stood and finally the international connections of in January 2002 in Mainz , founded the German water Historical Society (DWhG), headquartered in Siegburg represented. This society promoted Garbrecht to the best of their ability and therefore appointed him an honorary member because of his research into the history of ancient hydraulic engineering.

As a “mentor for research into hydraulic engineering in antiquity”, Garbrecht made a decisive contribution to the historiography of civil engineering.

swell

  • Leichtweiß-Institut für Wasserbau (Hrsg.): Hydraulic engineering in history. Colloquium in honor of Prof. Dr.-Ing. Dr. sc. hc Günther Garbrecht on the occasion of his departure as director of the Leichtweiß Institute of the Technical University of Braunschweig . Information from the Leichtweiß Institute for Hydraulic Engineering No. 97, Braunschweig: TU Braunschweig 1987.
  • Henning Fahlbusch: Prof. Dr.-Ing. Dr. sc. hc Günther Garbrecht passed away , in: Water and Waste, issue 4/2019.

Works

  • Günther Garbrecht: Water runoff in curved rivers . Dissertation TH Karlsruhe 1952.
  • Günther Garbrecht and Heinz-Ulrich Bertram: Sadd-El-Kafara: The oldest dam in the world (2600 BC) , 2 volumes. Notices from the Leichtweiß Institute for Hydraulic Engineering No. 81, Braunschweig: TU Braunschweig 1983.
  • Günther Garbrecht: Water: supply, demand and use in past and present , Reinbek near Hamburg: Rowohlt-Taschenbuchverlag 1985, ISBN 3-499-17724-2 .
  • Günther Garbrecht: Historical dams , 2 volumes, ed. v. German Association for Water Management and Cultural Building eV, Stuttgart: Wittwer 1987, ISBN 3-87919-145-X .
  • Günther Garbrecht: From intuition to hydraulic engineering research: A review from Braunschweig's perspective . Information from the Leichtweiß Institute for Hydraulic Engineering No. 100, Braunschweig: TU Braunschweig 1989.
  • Günther Garbrecht and Horst Jaritz: Investigation of ancient systems for water storage in Fayum / Egypt. Notices from the Leichtweiß Institute for Hydraulic Engineering No. 107, Braunschweig: TU Braunschweig 1990.
  • Günther Garbrecht and Ehud Netzer: The water supply of the historical Jericho and its royal facilities (estate, winter palaces). Information from the Leichtweiß Institute for Hydraulic Engineering No. 115, Braunschweig: TU Braunschweig 1991.
  • Günther Garbrecht and Hubertus Manderscheid: The water management of Roman thermal baths: Archaeological and hydrotechnical studies, 3 volumes. Announcements from the Leichtweiß Institute for Hydraulic Engineering No. 118, Braunschweig: TU Braunschweig 1994.
  • Günther Garbrecht: Masterpieces of ancient hydrotechnology, Stuttgart / Leipzig: Teubner 1995, ISBN 3-8154-2505-0 .
  • Günther Garbrecht: Antiquities of Pergamon, Volume I, Part 4: The water supply of Pergamon, text and table volume, Berlin: De Gruyter 2001, ISBN 3-11-016947-9 .
  • Günther Garbrecht: Historical hydraulic structures in Eastern Anatolia - Kingdom of Urartu, 9.-7. Century BC Chr., In: Hydraulic structures in the Kingdom of Urartu and other contributions to hydrotechnology in antiquity, writings of the German Water History Society (DWhG) eV, Volume 5, ed. v. Christoph Ohlig, Siegburg 2004, pp. 1-104, ISBN 3-8334-1502-9 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Günther Garbrecht: Water runoff in curved river stretches . Dissertation TH Karlsruhe 1952.
  2. ↑ International Society for the History of Water, Energy and Pipeline Technology. Frontinus Gesellschaft, accessed September 6, 2019 .
  3. ^ Karl-Eugen Kurrer : Report on the State of Construction History in Austria, Germany and Switzerland . In: Construction History. Research Perspectives in Europe, ed. By Antonio Becchi, Massimo Corradi, Federico Foce and Orietta Pedemonte, pp. 61-112 (here p. 77f.), Florence: Kim Williams Books 2004, ISBN 88-88479-11-2 .
  4. ↑ Henning Fahlbusch: Prof. Dr.-Ing. Dr. sc. hc Günther Garbrecht passed away , in: Water and Waste, issue 4/2019.
personal data
SURNAME Garbrecht, Günther
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German civil engineer and researcher
DATE OF BIRTH January 10, 1925
PLACE OF BIRTH Lockstedter warehouse
DATE OF DEATH February 23, 2019
Place of death Sultry