Gerhard Falk

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Gerhard Falk (born June 15, 1922 in Berlin ; † September 13, 1978 in Kampen on Sylt ) was a German cartographer and founder of the Falk publishing house .

Life

Falk graduated after GCSEs in 1938 the cards technical school of the Reich Office of recording in Berlin. From 1939 he studied in the cartography class of the Higher Graphic Technical School of the Reich capital Berlin and graduated after four semesters as a “state-certified cartographer”. After the exam he was drafted into the Reich Labor Service and in 1942 the Wehrmacht . From June 1942 he was a cartographer at the war maps and surveying offices in Riga , Stalino and Kiev . After a stay in hospital, he was transferred to a map department on the Western Front . He experienced the end of the war in Thuringia . He made his way to Hamburg without internment or imprisonment.

Gerhard Falk was the father of three children: Karin (from his first marriage), Alexander and Janina (from his second marriage).

He died of a heart attack while sailing on the beach in Kampen on Sylt.

Falk city maps

Legend has it that Gerhard Falk tried to find his way around war-ravaged Hamburg and was annoyed by an unwieldy map of the big city. He came up with two ideas that led to a completely new product:

  1. The parabolic projection (so-called hyperboloid projection) allows you to change the scale within the city map. The city center with its narrow streets in the center is shown larger than the outlying districts. In the post-war period it was extremely difficult to organize paper for printing on. This projection helped to save paper as it meant that a smaller format had to be printed on.
  2. A folding technique patented for Falk in 1948 allows the user to find his way around the plan without unfolding it completely. Although the map is still printed on a single sheet of paper, you can flip it in any direction, almost like a book.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Gerhard Falk † . In: Cartographic News . Volume 29 (1979), p. 32
  2. ↑ Patent DE835219 : Folded and re- spreadable map. Registered on October 2, 1948 , published March 31, 1952 , inventor: Gerhard Falk. ‌
personal data
SURNAME Falk, Gerhard
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German cartographer and publisher
DATE OF BIRTH June 15, 1922
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH September 13, 1978
Place of death Kampen