Gerta Blaschka

Gerta Blaschka (born August 18, 1908 in Mannheim as Gerta Schneider; † February 26, 1999 in Bad Neustadt adSaale ) was a German prehistorian and geodesist .

Life

Gerta Schneider took part in excavations in Riedschachen and Aichbühl near Bad Schussenried for the first time as early as 1920 and 1921 as a 12- and 13-year-old student , which was carried out by the regional prehistoric research institute in Federseemoor in southwest Germany . In 1928 she began studying various languages, economics , prehistory, geography and classical archeology in Lausanne . After that she changed universities very quickly, first in Vienna , then in Munich and Heidelberg , and finally in Tübingen from the 1930 summer semester . There she received her doctorate on March 1, 1933, the subject of the dissertation was The prehistoric car in Germany . After completing his doctorate, Blaschka became the assistant to Hans Reinerth , a pioneer of modern settlement archeology , who at the same time stood for opportunism towards the National Socialists with his close connections to the Rosenberg office , whose department for prehistory he headed. Blaschka was entrusted with the editing of his writings and was responsible for the organization of his excavations. After the German conquest of France, she ("Dr. Gerta Schneider") worked with her colleague Werner Shell from the "Reich Office for Prehistory of the NSDAP" when he was taking up the Carnac stone rows on behalf of Alfred Rosenberg in Brittany .

Between 1944 and 1946 she headed the branch office of the Institute for Pre- and Protohistory Berlin in Salem Palace on Lake Constance . During the time of Reinerth's internment, 1945 to 1950, she also led the excavation of the pile dwelling settlement of Unteruhldingen . In 1951 she became a scientific assistant at the museum and, among other things, led the reconstruction of the open-air facilities. She was also the editor of the Vorzeit magazine on Lake Constance . Several smaller writings were created during this time. Since 1956 Blaschka devoted himself to a new field of activity. Like most of the female archaeologists trained in Berlin and Tübingen between the 1920s and 1940s, who had also actively worked, Blaschka was no longer able to hold onto the archaeological profession after the men returned. She worked on the multilingual dictionary for geodesy , in whose creation she played a major role and which was based at the Institute for Applied Geodesy in Frankfurt / Main . She also worked as a scientific librarian.

literature

• Gunter Schöbel : Gerta Blaschka (1908–1999). In: Archäologisches Nachrichtenblatt . 4, 1999, p. 299.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Werner cover : The stones of Carnac (= Guide to Prehistory. 15, ZDB -ID 988816-0 ). JA Barth, Leipzig 1942, p. 6.