Geography Society
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The Society for Geography in Berlin is an association with the aim of promoting geographic and geoscientific research by making its technical results available to a broader, interested public. For this purpose the society offers lectures, workshops, working group meetings and excursions and publishes the magazine DIE ERDE .
history
On April 20, 1828, a small group of co-founders of the society met in Berlin; Johann Jacob Baeyer , Karl von Rau , Karl Friedrich von Klöden , Franz August von Etzel , Johann August Zeune and Heinrich Berghaus were present at the preparatory meeting in the house of Christian Friedrich Gottlieb Wohlers (1771–1829) . The purpose of the company to be founded was formulated, the "promotion of geography in the broadest sense of the word through oral or written communication". The constituent meeting of the Society on June 7, 1828 was attended by 27 people.
Carl Ritter was elected the first chairman . Later chairmen were the Africa explorers Heinrich Barth (until 1865) and Gustav Nachtigal . Under Barth's chairmanship, the society devoted itself particularly to promoting young explorers, not just in Africa . One of them was the Sahara researcher Gerhard Rohlfs . Since 1899 the company has been based in the Fürstenberg-Palais in Berlin's Wilhelmstrasse ; from 1967 to 2014 the company was based in the Alexander von Humboldt House in Berlin-Steglitz . Since 2014, the society has been housed in the GEO campus of the Free University of Berlin in Berlin-Lankwitz .
The important personalities who worked in the Geography Society in the first half of the 20th century include Friedrich Schmidt-Ott as "Chairman", previously Prussian Minister of Culture and an important designer of the scientific landscape in Germany, as well as the geographer, geopolitics expert and author of dramas and poems Albrecht Haushofer , who was Secretary General of the Society from 1928 to 1940.
activity
The society is financed through membership fees and through the Foundation of the Society for Geography in Berlin (GfE Foundation).
The society regularly offers lectures and discussions in the rooms of its Alexander von Humboldt House in Berlin-Steglitz and - also in cooperation with other institutions - organizes conferences, working group meetings and excursions. She is editor of the journal Die Erde , the oldest of the currently published specialist journals on geography in Germany ; this is published in English and serves to disseminate the results of German geographic research worldwide.
The current “chairman”, the traditional title of the president, is Hartmut Asche, Professor of Cartography and Geoinformatics at the University of Potsdam.
Awards
Up until the 1980s, the society awarded various awards: the golden Alexander von Humboldt medal , the golden or silver Carl Ritter medal (both donated in 1878), the gold or silver Gustav Nachtigal medal (donated in 1896 or 1896). 1898) and the golden Ferdinand von Richthofen medal (donated in 1933). The latter is now awarded by the German Working Group for Geomorphology.
literature
- Lothar Zögner: Publications about Carl Ritter . In: Karl Lenz (Ed.): Carl Ritter - validity and interpretation. Contributions to the symposium on the occasion of the return of the 200th birthday of Carl Ritter, November 1979 . Verlag D. Reimer, Berlin 1981, pp. 225-229, ISBN 3-496-00183-6 .
- August Woldt: The Society for Geography in Berlin . In: The Gazebo . Issue 18, 1878, pp. 294–297 ( full text [ Wikisource ] - with illustration of the first chairperson and von Baeyer).
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ August Woldt: The Society for Geography in Berlin . In: The Gazebo . Issue 18, 1878, pp. 294–297 ( full text [ Wikisource ] - with illustration of the first chairperson and von Baeyer).
- ↑ Gerhard Stäblein u. a .: Traditions and current tasks of polar research . In: The Earth . tape 109 , 1978, p. 229-267 .
Coordinates: 52 ° 27 ′ 29.4 " N , 13 ° 18 ′ 29.8" E