Gotthilf Hempel

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Gotthilf Hempel (1967)

Gotthilf Hempel (born March 8, 1929 in Göttingen ) is a German marine biologist , polar researcher and science administrator and advisor. He led numerous marine and fishery biology expeditions in the North Atlantic, in the North and Baltic Seas, in the Arctic and Southern Ocean and in the Red Sea. In a leading position he participated in the founding of several institutes and journals. As an author, co-author and editor, he published around 250 essays, anthologies and monographs.

biography

School time and studies

Hempel was the eldest son of the Protestant theologian and university professor Johannes Hempel (1891–1964) in Göttingen . After attending grammar school, he studied biology and geology at the universities of Mainz and Heidelberg from 1946 to 1952 . In 1952 he received his doctorate in Heidelberg for a thesis on the energetics of the locust jump. nat. PhD.

Scientific assistant and advice

Between 1953 and 1963 Hempel worked as a scientific assistant or scientific adviser at various research institutes and scientific advisory institutions. Research institutions that should be mentioned in this context are the Max Planck Institute for Marine Biology in Wilhelmshaven , the Biological Institute Helgoland and the University of Hamburg . There he completed his habilitation in 1963 with a paper on the ecology of fry. In this regard, the German Scientific Commission for Marine Research must be mentioned at research funding institutions .

International work and professor in Kiel

As a visiting professor at the University of Wisconsin, as director of the marine biology program of UNESCO and as advisor to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, Hempel gained experience in international organizations over the next four years before becoming professor of oceanography in 1967 for fishery biology , at the Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel and at its Institute for Oceanography , of which he was managing director from 1972 to 1976. His major merit in these years was his contribution to the establishment of a modern marine research, which consists of a merger of oceanographic disciplines such as regional oceanography , planktology , marine botany , marine zoology and fisheries biology had emerged. It should also be emphasized that Hempel recognized krill research as a new research field for his institute from 1967 and then devoted himself consistently to scientific work in this field in the 1970s. This was done in close cooperation with the Federal Research Center for Fisheries and with the help of funding from the Federal Ministry of Research as part of the project "Research and economic development of krill stocks and commercial fish in the Antarctic". The experience of this project resulted in the importance of the Antarctic as an object of research and in the late 1970s his successful engagement - u. a. as chairman of the Senate Commission for Oceanography in the German Research Foundation (DFG) - for the participation of the Federal Republic of Germany in the exploration of the Antarctic .

Towards the end of his Kiel years, 1981, he succeeded in establishing the Institute for Polar Ecology (IPÖ) at the University of Kiel, of which he was director from 1981 to 1994 and which quickly became an important training facility for young German polar research.

Director of the Alfred Wegener Institute

From 1980 to 1992 Hempel headed the Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI) Bremerhaven . During this time, the building, which was founded on July 15, 1980 with the AWI law , was built. This initially included the procurement and testing of the associated research infrastructure. In this context, the construction of the research ship Polarstern , which Hempel strongly influenced, the commissioning of the ship in December 1982, his first research trips into the polar regions, the establishment of the first Georg von Neumayer station in 1981 and the construction of the Filchner Station in 1982 as well as the procurement and the first use of polar-compatible aircraft in the same year.

From an organizational point of view, Hempel had to fill the management positions in the company in the first few years, build up an efficient administration and the merger of the AWI with the Institut für Meeresforschung Bremerhaven (IfMB), whose management he also held until it was merged into the AWI in 1986, carry out.

The AWI was also involved in large-scale German research (joining the Working Group of Large Research Institutions in 1983) and in international polar research institutions (e.g. through Hempel's involvement as Vice President in the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research , SCAR, and through his participation in the development of the Arctic Ocean Science Board, AOSB).

From a scientific point of view, the AWI under Hempel's leadership initially dealt with marine geophysical, marine seismic, oceanographic and marine biological issues. This included plankton research including work on krill , fishery research and research on warm-blooded animals . Later on, the institute increasingly turned to geoscientific and chemical issues in general. Thereafter, research into the causes and consequences of global change and, in this context, the study of climate change became the focus of the institute's scientific activities. As part of this work, the AWI also participated in international ice drilling projects on Greenland from 1989 onwards . Towards the end of Hempel's 12-year tenure as director in 1992, the institute employed 456 people, more than 100 of which were based on third-party funds. The annual budget of the AWI reached almost DM 110 million. The AWI and its employees in science and logistics were already enjoying great international recognition at this point.

"We researched and reported on climate change and the littering of the oceans when the words for it didn't even exist."

- Gotthilf Hempel, 2019

Second career after retirement

As a member of the Science Council from 1990 to 1996 and head of the Geosciences and Cosmos Sciences working group, Hempel was instrumental in evaluating and, if possible, maintaining the large research institutions of the German Democratic Republic (GDR). These facilities included the polar research department of the Central Institute for Physics of the Earth of the Academy of Sciences of the GDR, which formed the basis for the Potsdam Research Center of the AWI, which was founded in 1992, and the Institute for Oceanography in Rostock-Warnemünde, also an academy institute from the the Institute for Baltic Sea Research Warnemünde (IOW) emerged. Hempel was the founding director of this house from 1992 to 1997, after he founded the Center for Tropical Marine Ecology, today's Center for Tropical Marine Research (ZMT), in Bremen and also became its first director. Hempel remained connected to the state of Bremen. From 2000 to 2006 he advised the Bremen Senate on questions of science policy.

While Hempel was active in all of the above-mentioned positions, he still found time to publish around 250 scientific papers, including seven monographs, as well as ten conference papers and three scientific journals, including Polar Biology. In addition, he supervised seventy doctoral students.

Today (2015) Hempel still maintains scientific contact with current marine and polar research through seminars ("Dämmerschoppen") and is involved in monument protection in Mecklenburg with his foundation "Church in the Village".

Hempel has been married to the marine biologist, Irmtraud Hempel, born in 1952. Schneider, and father of two sons.

Memberships, honors and awards

Publications (selection)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Information from the Göttingen University Archives on December 11, 2015.
  2. ↑ [./CV_Gotthilf_Hemhttps://www.ae-info.org/ae/Member/Hempel_Gotthilf/CVpel CV Gotthilf Hempel], Academy of Europe, accessed on March 20, 2019, and uni-kiel.de: Curriculum Vitae .
  3. ↑ . CV Gotthilf Hempel, Academy of Europe, uni-kiel.de: Curriculum Vitae and Schminke, Kurt Horst: Laudation on the occasion of the award of an honorary doctorate from the University of Oldenburg to Gotthilf Hempel: A praise of secondary glitziness , p. 29 f., Accessed on 20 March 2019.
  4. ↑ CV Gotthilf Hempel, Academy of Europe and Schminke, p. 29f.
  5. ↑ a b c d e f CV Gotthilf Hempel, Academy of Europe and uni-kiel.de: Curriculum Vitae.
  6. ↑ CV Gotthilf Hempel, Academy of Europe, Schminke, p. 31, Fleischmann, Klaus: To the cold poles of the earth, Bielefeld 2005, p. 164–171, p. 166.
  7. ↑ “There was a strong political will to pursue a German polar ecology.” Gotthilf Hempel (90), quoted by Janet Binder: The old man and the sea. In: Kieler Nachrichten March 14, 2019, page 2.
  8. ↑ CV Gotthilf Hempel, Academy of Europe, uni-kiel.de: Curriculum Vitae , Schminke, p. 31f. For more on the IPÖ, cf. ipoe.uni-kiel.de: Institute for Polar Ecology ( Memento from February 4, 2013 in the Internet Archive ).
  9. ↑ Krause, Reinhard; Salewski, Christian: The Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research, Chronicle and Basics of the History of Science, Bremerhaven 2014 , p. 46ff., Accessed on March 20, 2019.
  10. ↑ Krause / Salewski, pp. 54ff.
  11. ↑ Krause / Salewski, p. 59.
  12. ↑ Krause / Salewski, p. 1, p. 55, p. 59, p. 60, p. 61, p. 62, p. 64, p. 71f.
  13. ↑ Janet Binder: The Old Man and the Sea. In: Kieler Nachrichten March 14, 2019, page 2.
  14. ↑ Krause / Salewski, p. 68 and Schminke, p. 32 f.
  15. ↑ CV Hempel, Academy of Europe and uni-kiel.de: Curriculum Vitae.
  16. ^ Schminke, p. 29 and Hempel, Gotthilf: Wale und Walfang. The Oldenburg polar biologist , p. 37-p. 48, p. 38, accessed March 20, 2019.
  17. ↑ Transcript of the oral history interview with Hempel on February 20, 2015, Archive for German Polar Research of the Alfred Wegener Institute, Akz. 2014/067.
  18. ^ Transcript of the oral history interview with Hempel on February 20, 2015.
  19. ↑ Directory of members: Gotthilf Hempel. Academia Europaea, accessed on March 22, 2019
  20. ^ Foreign Members: G. Hempel . Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie von Wetenschappen, accessed on March 22, 2019
  21. ^ Member entry by Gotthilf Hempel (with picture) at the German Academy of Natural Scientists, accessed on March 22, 2019
personal data
SURNAME Hempel, Gotthilf
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German marine biologist
DATE OF BIRTH March 8, 1929
PLACE OF BIRTH Goettingen