Hans-Joachim Schweitzer

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Hans-Joachim Schweitzer (born February 7, 1928 in Kassel ; † July 20, 2007 in Bonn ) was a German pharmacist, palaeobotanist and university professor.

Life

Encouraged by his father, a bank employee, Schweitzer began collecting butterflies and plants at the age of seven . The family stood against National Socialism . Without a school leaving certificate, Schweitzer was drafted in 1943 as a 15-year-old flak helper. He made the glider license and passed the aptitude test for army officers of the Wehrmacht . In 1945 he took part in the last battles for the Harz fortress against the US Army . To escape captivity , he made his way to Kassel on foot. The parents' house and herbarium were bombed. Immediately after the end of the war he hired himself as a construction worker, went back to school and graduated from high school.

Pharmacist in Hessen

After a two-year apprenticeship, he became an auxiliary pharmacist in a suburb of Kassel in 1949. From 1950 he studied pharmacy at the Philipps University in Marburg and the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main . Since 1951 he was a member of the Corps Rhenania Strasbourg . After the state examination and the year of recognition, he was licensed as a pharmacist in 1954 . He had already started studying botany , chemistry and physics as a pharmacist . Botanical studies took him to the Lower Rhine and the Eifel . He published on the taxonomy and morphology of today's plants and took over the fern collection of the Senckenberg Nature Museum . There he met Richard Kräusel (1890–1966). The internationally respected paleobotanist became Schweitzer's doctoral supervisor . In 1956 he did his doctorate in Frankfurt am Main on a wood anatomical topic. With this "extremely dry" topic he wanted to curb his restless disposition.

Bonn

When the German paleobotanists demanded a chair for the preservation of the subject, Roland Brinkmann at the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn signaled approval. The emeritus Paul William Thomson (1891–1957) taught at his institute for geology and paleontology . Brinkmann followed Krausel's recommendation and offered Schweitzer an assistant position. For her, Schweitzer turned down an offer from the industry to work in blood plasma research. After Thomson's sudden death, Brinkmann entrusted the young Schweitzer with the paleobotanical matters of the institute. Schweitzer completed his habilitation in 1962. His hopes for an independent institute were dashed when Brinkmann retired , when more was expected from the emerging micropalaeontology ; but paleobotany in Bonn remained a section of the palaeontological department headed by Schweitzer. In 1966 he became a professor and scientific advisor , which he remained until his retirement in 1993.

Arctic and Asia

Jan Mayen with the Beerenberg

With the support of the German Research Foundation , he undertook seven expeditions to Spitzbergen , Jan Mayen and Bear Island between 1961 and 1970 and 1990 . In 1971, 1972 and 1975 he traveled to Persia and Afghanistan , and later to northern and western Poland . He had the fossils he brought with him evaluated by two doctoral students . In 1997 he donated his private collection of more than 500 pieces to the palaeobotanical collection at the Institute for Special Botany at the Friedrich Schiller University in Jena . The Schweitzer collection was loaned to the Natural History Museum in Stockholm .

Collector, author and family man

Much of his ten-year collection from the Rhenish lignite mining area was lost in 1970 due to foreign ignorance. Parts of the fruit and seed collection were rediscovered and given to the Natural History Museum in Stockholm . Individual herbarium specimens can be found in the Herbarium Senckenbergianum Frankfurt / M. (FR). Schweitzer published 95 papers in 54 years. For almost 20 years he edited the Palaeontographica Section B - Palaeophytology . His last book was published posthumously in 2008. His wife Doris Schweitzer gave him five children and supported him in every way.

Fonts

  • The macro flora of the Lower Rhine Zechstein. In: Fortschr. Geol. Rheinld. u. Westf. 6, 1960, pp. 1-46.
  • The Upper Devonian flora of Bear Island.
1. Pseudobornia ursina Nathorst. In: Palaeontographica. Abt. B 120, 1967, pp. 116-137.
2. Lycopodiinae. In: Palaeontographica. Abt. B 126, 1969, pp. 101-137.
5. Complete overview. In: Palaeontographica. Dept. B 274, 2006, pp. 1–191.
  • Plants conquer the land. Kleine Senckenberg-Reihe 18, 1990, ISBN 3-924500-59-2 .
  • The Devonian flora of Svalbard. In: Palaeontographica. Abt. B 252, 1999, pp. 1–122.

literature

  • Festschrift for the 65th birthday of Professor Dr. Hans-Joachim Schweitzer. 4 parts. Stuttgart 1993-1995.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Kösener Corpslisten 1960, 100/405
  2. ↑ Dissertation: Wood anatomical studies on the history of the Dipterocarpaces
  3. ↑ Habilitation thesis: The fertile cone of Pseudovoltzia liebeana and its relevance for conifer phylogeny
  4. ↑ FSU Jena
  5. ↑ Index Collectorum Herbarii Senckenbergiani (FR) http://www.senckenberg.de/files/content/forschung/abteilung/botanik/index_collectorum.pdf
  6. ↑ H.-J. Schweitzer, P. Giesen: Further plant finds in the Middle Devon of Wuppertal in the Bergisches Land. Stuttgart 2008.
personal data
SURNAME Schweitzer, Hans-Joachim
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German pharmacist, paleobotanist and university professor
DATE OF BIRTH February 7, 1928
PLACE OF BIRTH kassel
DATE OF DEATH July 20, 2007
Place of death Bonn