Hans Meyer (Africa explorer)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Hans Meyer
Hans Meyer in front of the base camp on Kilimanjaro 1889
Hans Meyer's tombstone in Leipzig's southern cemetery . The Latin saying “Impavidi progrediamur” means “fearlessly we want to advance”.

Hans Heinrich Josef Meyer (* 22. March 1858 in Hildburghausen , † 5. July 1929 in Leipzig ) was a German geographer , publisher , Explorer , colonial politician and one of the first ascent of Mount Kilimanjaro .

biography

Meyer comes from the Meyer family of lexicon publishers, known for Meyer's Konversations-Lexikon . His father was Herrmann Julius Meyer , who headed the Bibliographical Institute from 1856. His grandfather Joseph Meyer founded the Bibliographical Institute in 1826. Hans Meyer studied German, history, political science, ethnology and botany in Leipzig, Berlin and Strasbourg. After receiving his doctorate in economic history, he and his brother Arndt took over their father's publishing business in 1884. Hans Meyer was given responsibility for the scientific supervision, particularly in the field of geography.

As early as 1882 his father sent him on a two-year trip to East Asia and North America . The family's prosperity enabled Hans Meyer to finance future research trips out of pocket. In 1887 he traveled to East Africa and began scientific research in the Kilimanjaro area . On the first attempt to climb Kilimanjaro , he reached the limit of the Kibo ice hood at an altitude of 5500  m . Due to inadequate equipment, he had to cancel the expedition . Before he left Africa, he traveled to the valley of Kingani and Usaramo .

In mid-August 1888, Hans Meyer, accompanied by Oskar Baumann , made a second attempt. After crossing the mountainous landscape of Usambara and exploring its entire extent for the first time, the porters left the expedition because an uprising against the German-East African Society had broken out on the coast . Meyer and Baumann were forced to cancel the expedition and return to the coast, where they were captured and mistreated by the rebel leader Buschiri bin Salim . Only when they agreed to pay a large ransom did they both get free again.

For the third time, Meyer started a large company in 1889, this time accompanied by the alpinist Ludwig Purtscheller from Salzburg. On October 6, 1889, they reached the highest point on the rim of the Kibo crater, which Meyer named the "Kaiser Wilhelm peak". Since 1969, a memorial plaque installed by the Tanzanian government on the southern slope of the mountain has commemorated the first climbers and their supporters, Chief Mareale von Marangu . Meyer also gained valuable geographic knowledge by continuing touring the Ugweno Mountains . In 1898 he traveled again to Kilimanjaro to begin further research, especially in the field of volcanology and the tropical high mountains. He circled the mountain range and noted, among other things, the premature glaciation. It was also shown that the Kibo Glacier was already showing a tendency to recede compared to 1889.

In 1891 Hans Meyer married Elisabeth Haeckel (1871-1946), the daughter of the zoologist Ernst Haeckel from Jena.

Further trips took Hans Meyer to the Canary Islands in 1894 . In 1903 he toured the South American Cordilleras with the painter Rudolf Reschreiter and visited the 6301 meter high, completely glaciated Chimborazo in Ecuador . Meyer discovered the multiphase nature of the glaciation of southern Patagonia during three ice ages.

Overview map of Meyer's East Africa expedition of 1911

In 1911 Meyer drove again to German East Africa , where he led an expedition with 130 porters from Lake Victoria to Rwanda and Urundi and finally marched on to Tabora , from where the expedition took the Zentralbahn to the coast.

In 1890 he was elected a member of the Leopoldina . In 1899 he was appointed professor and from 1915 was director of the Institute for Colonial Geography at the University of Leipzig . Since 1925 he was a full member of the Saxon Academy of Sciences . The Hans Meyer Mountains on the island of New Ireland , which belongs to the state of Papua New Guinea, are named after him.

Hans Meyer made his research results accessible to a broad readership in popular scientific form through many publications.

Hans Meyer was always convinced of the necessity of German colonial policy. In 1901 he became a member of the German Colonial Council and headed a commission for regional research into the German “ protected areas ”. In 1928 he was awarded the plaque of honor of the German Colonial Society for “For Colonial Merit” .

Works (selection)

  • A trip around the world . Leipzig 1885.
  • To the snow dome of Kilima-Njaro . Berlin 1888.
  • East African glacier cruises . Leipzig 1890.
  • The island of Tenerife . Leipzig 1896.
  • The Kilima Njaro . Berlin 1900.
  • The railways in tropical Africa . Leipzig 1902.
  • In the high Andes of Ecuador: Chimborazo, Cotopaxi, etc . 2 volumes (text volume and picture atlas), Berlin 1907.
  • Dutch East Indies. A geographical sketch . Berlin 1922.

Awards and prizes (selection)

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Announcements from the Society for Geography and Colonial Affairs in Strasbourg in Alsace for 1913, pages 194–196
  2. ^ Members of the SAW: Hans Meyer. Saxon Academy of Sciences, accessed on November 15, 2016 .

Web links

Commons : Hans Meyer  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files
Wikisource: Hans Meyer  - Sources and full texts
personal data
SURNAME Meyer, Hans
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Meyer, Hans Heinrich Josef (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German geographer, publisher and Africa explorer
DATE OF BIRTH March 22, 1858
PLACE OF BIRTH Hildburghausen
DATE OF DEATH July 5, 1929
Place of death Leipzig