Heinrich Hiltermann

Heinrich Hiltermann (born June 14, 1911 in Osnabrück , † December 28, 1998 in Bad Laer ) was a German paleontologist .

Hiltermann was the son of a teacher and had an early interest in science. For example, as a teenager he accompanied the geologist Wilhelm Haack (1882–1947) in the field and collected fossils. In 1931 he graduated from high school Carolinum and began studying natural sciences with the aim of becoming a teacher. After the teacher examination in Münster in 1934 , he studied geology and palaeontology at the University of Kiel and received his doctorate in 1937 on an ammonite group (stratigraphy and paleontology of the sun line layers of Osnabrück and Bielefeld). He then worked as a hydrogeologist at the Atlas Works in Bremen and, from 1938, at the Prussian Geological State Institute (PGLA) in Berlin . During the Second World War he worked as a petroleum geologist (including in the Sub-Carpathian Mountains ) and therefore began to deal with micropalaeontology . After the Second World War he was head of the micropalaeontological department at the later Federal Institute for Soil Research in Hanover (the successor to the PGLA), from 1967 as head of paleontology. In 1958 he completed his habilitation at the University of Göttingen (importance of micropalaeontology for the whole of biology), then was a private lecturer in Göttingen and from 1964 associate professor for micropalaeontology. Due to a disease of multiple sclerosis , he retired in 1972 and lived in Bad Laer.

He had been married since 1938 and had two children.

He set up the local history museum in Bad Laer and became an honorary citizen in 1987 . He was also an honorary member of the Osnabrücker Land District Home Federation. In 1968 he was awarded the Cross of Merit 1st Class of the Lower Saxony Order of Merit and in 1972 he was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit on ribbon. In 1974 he became an honorary member of the Natural Science Association Osnabrück and in 1990 of the Paleontological Society . From 1959 to 1972 he was chairman of the Natural History Society of Hanover and then an honorary member. In 1986 he received the Joseph A. Cushman Award in foraminifera research. In 1945 he was the first correspondent for the American Museum of Natural History in West Germany.

He has published over 200 scientific papers and several taxa are named after him, including the foraminifera genus Hiltermanella (1970).

literature

• Contributions to the micropaleontology of northern Germany and general micropalaeontology, Geological Yearbook (of the Federal Institute for Soil Research), A, Volume 128, 1991 (commemorative publication on the 80th birthday)

Fonts

• From the history of Osnabrück geology , as well as section Tertiary in Horst Klassen (editor) Geology of the Osnabrück Bergland , Natural Science Museum Osnabrück 1984
• Editor with E. Gersdorf: Reports Naturhist. Gesellschaft Hannover, Volume 111, 1967 and Supplement 6, 1968 (on the location of the clay pit Willershausen )

Web links

• Photo on PGLA member list