Heinz Loßnitzer

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Heinz Loßnitzer (born May 23, 1904 in Görlitz , † April 19, 1964 in Freiburg im Breisgau ) was a German meteorologist . The director of the Meteorological Institute at the Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg, which he set up, was one of the pioneers in biometeorology and radiation research . As early as the mid- 1950s, he suggested constant measurements of air pollution .

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Heinz Loßnitzer studied astronomy , mathematics , geophysics and meteorology at the University of Leipzig . He then worked as an assistant at various university institutes and at the Thuringian state weather service. In 1927 he was appointed head of the St. Blasien weather and solar observatory , an office that he held until 1933. During this time Loßnitzer was pioneering in bioclimatic research. He developed devices and examined the effects of the weather on the sick and convalescent. With his work he became one of the co-founders of biometeorology and especially medical meteorology . After 1933 Loßnitzer worked as a meteorologist in the Reich Weather Service.

In 1936 he was transferred to Freiburg im Breisgau and charged with managing the weather service at the local airport. The following year he was given a teaching position for meteorology and climatology at the Natural Science and Mathematics Faculty of the University of Freiburg im Breisgau. At that time, the university wanted to set up a full professorship for meteorology, but it did not succeed. After the end of the Second World War , Loßnitzer joined the German Meteorological Service in the French-occupied zone in 1946 and headed its bioclimatic department.

In 1947 he completed his habilitation at the University of Freiburg and achieved that the bioclimatic department functioned as the university's bioclimate institute. He headed this facility - a first step towards founding a meteorological institute at the university - from 1950. In 1949 Loßnitzer took over the management of the Baden regional weather service. After this was transferred to the federal authority of the German Meteorological Service in 1952 , the connection between the Bioclimate Institute and the university was broken and received the status of a meteorological observatory of the German Meteorological Service, which Loßnitzer headed until 1958. Then he succeeded in finally establishing the long-awaited Meteorological Institute of the University of Freiburg on April 1, 1958. Now back in state services, he headed the institute assigned to the Faculty of Science and Mathematics in the position of a senior government councilor.

Radiation research was at the center of his meteorological life's work . For Loßnitzer, radiation measurements were the key to understanding the dynamics of the earth's atmosphere as well as the problems of forest meteorology and spa climatology . Since the mid-1950s, he has also dealt intensively with air pollution , which increasingly worried him. He was one of the initiators of a continuous measurement of air pollution.

Shortly before his 60th birthday, Heinz Loßnitzer died suddenly and unexpectedly on April 19, 1964 in Freiburg im Breisgau. This also put the institute in distress. Initially, the director of the Institute for Forest Yield Science, Gerhard Mitscherlich , was temporarily entrusted with the management. Since the lectures, which were especially necessary for the training of forest students, had to be secured, Rudolf Neuwirth was given a provisional teaching assignment. It was only after four years that a successor for Loßnitzer was finally found in Hans Hinzpeter .

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SURNAME Loßnitzer, Heinz
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German meteorologist
DATE OF BIRTH May 23, 1904
PLACE OF BIRTH Goerlitz
DATE OF DEATH April 19, 1964
Place of death Freiburg in Breisgau