Hermann Koch (mountain official)

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Hermann Koch

Hermann Koch (born February 17, 1814 in Clausthal ; † April 6, 1877 ibid) was a German secret mining company at the Clausthal Mining Authority and father of the physician and Nobel Prize winner Robert Koch .

Life

Joint grave of Mathilde and Hermann Koch in the old cemetery in Clausthal

Koch was born on February 17, 1814, the son of the vice chief miner and mountain taster Conrad Koch (1774–1840) and his wife Louise Koch (née Meine, 1780–1842).

From 1830, Koch attended the “I. Classe ”at the Clausthal Mountain School and graduated with excellent results.

From 1834 he studied at the Georg-August-Universität Göttingen and began his career in the Upper Harz mining industry in 1837 , where he got a job as a climber .

Between 1838 and 1841 he stayed in France, where he managed various mines . After his return to the Upper Harz, he was promoted to the driver and transferred to Sankt Andreasberg . In 1839 he married Mathilde Biewend (1818–1871), a relative of the second degree.

On December 11, 1843, Koch's third son Robert Koch was born, who later discovered the causative agent of tuberculosis and received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine . Almost two years later, on November 28, 1845, Hugo Koch was born, who later became the only descendant of Koch to remain loyal to the mining industry.

In 1846 he stayed in France again to visit several pits there as an expert. In the same year, Koch was placed at the side of the then managing director of the mountain school, Johann Christian Zimmermann , as a mining authority assessor . Zimmermann should plan a new, lower-lying tunnel to dissolve water in the entire Upper Harz mining industry.

In 1847 Koch took over the lectures on mining studies from Zimmermann on a part-time basis, after Zimmermann had been completely released from his teaching duties at the mining school. In the following year, the Kingdom of Hanover awarded Koch the Guelph Order of Fourth Class in recognition of his work in a major mine fire on October 21, 1848.

Until 1851 Koch helped develop the tunnel plan, which was finally presented to the finance minister of the Kingdom of Hanover and accepted. The new tunnel was started under the name Ernst-August-tunnel .

After Zimmermann was retired in February 1853, Koch was appointed Bergrat and took over the management of the tunnel construction, the construction phase of which was successfully completed in 1864. For this achievement, the Kingdom of Hanover awarded him the Knight's Cross of the Guelph Order. Furthermore, he received the overall supervision of the entire operation of the Royal Hanover Mines and Huts in the Upper Harz.

In 1855 Koch visited the world exhibition in Paris and several mines on the Rhine and in Belgium. Under his leadership, the processing plants in Clausthal and Lautenthal and the smelting system were improved . He took part in the first attempts at blasting with nitroglycerin , which Alfred Nobel carried out on various quarries in Clausthal, and helped to improve the composition of the explosive. He later had blast tests carried out in all pits. In this way he made a decisive contribution to the invention of dynamite .

After the German War and the annexation of the Kingdom of Hanover by the Kingdom of Prussia , Koch was transferred to the new Clausthal Mining Authority and, in 1868, appointed Oberbergrat, where he worked under Mining Captain Hermann Ottiliae . He received his last rank in 1874 when he was appointed secret mountain ridge. Nevertheless, he kept the supervision of the Upper Harz mining industry until his death.

Koch died on April 6, 1877 at the age of 63 and was buried in the old cemetery in Clausthal next to his wife, who had died six years earlier. The Kochs had a total of 13 children, eleven of whom survived infancy. The majority of their children emigrated to North America.

Works

In a twenty-page article for the magazine for the mining, smelting and saltworks in the Prussian state (Volume 17, 1869), Koch described in detail the smelting process of the Upper Harz mining industry under the title The melting of the lead ores on the Upper Harz.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Koch, Hermann in der Deutschen Biographie , accessed on February 21, 2016.
  2. ^ Münch: Robert Koch and his legacy in Berlin. 2003, p. 6.
  3. ↑ a b c Serlo: Mining families . I. In: Glückauf - Berg- und Hüttenmännische magazine. No. 26, Volume 62, 1926, p. 834.
  4. ↑ Part B, pp. 365-385.
personal data
SURNAME Koch, Hermann
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German secret mountain at the Clausthal Mining Authority and father of the physician and Nobel Prize winner Robert Koch
DATE OF BIRTH February 17, 1814
PLACE OF BIRTH Clausthal
DATE OF DEATH April 6, 1877
Place of death Clausthal