Josef Henrich

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Josef Henrich

Josef Karl Ludwig Henrich (born August 25, 1879 in Abertham ; † May 17, 1943 in Bregenz ) was an Austrian forest engineer, hunting instructor and author.

Life

Josef Henrich was born in Abertham in what was then the Austrian Crown Land of Bohemia on August 25, 1879 as the youngest of twelve children of the senior teacher and primary school director Johann Henrich (Schönwald, Joachimsthal district, July 11, 1841 - Jokes, Wickwitz municipality, Joachimsthal district, September 18, 1911) and his wife Berta, b. Heiser (Gottesgab, Joachimsthal District March 15, 1840 - Jokes February 15, 1912) and baptized Josef Karl Ludwig Henrich on August 27, 1879. His grandfather was the victim dealer Franz Karl Henrich in Sankt Joachimsthal (Schönwald September 27, 1815 - Schönwald November 9, 1876).

Josef Henrich attended elementary school from 1885 to 1891 and then the grammar school in Kaaden , where he graduated from high school in 1899 . As a boy he was a member of the Abertham Volunteer Fire Brigade, which made him an honorary member in 1917. Following the family tradition of his grandfather Franz Karl Henrich and his great-grandfather Mathias Henrich (* 1779), Josef Henrich turned to the forestry profession and studied in Vienna at the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, where he graduated as a forest engineer in 1902.

Forestry career

His professional career then led him to torrent and avalanche control in Tyrol-Vorarlberg, based in Innsbruck. In September 1902 he joined the Dornbirn regional construction management team as an assistant. In spring 1903 he was given construction management in Bizau (Bregenzerwald), after being appointed forest commissioner in 1907, construction management in Bludenz, and in 1912 construction management for all of Vorarlberg. At the same time, he was deployed at the headquarters in Innsbruck during the winter months. In recognition of his great services - especially in clearing up the devastating devastation caused by the floods of 1910 and 1912 - he was awarded the Golden Cross of Merit with the Crown in 1914. On September 18, 1911, Josef Henrich married Eugenie Schmid (1882–1974), the daughter of the innkeeper of the restaurant "Zur Krone" in Brenden (municipality of Doren in the Bregenzerwald). From the marriage the son Wilfried (1912-1943, head of a laboratory for communications engineering in Vienna) and the daughter Irmgard (1918-2009) emerged.

After the outbreak of World War I, Josef Henrich was assigned 200 Russian prisoners of war to continue the torrent barriers to replace the local workers conscripted for military service. He and his wife tried to accommodate and feed them. In gratitude for their good treatment, the prisoners made a desk for Henrich, various decorative objects for his wife and toys for his son Wilfried, born in 1912, including a children's workbench, which is now in the Vorarlberg State Museum in Bregenz, and a wooden carousel .

After the end of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, an independent section for torrent and avalanche control and its own regional forest inspection, both based in Bregenz, were established for the state of Vorarlberg in 1920, with hunting and fishing also falling within the scope of the forest inspection. Josef Henrich, meanwhile promoted to forestry council, was entrusted with the management of these two authorities. This was followed by his appointments to Oberforstrat (1920) and Hofrat (1923) and he was awarded the Great Decoration of Honor for Services to the Republic of Austria . Josef Henrich's activities in the field of torrent and avalanche control extended to a total of 79 torrents across the country. His most important achievements included the construction of the Schesatobel in the municipality of Bürserberg (Bludenz district) , which was unique in the entire Alpine region at the time, and which also became famous internationally far beyond Europe, and extensive developments in Vandans in the Montafon (also Bludenz district). The municipality of Vandans awarded Josef Henrich honorary citizenship in recognition of these services and named a street after him. Basically, Henrich intended to restore the geological equilibrium, which had been disturbed by necessary structures, by carefully covering and afforesting the fractured areas. A flood reporting service also sprang from his initiative.

As a state forest inspector, Josef Henrich's main focus was on the careful selection and training of the forest protection bodies, for which purpose he initiated regular four-month forest supervisor courses, which he personally led. Henrich was also the author of the Vorarlberg Forest Supervision Act of 1921. For the purpose of the afforestation and reforestation operated by Henrich, he established forest gardens and nurseries in Brunnenfeld near Bludenz, Altenstadt, Bartholomäberg, Laterns, Hochkrumbach, Au and Hittisau and in 1929 established a teaching and training center Experimental forest in Lochau .

Josef Henrich also took care of the reforestation of the Hochkrumbach area on the saddle between the Lech Valley and the Bregenz Forest (and thus on the watershed between the Danube and the Rhine ), which had been completely deforested over the centuries, so that in 1856 the last farmers took Place had to give up. In 1921 Josef Henrich started reforestation, mainly with stone pine and leg pines . At the same time he campaigned with his own resources for the restoration of the dilapidated church, which was re-consecrated in autumn 1932. During his last visit to Hochkrumbach in autumn 1942, Henrich was able to convince himself of the success of the afforestation.

Hunting, Hunting Laws and Training

Even during his high school days in Kaaden, Josef Henrich was taken on stalking by an old hunter and introduced to the hunting business and its customs and traditions. Since then, hunting has never let go of him, and he saw himself as a "hunter" throughout his life. The Vorarlberg Hunting Law of 1933 and its implementing regulations were his works. He was a founding member of the Vorarlberg Hunting Protection Association and its chairman from 1935 to 1937. In 1935/36 Josef Henrich held the office of Vorarlberg state hunter master.

More life, forced retirement under Hitler and death

Henrich was a music and art lover. He and his wife were friends with the Höchst painter Franz Reiter (1875–1918), the Dornbirn old master Alfons Luger (1869–1945), the Innsbruck painter and draftsman Martha Strele (1889–1984), a daughter of the then head of the Wildbach- and Avalanche Control in Tyrol, Hofrat Georg Strele (1861–1950) and with the sculptor Kaspar Albrecht (1889–1970) from Au-Rehmen (Bregenzerwald ). Numerous works by these four artists, as well as paintings by Fritz Krcal (1888–1983) and Josef Berchtold (1870–1917) are owned by the family. Alfons Luger, Georg Strele and the Zurich banker and hunting tenant Albert Hofmann were Henrich's closest friends. After the “ Anschluss of Austria ” in March 1938, Josef Henrich was forced into retirement in March 1939, which embittered him and also damaged his health. Josef Henrich was of German nationality, but was not a National Socialist, just as he was religious but not clerical. Josef Henrich died in his house in Bregenz, Riedergasse 16, on May 17, 1943. His tomb, created by Kaspar Albrecht, is in the municipal cemetery on Blumenstrasse in Bregenz.

Works

As early as 1920 his “Thoughts on the Preservation of Forest and Game” and his “Kurzes Jagdbrevier”, a small textbook “for the Vorarlberg forest ranger course, for the forest and hunting exams, as well as for hunters and hunting enthusiasts” (1924 in 2nd edition ). In addition, for decades he carried out extensive studies on the "willow grain", the stomach stones of the capercaillie and black grouse, on the basis of which he researched the migration of this feathered game and published it in the magazine "Der Deutsche Jäger" in 1928, and hereditary studies of antler formation in red deer. Josef Henrich's geographical, historical and technical treatise on "The covered wooden bridges in Vorarlberg", which describes 77 bridge structures (manuscript 1930/1940; partly printed in the 1953 yearbook of the Vorarlberger Landesmuseumsverein), is also significant.

In addition to half a hundred scientific essays published in various places, Josef Henrich was also highly productive in literary terms. The estate contained the manuscripts for the unprinted novels “When the forest died”, “Where no forest is green anymore”, and “Der Dorfpatriarch” (a cooperative novel from the Bregenzerwald), for the three more extensive writings “Jäger, Männer und Menschen "," Poacher "and" From the hereditary forester's diary "as well as numerous smaller treatises and stories and an early book of poems from 1899. The novels" When the forest dies "," When the forest has died "and" Where there is no more forest grünt ”form his“ Hochkrumbach Trilogy ”, which spanned the period from 1682 to 1856. The unfinished autobiographical novel “When the forest speaks” (1942/43), set in the Erzgebirge in 1891, represents the end of his creative career; Josef Henrich returned to his geographical roots at the end of his life he had foreseen. The printed works include:

  • the diary sketches "love gifts" (1913)
  • Thoughts on the conservation of forest and game: Sketches from my diary , Teutsch, 1920
  • "Forest Pictures and Animal Studies" (1921)
  • The forest and hunting protection body in Vorarlberg: the rights and obligations of the same together with a collection of laws and ordinances , JN Teutsch, 1923
  • Men: Tagesbucherinnergen , Vorarlberger Verlagsanstalt, 1924
  • Short hunting record for the Vorarlberg forest ranger course, for the forest and hunting protection exams, as well as for hunters and hunting enthusiasts 2nd edition JN Teutsch, 1924
  • The Bird Protection Act for the State of Vorarlberg [Act of January 15, 1909, effective for the State of Vorarlberg, regarding the protection of birds useful for soil culture]: With instructions on how to protect the native bird life according to Berlepsch (after 1924)
  • Our father: sketches a. Consideration from my diary Vorarlberger Verlagsanstalt, 1926
  • Engelberg Maier: Pictures from the life of a ranger; After d. Diary sketches by the state forest inspector Hofrat Henrich , JN Teutsch, 1929
  • Lectures by the state inspector Hofrat Ing. Josef Henrich, held on October 8, 1932 in Feldkirch on the occasion of the culture and Economic exhibition: "The animal in human life". Vorarlberg State Hunting Protection Association, 1932
  • the Bregenzerwald novels
    • When the forest dies (1940, 2nd edition FC Mayer 1941)
    • When the forest is in bloom: novel from the life of a ranger , FC Mayer, 1942

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Státní oblastní archiv v Plzni, Abertamy No. 13, p. 130
  2. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m CV of Hofrat Ing. Josef Henrich von Dr. Clemens Falser, 2011
  3. ↑ Between Almustrikstrasse and Dorfstrasse .
  4. ↑ Vorarlberger Jägerschaft estate of Ing.Josef Henrich (1877-1943) , viewed October 24, 2011.
personal data
SURNAME Henrich, Josef
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Henrich, Josef Karl Ludwig
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian forest officer and author
DATE OF BIRTH August 25, 1879
PLACE OF BIRTH Abertham
DATE OF DEATH May 17, 1943
Place of death Bregenz