Leopoldine Fuhrich

Leopoldine Fuhrich (born July 30, 1898 in Salzburg ; † May 23, 1926 in the Lurgrotte ), known as Poldi Fuhrich , was a pioneer of Austrian cave and karst research .

Life

She was the daughter of Alfred and Leopoldine Fuhrich and made their graduation at the Salzburg Lyceum girls. From 1920/21 she studied at the University of Innsbruck and the University of Vienna in the humanities, including zoology, botany, mineralogy, petrography and education. She taught natural history and gymnastics at the girls' secondary school in Vienna-Hietzing . She was also a mountaineer and skied.

Caving

Fuhrich was enthusiastic about cave exploration at a time when women were still rare in the profession, and she was one of the first women to penetrate deep into cave systems with initial explorations. As early as 1919 she was a member of the Speleological Society in Vienna and took part in a first exploratory expedition into the giant ice world, the exploration of which began in 1913 but had to be interrupted by the outbreak of World War I. In 1920 Fuhrich also became a member of the State Association for Speleology in Salzburg and was secretary there in 1921 and 1922, and finally second assessor until her death.

She was friends with Robert and Friedrich Oedl , with whom she undertook numerous explorations, especially at home in Austria. With a rapidly growing international reputation, she was also invited to other countries, initially together with the Oedls of Anton Meeraus to Slovenia , where they took part in the exploration and measurement of the Škocjanske Jame . Fuhrich made further trips in 1923 and 1924 to southern Germany, to the Moravian Karst , to various caves in the southern French department of Lot and to Dalmatia . Also in 1923 there was a trip to Brazil with the Canadian Eliot Barton . In 1925 she was part of the cave surveying team in County Clare , Ireland , with professor and cave explorer Albert Baker expressly praising her toughness.

While exploring the Lurgrotte on May 23, 1926, Poldi Fuhrich fell about 20 meters and died a few hours later.

Honors and commemorations

• Silver cave bear plaque from the Main Association of German Cavers (awarded August 1924)
• Several memorial plaques commemorate her life:
  • at the Poldi fountain near the entrance to the Eisriesenwelt
  • at the ghost pit in the Lurgrotte, where she died
• The Poldi-Dom in the Eisriesenwelt and the Poldi-Fuhrich-Dom in the Lurgrotte were named after her.

literature

• Antonius Lux (ed.): Great women of world history. A thousand biographies in words and pictures . Sebastian Lux Verlag , Munich 1963, p. 176
• Trevor Shaw: Poldi Fuhrich (1898-1926): Pioneer of extreme caving . In: Die Höhle , 59th year, issue 1–4, 2008, pp. 125–139.