Lukas Leiber

Lukas Leiber (born July 31, 1896 in Hattingen , † February 14, 1974 in Villingen ) was a German forest official .

Life

Leiber was the son of the Hattingen council clerk and farmer Friedrich Leiber. His maternal grandfather was Lukas Schmid , the mayor of Hattingen for many years .

He first attended the Berthold-Gymnasium in Freiburg , later the Fürstenberg-Gymnasium in Donaueschingen , where he received his Abitur cum laude in 1914 . After the war , in which he fought as an artilleryman, he studied forest science at the TH Karlsruhe and later in Freiburg . He then worked at the Karlsruhe Forestry Office.

In 1930 he was appointed head of the St. Märgen Forestry Office . There he realized that the stipulated wedge screen style worked out by Karl Philipp was not suitable for the local forests. Leiber took the position that instead of generally binding regulations, the selection of forestry concepts would have to be made on a case-by-case basis, taking into account the location and the tree species present. A lecture in which he - meanwhile again employed at the Karlsruhe Forestry Office - presented his concepts in 1937, earned him applause from the audience, but also a criminal prosecution, since Walter von Keudell did not agree with Leiber's view. However, in the same year, von Keudell was dismissed and Leiber was appointed as a silvicultural consultant in the Reich Forestry Office in Berlin. During the Second World War he was particularly committed to the preservation of silver fir stocks . In 1943 he drafted the fir decree , in which he forbade the clear-cutting of fir stands and also declared that the fir must have a higher priority than the game. Leiber's work in Berlin did a lot to protect German forests during the war.

In 1945 Leiber returned to southern Germany, initially with relatives in Neckargemünd . In 1947 he took over the management of the Heidelberg Forestry Office before he took over the administration of the Fürstenberg forests in Donaueschingen in 1949 . In 1962 he retired. He died on the night of February 14-15, 1974 in the hospital in Villingen.

Awards

• 1962: Federal Cross of Merit, 1st class
• 1968: Wilhelm Leopold Pfeil Prize
• 1972: Honorary doctorate from the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich

literature

• Karl Hasel: Leiber, Lukas in: Baden-Württembergische Biographien 2, pp. 297–299
• Rudolf Leiber: Leiber Chronicle. History of a Swabian-Alemannic family. Volume II , 3rd edition, p. 211