Max Ballerstedt

Max Ballerstedt (born June 20, 1857 in Bückeburg ; † 1945 ) was a teacher at the Adolfinum grammar school in Bückeburg. He dedicated his life to paleontology .

life and work

Ballerstedt was the son of a pastor, his father Christian Ballerstedt was court preacher, first in Kassel, then in Bückeburg. He studied mathematics and natural sciences in Marburg and Berlin and was then from 1893 senior teacher at the Adolfinum grammar school. In 1907, he was appointed professor by the Prince of Schaumburg-Lippe and retired early because of a progressive hearing loss.

In addition to his work as a teacher, and especially after his retirement, Ballerstedt put on the second largest European private collection of fossils from the Bückeburg mountains and the surrounding area when he died, especially the nearby Harrl , where turtles, crocodiles and dinosaur tracks were found. He was considered a specialist in dinosaur tracks, which there and z. B. 1921 in Barkhausen were found. He alone discovered over 200 such tracks and published several articles about them. He was also convinced early on that dinosaurs were far more agile than was assumed at the time, and that the reconstructions in the museums of the time were wrong, a view that did not gain acceptance until the 1960s. At that time nothing came of a planned publication by Ballerstedt.

Ballerstedt collected several thousand fossils in the deposits of the so-called " Wealden layers" (which in addition to shale clays and Wealden coal, especially in this area, also contain extensive sandstone deposits). During his lifetime (1940) he bequeathed this collection to the Adolfinum grammar school . After the Second World War, the collection remained in the loft of the grammar school for a long time until the then biology teacher Dr. Bernhards took care of it. After his death in 1971, a large part of the collection was given to the Georg-August-Universität Göttingen as a permanent loan due to a lack of space and because nobody could take care of it (1976). Part of the collection returned to the Adolfinum in 1987.

Fonts

• About dinosaur tracks of the Wealdenformation Bückeburg , Naturwissenschaftliche Wochenschrift, Vol. 20, 1905, pp. 481–485
• Comments on the oldest reports on dinosaur tracks in the Wealden sandstone and treatment of a new track consisting of five footprints , Centralblatt für Mineralogie, Geologie und Paläontologie, 1914, p. 48.
• The Bückeberg as a site for fossil reptiles , (lecture report), In: Schaumburg-Lippische Landeszeitung of December 3, 1912
• Dinosaur tracks in the Wealden sandstone of the Harrls near Bückeburg and a currently exposed track of a "four-footed" clumsy dinosaur , In: Journal of the German Geological Society, Vol. 72b, 1920/21, pp. 231-233
• About the plastron of the turtles of the Keuper and the shape of the armored shell by Proganochelys Quenstedtii Baur after the Tübinger Fossil , In: Palaeontologische Zeitschrift No. 4, 1921, pp. 64-74
• Two large two-toed tracks of long-legged bipedes from the Wealden sandstone of Bückeburg , Journal of the German Geological Society, Vol. 73, 1922, pp. 76-91
• About dread dinosaurs and their footprints , Kosmos Vol. 19, 1922, pp. 77-80 (Barkhausen)
• About the origin of fossils and the importance of our homeland for research into pre-world animal life , In: Blätter für schaumburg-Lippische Heimatkunde: Supplement to the Schaumburg-Lippische Landes-Zeitung, No. 2, 1925
• On the status and change of precipitation at Bückeburg , In: Heimat-Blätter: Supplement to the Schaumburg-Lippische Landes-Zeitung, No. 10, 1933
• Rhino discovery near Kleinenbremen , In: The Schaumburg-Lippische Heimat supplement to the Stadthagener Kreisblatt, No. 7, 1936

swell

• Göttinger Tageblatt (July 14, 2007): A "scientist of international renown" - On the 150th birthday of the Bückeburg paleontologist Max Ballerstedt / exhibition at the University of Göttingen
• KARL, Hans-Volker; TICHY, Gottfried: On the early history of the paleocheloniology of Schaumburg-Lippe: the role of the high school professor Max Ballerstedt in natural science. In: Reports on the History of Science 27 (2004) 4, pp. 285–296
• Ernst Probst, Raymund Windolf Dinosaurier in Deutschland , Bertelsmann 1993, p. 198.
• Roswitha Sommer: The Bückeburger Wealden paleontologist Max Ballerstedt and his collection , In: Schaumburger Heimat No. 13 (1982), pp. 50-55

Web links

• http://www.geomuseum.uni-goettingen.de/images/Slideshows/museum/museum.shtml Wealden collection Max Ballerstedt (requires flash)

References

1. ^ Probst, Windolf Dinosaurier in Deutschland , p. 202.