Nora Gross

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Nora Groß (née Blaßmann ; born October 28, 1891 in Bautzen ; † June 13, 1976 ) was a German mineralogist , crystallographer and university professor.

Life

Origin, education and private life

Karl-Marx-Platz 18 in Greifswald

She was born as the daughter of Major General Franz Blaßmann (1855-1935) and his wife Marie Wahl. After her school education, she first attended the Royal Teachers' Seminar in Dresden between 1906 and 1911 and then worked for a year as a teacher - both in private households and at Leipzig city schools . From 1912 to 1914 she made up her Abitur at the secondary school of the Leipzig University of Applied Sciences . She then enrolled to study botany , zoology , physics and mineralogy at the University of Leipzig . To complete her teacher training, she passed the elective examination for elementary school teachers in 1915 . In 1918 she moved to Greifswald, continued her studies at the university there and was able to complete it in the same year. In 1921, she was there with a dissertation on the reference surface of the dissolution rates of crystalline matter doctorate .

In 1919 she married the mineralogist Rudolf Groß , who was briefly rector of the Ernst Moritz Arndt University in Greifswald in 1948 . Both had their daughters Irmgard (* 1920) and Gertrud (* 1923). The family lived in the house that still exists today at Karl-Marx-Platz 18, which is located on the green belt immediately west of the old town.

Scientific career

According to Nora Groß's own statements, her scientific work began as early as 1917 at the University of Leipzig when she was involved in setting up an X-ray machine - the first crystallographic facility of its kind at a mineralogical institute.

After completing her studies and getting married in 1919, Rudolf Groß began an exciting life and research community for more than three and a half decades. Initially she worked until 1921 as his unpaid research assistant at the mineralogical institute of the newly founded University of Hamburg , to which her husband had been appointed. In 1922 she moved back with him to Greifswald - where he (with a short interruption) was to head the mineralogical institute there until his death in 1954 - and in September gave a lecture on the core number as a function at the eighth annual meeting of the German Mineralogical Society in Leipzig of volume, time and subcooling of melts . From 1927 she was again a regular research assistant ("unpaid volunteer assistant") of her husband. As such, she provided mainly experimental support for the work of the doctoral students and appeared as a repair mechanic for the devices in the institute's laboratories. Around 1932 her field of activity shifted and she mainly worked as a lecture assistant.

As a result of stricter denazification criteria , Rudolf Groß, who had been a supporting member of the SS , was suspended from all offices on February 16, 1946. As a result, on March 7th, Nora Groß received a regular and paid assistant position for the first time. On this basis she was appointed acting director of the mineralogical- petrographic institute on August 1st . Until the re-admission of her husband's teaching on October 1, 1947, she held all the lectures at the institute and, from the winter semester 1946/1947, also lectured and exercises on soil science at the newly established agricultural faculty. She was in charge of management until Rudolf was fully reinstated in March 1948. In agreement with colleagues from the neighboring institutes and the university rector, her husband tried to hire her as a full lecturer. However, this did not happen at first. Between 1947 and 1951 she had a research assignment for "Crystallographic growth experiments on salts".

Since Rudolf Groß was about to retire , the appointment process to fill the post of professor and director had been running since 1953. After his accidental death in 1954, Nora Groß was appointed provisional director of the institute again in the autumn of the same year. However, there was no solution to the personnel issue and the procedure was ended in 1957, which formally ended her term of office. At the same time, however , Groß , who had not qualified as a professor , had received a so-called "perception lecturer" on April 1, 1955 - initially without an assistant. At that time she was the only researcher at the now renamed Institute for Mineralogy, Petrography, Mineral Resources and Geochemistry. Although she was later supported by an assistant, in the course of a restructuring of the GDR educational landscape, the mineralogy students were distributed between the universities in Berlin and Halle (Saale) . From the fall semester of 1955, only minor lectures for geologists and chemists were held in Groß 'institute . Her retirement took place on September 1, 1960.

meaning

The main research interest of Nora Groß lay - in addition to crystallization nuclei and the physiography of minerals - on the growth and dissolution of crystals and the associated problems of exploration of deposits. Together with her husband, however, she also carried out radiometric and high-temperature measurements that dealt with aspects of recrystallization and remuneration . Together with her husband, she is largely responsible for an extensive and very well-stocked mineralogical collection that is still stored in today's Institute for Geography and Geology at the Ernst-Moritz-Arndt University of Greifswald.

In addition, she left numerous testimonies that give an insight into the working group that she and her husband had in common. For example, between April 1, 1936 and January 1, 1939, she kept detailed family diaries. In addition to private photos, these also contain a lot of information about the manner and extent to which Rudolf and Nora Groß organized the scientific work as a “family business”. It also becomes clear how the two daughters (15 and 18 years old at the end of the entries) were involved and what expectations were placed on them.

Publications

Scientific works

Others

  • N. Groß: The history of the Mineralogical Institute of the Ernst Moritz Arndt University of Greifswald. In: Ernst-Moritz-Arndt-Universität Greifswald: Festschrift for the 500th anniversary of the University of Greifswald, October 17, 1956. Volume 2, Verlag der Volksstimme, Greifswald 1956, pages 483–488.

literature

  • Handbook of German Science. Volume 2: Biographical Directory. Koetschau, Berlin 1949, p. 965.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Petra Clemens, Monika Schneikart (ed.): Appointment reserve . Students and teaching women at the University of Greifswald 1945–1975. Center for Interdisciplinary Women and Gender Studies, Greifswald 2008, ISBN 978-3-86006-318-7 , page 82.
  2. ↑ On April 15, 1953, the résumé of Rudolf Groß in the archives of the Ernst-Moritz-Arndt University of Greifswald . Retrieved from andreas-stenglein.de on December 10, 2015.
  3. ↑ a b c Petra Clemens, Monika Schneikart (ed.): Appointment reserve . Students and teaching women at the University of Greifswald 1945–1975. Center for Interdisciplinary Women and Gender Studies, Greifswald 2008, ISBN 978-3-86006-318-7 , page 81.
  4. ↑ Petra Clemens, Monika Schneikart (ed.): Appointment reserve . Students and teaching women at the University of Greifswald 1945–1975. Center for Interdisciplinary Women and Gender Studies, Greifswald 2008, ISBN 978-3-86006-318-7 , page 91.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Great, Nora
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Blaßmann, Nora (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German mineralogist and university professor
DATE OF BIRTH October 28, 1891
PLACE OF BIRTH Bautzen
DATE OF DEATH June 13, 1976