Oskar Erich Meyer

Oskar Erich Meyer (born February 22, 1883 in Breslau ; † November 22, 1939 there ) was a German geologist , paleontologist , mountaineer and writer . Through his alpine adventure books, he became one of the most influential alpine writers in the first half of the 20th century.

life and work

Meyer came from a family of scholars. His father Oskar Emil Meyer taught physics at the University of Breslau , his older brothers Arnold Oskar Meyer (1877–1944) and Herbert Meyer (1875–1941) were historians and lawyers . After graduating from high school in 1904, Oskar Erich first studied law in Breslau, Geneva and Jena ; From the fifth semester he switched to the natural sciences, especially geology. After graduation in 1910 he took of on a reconnaissance expedition Imperial Colonial Office in Ugogo in German East Africa in part. From 1912 he worked as the first assistant at the Geological Institute of the Technical University of Wroclaw and qualified there in 1915 for geology and paleontology . In 1922 he finally became an associate professor at the TH Breslau.

Meyer had been a keen mountaineer ever since he was thirteen years old and spent vacationing in Mittenwald im Karwendel . He climbed mainly in the western Alps between 1907 and 1910. With his mountain friend Georg Zindler he went on new tours in the Aiguilles Rouges near Chamonix and in the French-Swiss border area, on the Petit Aiguille de la Floriaz , on the Mur des Roses- Nordostcouloir and on its east face . He also made stormy and foggy trips on skis in the Giant Mountains, and went on tours in the High Tatras , the Dolomites and the Ötztal Alps . The ideal mountain for him, however, was Mont Blanc .

Meyer achieved particular fame through his alpine literary work. Based on the writings of the lonely Eugen Guido Lammer , he discovered a new ideal of the alpinist. Mountaineering became a passion "that has no size and no name". In the influential book Tat und Traum , a collection of essays that have already been published , he primarily translated his experiences at Dent Blanche , in a bivouac on the Obergabelhorn and going it alone on the Weissmies . In addition to essayistic texts, he also wrote symbolic natural poetry with a pantheistic orientation, which understood itself in the tradition of Romanticism . Meyer's work shaped later alpine writers such as Henry Hoek and Leo Maduschka .

On July 24, 1939, Meyer had an accident on the Kitzkogel while he was on a tour with his wife and daughter in the Stubai Alps near the Siegerlandhütte . He suffered a concussion , head injuries, and broken ribs. Back in Breslau, he succumbed to the long-term effects of his accident after an operation. In his last will, Meyer wanted to be buried in a mountaineering outfit with a helmet and pickaxe.

Fonts

• Jacques Balmat and the Montblanc. A. Stenzel, Breslau 1908.
• Addiction and longing. A book of poems. Wohlfarth, Breslau 1908.
• The songs of the quiet life. Piper, Munich 1910.
• The Development of the Arctic Seas in the Paleozoic Period. Swiss beard, Stuttgart 1910.
• The Devonian brachiopods of Ellesmereland. Brøgger, Kristiania 1913.
• The fractures of German East Africa, especially the Ugogo landscape. Swiss beard, Stuttgart 1915.
• Deed and dream. A book of alpine experience. Bergverl, Munich 1920.
• as editor: Joseph von Eichendorff: Eichendorffs Werke. In three volumes. Bayern Druck G. mb H, Munich-Pullach 1923.
• as editor: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: Goethe's works. Bayern-Dr, Munich-Pullach 1923.
• as editor: Theodor Körner's works. Bavaria print, Munich-Pullach 1923.
• African letters, memories of German East Africa. Bayerndruck, Munich 1923.
• Paul Regell and Oskar Erich Meyer: The Giant and Jizera Mountains. 2nd Edition. Velhagen & Klasing, Bielefeld 1927.
• Mountain and man. Speech given to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Chemnitz section of the German and Austrian Alpine Club on March 19, 1932. Rein, Chemnitz 1932.
• The experience of the high mountains. With a portrait of the author. 1st edition. Union Dt. Verl.-Ges, Berlin 1932.
• The bride of Montblanc. With 4 drawings. [from] (Jürgen Klein). [Henriette d'Angeville]. 1st edition. Union Deutsche Verl.-Ges, Berlin 1937.
• Mountain and man. 1st edition. Union, Berlin 1938.
• Montblanc. Paths to the mountain. 1st edition. Roth [and a.], Berlin 1939.

literature

• Dagmar Günther: Alpine crossways. Cultural history of bourgeois alpinism (1870-1930) . Frankfurt / M. 1998.
• Fritz Schmitt: Oskar Erich Meyer in memory . In: Yearbook of the German Alpine Club 89 (1964), pp. 184–187.
• Helmuth Zebhauser: Alpinism in the Hitler State. Thoughts, memories, documents. Munich 1998.