Otto Wemper

Otto Wemper (* 1894 ; † February 18, 1969 ) was a German forester . He was one of the pioneers in the recultivation of open - cast lignite mining areas and one of the founders of the German Poplar Association .

Live and act

Otto Wemper came from a Protestant rectory in the Neuwied district . There he received a deep Christian impression that would guide and characterize him throughout his life. After graduating from high school in Neuwied , he immediately volunteered after the outbreak of World War I in 1914 and took part in the campaigns in France and Romania as a member of the 11th Jäger Battalion . In 1916 he was appointed chief hunter and shortly thereafter deputy sergeant . For his work he was awarded the Iron Cross 1st and 2nd class. Wemper also suffered a serious wound, the effects of which he suffered for a lifetime.

After studying forest sciences from 1919 to 1922, he got to know various Prussian forestry offices in the course of his forestry traineeship . After he had passed the "Great State Forest Examination" in the spring of 1924 , he took over the provisional management of the Hermeskeil Forestry Office . After a brief activity at the government agency in Koblenz , he was appointed forester in 1925 and took over the management of the Eifel forestry office in Adenau .

In 1927 Otto Wemper married Margot Engels from Düsseldorf . The marriage resulted in two daughters.

Due to his basic Christian beliefs, an opponent of the emerging National Socialist rule, Wemper was exposed to political persecution in the “ Third Reich ” and was only able to head the Adenau Forestry Office until 1940.

Politically unencumbered, forester Wemper made himself available for the reconstruction immediately after the end of the Second World War . In August 1945 he was appointed head forester for the administrative districts of Cologne and Aachen . In 1950 he was appointed land forest master at the district government in Cologne. One of the challenges that Wemper had to face was not only to reorganize the entire forest organization, but above all to rebuild the forests of the Eifel and the Rhineland that had been devastated and plundered in the course of the war and the subsequent reparations .

Another problem that played a significant role in its solution Wemper, which were by the brown coal - open pit landscape destruction caused the greatest magnitude. Together with the Cologne District President Wilhelm Warsch ( CDU ) he was one of the pioneers of the Recultivation Act for the Cologne district. Wemper recognized early on that poplars were suitable as pioneering trees on the areas to be recultivated. Even today (2008) these trees are used in open- cast lignite recultivation . In 1947, Wemper was one of the founders of the German Poplar Association. When he retired in 1959, he had left behind a considerable building work.

Until 1965, Wemper still headed the main office of the German Poplar Association and that of the German Poplar Commission. His knowledge and experience in the field of poplar farming and field timber cultivation made him known far beyond the borders of North Rhine-Westphalia . Wemper organized and led numerous poplar conferences and excursions. After leaving, he was made an honorary member of the German Poplar Association and Lignikultur .

In addition to the forestry sphere of activity, Wemper has also volunteered for decades as a presbyter and synodal within the Evangelical Church .

Otto Wemper died a few weeks before his 75th birthday on February 18, 1969 as a result of a heart attack .

literature

• Otfried Lange: In Memoriam Otto Wemper. In: Allgemeine Forst-Zeitschrift (AFZ) , Volume 24, Issue 16/1969, p. 340.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Königliches Gymnasium connected with Realprogymnasium zu Neuwied (ed.): Annual report. Easter 2015, p. 21