Paul Friedrich Pelshenke

Paul Friedrich Pelshenke (born December 3, 1905 in Unterwüsten , Lippe , † March 2, 1985 in Detmold ) was a German agricultural scientist . He is considered to be one of the pioneering researchers in the fields of grain processing and the quality assessment of bread grain .

Life path

Paul Friedrich Pelshenke, son of a farmer, studied by the Graduate Agriculture and Natural Sciences first at the Agricultural University of Berlin , then at the University of Halle . There he received his doctorate in 1930 under Theodor Roemer with a dissertation on the determination of the baking ability of wheat and wheat flours. After several years as a lecturer with Theodor Roemer and a year’s scientific work in the USA , he was appointed head of the bakery institute at the Research Institute for Grain Processing in Berlin and was appointed director and professor. In 1942 this facility was renamed the " Reichsanstalt für grain processing ".

As head of the Berlin Institute for Bakery, Pelshenke's main scientific interest was the improvement of the baking ability of cereal flours and the methodological problems in assessing the quality of bread cereals. With his treatise “ Studies on the baking ability of rye varieties ”, which he wrote in those years, he completed his habilitation in 1941 at the Natural Science Faculty of the University of Halle . From 1943 to 1945 he had a teaching position for grain processing at the Friedrich Wilhelms University in Berlin .

Thanks to Pelshenke's personal initiative, a new research center for grain processing has been set up in Detmold since 1947 . In 1957 it was merged with the part of the former Reich Institute for Grain Processing that remained in West Berlin and was rebuilt to form the “ Federal Research Institute for Grain Processing ” and in 1965 it was placed under its overall management. 1968 Pelshenke left his office.

plant

The scientific achievements of Pelshenke are inextricably linked with research into the fundamentals for an optimal grain, grinding and baking quality of wheat and rye . At the same time, Pelshenke developed reliable standard methods for assessing the quality of bread grain . The culmination of his scientific life's work in 1947 was the establishment of a research center for grain processing in Detmold, which later became the "Federal Research Institute for Grain Processing". Pelshenke had already realized his idea of ​​the absolute necessity of close cooperation between science and practice in 1946 with the establishment of the " Working Group for Grain Research ". The annual conferences held by this institution in Detmold brought together the various fields of grain research to give practice-oriented lectures with intensive discussions.

Under the leadership of Pelshenke, the "Federal Research Institute for Grain Processing" in Detmold acquired a high national and international reputation. The realistic connection between science and practice found many imitators in other countries. Following the Detmold model, institutes for grain research were founded in India , Pakistan , Egypt and Lebanon . Pelshenke himself has worked repeatedly on behalf of the FAO as an expert on grain and bread in these countries and also in other tropical and subtropical regions.

In more than 400 publications , Pelshenke has dealt with questions of grain cultivation, grain quality and all questions of grain processing. For many years he was the editor of the specialist journals “Getreide und Mehl” and “Bread and Bread” (since 1972 in the magazine “Getreide, Mehl und Brot”). He encouraged leading international scientists to publish their research results in these specialist journals.

Of Pelshenke's more extensive publications , his books “ Pastries from German Gauen. A performance exhibition of the bakery trade ”(1936, second edition 1949) and“ Research methods for bread grain, flour and bread ”(1938) as well as the revised manual of his Berlin predecessor Max Paul Neumann“ Bread grain and bread ”(1943 and 1954). After 1945, he published several extensive treatises on the methods of quality testing of bread grain in collective works. His short text " The History of German Grain Research " (1958) is noteworthy for the history of science in agriculture .

honors and awards

Pelshenke has received numerous honors and awards for his scientific life's work. As early as 1930 he was awarded the Julius Kühn Prize , and in 1948 he received the Max Paul Neumann Prize . In 1965, he was the first non-American to receive the highest award from the American Society of Grain Chemists, the Thomas Burr Osborne Medal . 1967 which gave him German Agricultural Society , the Max Eyth medal in silver and the International Association for Cereal Research, the Roemer medal . In 1969 this working group elected him honorary president . In 1973 he was awarded the Medal of Merit by the Japanese Society for Starch Science. He was also an honorary member of several professional societies and since 1975 a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Agriculture and Forestry.

In 1972 the German Agricultural Society donated the Paul-Friedrich-Pelshenke Medal to personalities who have made outstanding contributions to the German grain industry and the baking trade.

Main publications

• Contributions to the determination of the baking ability of wheat and wheat flours . Diss. Natural science Fac. Univ. Hall 1930. - Zugl. in: Scientific Archive for Agriculture Dept. A, Archive for Plant Cultivation Vol. 5, 1930/31, pp. 108–151.
• Pastries from German districts. An exhibition of the bakery trade . Publishing house of the Reichsinnungsverband des Bäckerhandwerk Berlin 1936; 2. completely rework. Edition under the title Pastries from Germany. Its manufacture, history and distribution . Gilde Verlag Alfeld 1949.
• Research methods for bread grain, flour and bread . Publisher M. Schäfer Leipzig 1938.
• The baking agents. Production, effect, composition and application . Published by Paul Parey Berlin 1941.
• Studies on the baking ability of rye varieties . Published by Paul Parey Berlin 1941. - Zugl. in: Journal of Plant Breeding Vol. 24, 1942, pp. 1-58.
• Max Paul Neumann: bread grain and bread. Textbook for the practice of grain processing and manual and auxiliary book for experimental stations, food inspection offices and laboratories of mills, bakeries and technical schools . Published by Paul Parey Berlin 1914; 2nd edition 1923; 3rd edition 1926. 4th edition revised by Paul Pelshenke, ibid. 1943; 5th edition under the name Neumann-Pelshenke with changed title Bread Grains and Bread. Handbook for the theory and practice of bread grain processing , ibid. 1954.
• The investigation of grain and flour (together with Georg Hampel and Werner Schäfer). In: Handbook of agricultural testing and investigation methodology (method book) Vol. 15, Neumann Verlag Radebeul and Berlin 1953, pp. 1–109.
• Grain quality, bread and nutrients . In: Handbuch der Landwirtschaft, Verlag Paul Parey Berlin, 2nd ed., Vol. 2 Plant cultivation, 1953, pp. 121–142.
• The history of German grain research . Granum-Verlag Detmold 1958.
• Quality issues with grain and bread . DLG-Verlag Frankfurt am Main 1959 = work of the German Agricultural Society vol. 59.

literature

• Festschrift for the 60th birthday of Prof. Dr. PF Pelshenke . Granum-Verlag Detmold 1965 (with picture).
• 70th birthday of Prof. Dr. PF Pelshenke . In: Getreide, Mehl und Brot Vol. 29, 1975, pp. 301-302.
• Speeches on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the Federal Research Center for Grain and Potato Processing . Granum-Verlag Detmold 1982.
• Professor Dr. sc. nat. habil. PF Pelshenke in memory . In: Getreide, Mehl und Brot vol. 39, 1985, p. 67 (with picture).
• Paul Friedrich Pelshenke † . In: Mitteilungen der Deutschen Landwirtschafts-Gesellschaft vol. 100, 1985, p. 346.
• W. Seibel: Paul Friedrich Pelshenke, agr. Technologist (grain processing) . In: Biographical lexicon on the history of plant breeding. Edited by Gerhard Röbbelen, 3rd episode, Verlag Liddy Halm Göttingen = Lectures for Plant Breeding H. 66, 2004, pp. 147–148 (with picture).
• Ludwig Wassermann:  Pelshenke, Paul Friedrich. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 20, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-428-00201-6 , p. 167 ( digitized version ).

Web links

• Literature by and about Paul Friedrich Pelshenke in the catalog of the German National Library