Walter Häntzschel

Walter Häntzschel (born November 16, 1904 in Dresden ; † May 10, 1972 ) was a German paleontologist .

Life

Häntzschel studied natural sciences (including geology) at the TH Dresden with the teaching examination in 1929 and then taught as a teacher in Dresden. In addition, he published on paleontology as early as 1924, with his specialty being the Upper Cretaceous in Saxony. He was also a volunteer in the geological museum in the Zwinger in Dresden. In 1932 he received his doctorate under Eberhard Rimann and Hans Gallwitz (1896-1958) (The Cenoman and the Plenus Zone of the Sudetic Chalk).

From 1934 to 1938 he headed the Senckenberg am Meer research institute founded by Rudolf Richter in Wilhelmshaven , where he dealt with actuopalaeontology . He gave up in 1938 to become curator at the State Museum of Geology and Mineralogy in the Zwinger. In Dresden he continued to work on marine geological research from his time in Wilhelmshaven. During World War II he was a military geologist and engineer officer and was a prisoner of war in the Soviet Union.

From 1949 he was at the Geological State Institute in Hamburg, where he became chief curator in 1955. In Hamburg he mainly deals with trace fossils and wrote articles about them in the Treatise on Invertebrate Paleontology (Trace fossils and problematica, in Part W, 1962).

From 1963 was editor of the paleontological journal. He wrote numerous papers for the Zentralblatt für Geologie und Paläontologie.

literature

• Günther Hertweck: Obituary in Paläontologische Zeitschrift, 46, 1972, 105–112