Walter Schriel

Walter Schriel (born June 29, 1892 in Ilfeld , † June 27, 1959 in Göttingen ) was a German geologist and university professor .

Scientific career

Walter Schriel was born the son of a school principal in Ilfeld in the southern Harz region. After graduating from a humanistic grammar school at the Royal Monastery School, he began to study geography , geology and mineralogy at the University of Leipzig in 1912 . Schriel had to interrupt his studies from 1914 to 1919 after the outbreak of the First World War . After the end of the war, it continued its studies in Göttingen . In 1921 Walter Schriel received his doctorate in Göttingen on the subject of " Old and young tectonics in the Kyffhäuser and southern Harz ".

After completing his academic training and taking the second state examination in 1923, he worked as a geologist at the Prussian State Geological Institute in Berlin. On January 19, 1929 Schriel was appointed district geologist, on February 1, 1935 he was appointed professor at the University of Berlin . During his time at the Prussian Geological State Institute, Schriel mainly worked as a field geologist and mapped some table sheets in the southern and eastern Harz Mountains. Here he carried out stratigraphic parallelizations between the Rotliegend deposits near Meisdorf and Ilfeld. In addition, Schriel mapped - partly in cooperation with Kurd von Bülow and Ernst Fulda - the Goldene Aue , the Frankenhausen Basin and the Upper Carboniferous and red-lying strata on the Kyffhäuser . In 1923 Walter Schriel and Franz Beyschlag devoted himself to the geological and geological description of the gold deposit on the Eisenberg near Korbach .

Another important field of activity of Schriel in the late 1920s and early 1930s was the creation of geological overview maps, such as the Geological Map of the Earth (1: 15,000,000 with Franz Beyschlag in 12 sheets 1926–1932), the Small Geological Map of Europe ( 1: 10,000,000, with Franz Beyschlag 1925), the geological map of the Saarland (1: 60,000, 1935) and the geological map of Germany 1: 2,000,000 (1930), which was published in an edition of 30,000.

For the map series “ Carte géologique internationale de la terre” 1: 500,000 he developed the sheets 62 Congo, 63 Zanzibar, 68 Capetown and 69 Durban.

In 1936 Walter Schriel was appointed professor at the Georg-August University in Göttingen , where he was appointed associate professor on August 27, 1937 and full professor of geology on October 1, 1941. From 1940 to 1945 Walter Schriel also held the position of director of the Geological-Paleontological Institute and was a full member of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences . During this time, his main scientific focus was on stratigraphic issues in the area of paleozoic layers of the Bergisches Land and Sauerland . At the same time, Schriel devoted his last work before the outbreak of World War II to stratigraphic studies of rocks in the Lower Harz Mountains , especially the Flinz facies, with the help of conodonts . The map sheets Aachen - Cologne , Düsseldorf - Erkelenz on a scale of 1: 200,000 were completed in 1939.

When the Second World War broke out, Walter Schriel was drafted into the Wehrmacht and took part in battles on various fronts as a member of a pioneer battalion. Most recently he held the rank of captain of the reserve and was head of a technical special unit.

Work during National Socialism

Walter Schriel was a member of the Stahlhelm from 1922 to 1928 during the Weimar Republic . He joined the SA on March 1, 1933, and the NSDAP two months later. Schriel was involved in leading positions in the National Socialist German Lecturer Association and was lecturer for geology in the Reich Office for the Promotion of German Literature . In addition, was a member of the Reich Association of German Civil Servants (1934/37), the National Socialist People's Welfare (from 1934 ), the National Socialist War Victims Fund (from 1934) and the National Socialist Old Masters Association of German Students (1938/44). During his time as company commander of a pioneer unit in Höxter , he began to write military geological work in March 1940 . The 12-part map series Geological Map of Central Europe on a scale of 1: 750,000 was created by Schriel between 1940 and 1944, but never appeared in public.

From 1942/1943 Schriel did geological work for the Economic Research Association (WIFO), especially in the southern Harz region. Here he wrote geological, rock mechanical and hydrogeological reports a. a. for the underground facilities of the Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp near Nordhausen and the Langenstein-Zwieberge concentration camp near Halberstadt . Other expert opinions for military underground facilities are known from Königstein in Saxon Switzerland . From March 6, 1944 to December 1, 1944 (according to his information) Walter Schriel was a geological expert for the Dora Mittelbau construction projects of SS Special Inspection II and for the Kyffhäuser Task Force.

On May 20, 1945, Schriel was questioned by officers of the Allied secret service about his role in the Dora Mittelbau projects. In July 1945, on the instructions of the British occupation authorities, he was discharged from Göttingen University.

Post-war activity

After the war, Walter Schriel worked as a private scholar. He devoted himself primarily to questions of Harz geology and in 1951 presented the second edition of the geological overview map of the Harz 1: 200,000, which he published in 1954 together with the associated explanations as a comprehensive work under the title Die Geologie des Harzes . In the post-war years, Schriel dealt with stratigraphic and tectonic issues, especially with questions about the formation of deposits in the Harz, Sauerland and Bergisches Land . Numerous works are still to be regarded as the essential basic work in this area, such as B. the work on the formation of deposits at the Westheimer demolition and Briloner Galmeidistikt.

From 1955 to 1959 Schriel again gave lectures at the University of Göttingen, but at the Soil Science Institute of the Faculty of Agriculture. In 1956 he retired . As a retiree, he continued his publishing activities and continued to take part in geological congresses.

Walter Schriel constructed over 50 geological maps on a scale of 1: 25,000 to 1:15 million and wrote over 70 scientifically published articles and books.

Work (selection)

• Old and young tectonics at Kyffhäuser and Südharz . Dep. Preuss. Geol. L.-Anst., NF, 83, Berlin 1922, 65 pp.
• The gold of the Eder . Arch. Lagerststättenforsch., 32, Berlin 1923, pp. 1–29 (together with F. Beyschlag)
• Geological guide through the Harz, part 1: Upper Harz and Brocken region . Samml. Geol. Führer 29, Berlin (Borntraeger) 1925, 228 p. (With Fritz Dahlgrün and Otto Erdmannsdörffer )
• Geological guide through the Harz, part 2: Lower Harz and Kyffhäuser . Samml. Geol. Führer 30, Berlin (Borntraeger) 1925, 306 p. (With Fritz Dahlgrün and Otto H. Erdmannsdörffer)
• The Tanner Greywacke of the Lower Harz . Headquarters reports Preuß Geol. L.-Anst., 2, Berlin 1927, pp. 141–144
• Can a ceiling construction be proven in the Harz? Headquarters reports Preuß Geol. L.-Anst., 3, Berlin 1928, pp. 1–9
• The geological structure of Germany . In: Explanation of the geological map of Germany 1: 400,000 , Festschr. German Miners' Day, Breslau 1928
• Stratigraphy and tectonic position of the Acker-Bruchberg system in the Harz . Jb. Preuss. Geol. L.-Anst., 53, Berlin 1933, pp. 157-176
• On stratigraphy, tectonics and paleontology in the southern Bergisches Land. Dep. Preuss. Geol. L.-Anst., NF, 145, Berlin 1933, 77 S. (together with Walter Gross)
• The Lower Devonian in the southern Sauerland and Oberbergischen . In: Stille-Festschr., Stuttgart (Enke) 1936, pp. 1–21
• Critical consideration of the ceiling question in the Harz . Z. German. Geol. Ges., 91, Berlin 1939, pp. 469-497
• New tertiary finds near Brilon in the Sauerland as a time mark for young mineralization (Pb, Zn, Cu, Fe) in the mass limestone. N. Jb. Min., Monthly issue, year 1954, Stuttgart, pp. 226-230
• Age and mineralization of the Westheimer mining on the eastern edge of the Rhenish Slate Mountains . Roemeriana 1 (Dahlgrün Festschrift), Clausthal-Zellerfeld 1954
• Facies, paleogeography and tectonics in the Central and Lower Devonian Mountains . Geol. Jb., 78, Hannover 1961, pp. 719–760 (with additions by Dieter Stoppel)

Individual evidence

1. ^ Wilhelm Dienemann: Walter Schriel † (1892-1959) , Geol. Jb. 84, Hanover 1967, XXIII - XXX
2. ^ Wilhelm Dienemann: Walter Schriel † (1892-1959) , Geol. Jb. 84, Hanover 1967, XXIII - XXX
3. ↑ Holger Krahnke: The members of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen 1751-2001 (= Treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Philological-Historical Class. Volume 3, Vol. 246 = Treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Mathematical-Physical Class. Episode 3, vol. 50). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2001, ISBN 3-525-82516-1 , p. 218.
4. ↑ J.-C. Wagner: Production of Death: Das KZ Mittelbau-Dora .- Wallstein-Verlag, Göttingen 2001, ISBN 3-89244-439-0 , p. 673.
5. ↑ geologists as perpetrators NNZ-Online, September 4, 2002
6. ^ Joint Intelligence Objectives Agency: Engineering Geology in Germany .- Report No. 18, Washington 1945

Web links

• Literature by and about Walter Schriel in the catalog of the German National Library