Walther Fischer (mineralogist)

Carl Walther Fischer (born June 16, 1897 in Rochlitz , † February 15, 1979 in Nuremberg ) was a German mineralogist and director of the Dresden Museum of Mineralogy and Geology .

Life

Fischer received his school education in Rochlitz and in 1910 went to the Princely and State School Grimma , which he finished in 1915 with a secondary school diploma. He was drafted as a soldier in the First World War and was taken prisoner by the French , from which he was released in 1920. He enrolled in chemistry with a focus on mineralogy and geology at the TH Dresden and passed his diploma examination in 1923. With Eberhard Rimann , at the time director of the Institute for Mineralogy and Geology of the TH Dresden, Fischer wrote his dissertation on the Helvin deposit of Casa la Plata until 1925 . Contribution to the knowledge of the constitution of Helvin and Danalith .

In 1925, Fischer became an employee of the State Museum for Mineralogy, Geology and Prehistory in the Dresden Zwinger and a year later a member of the Isis Natural Science Society in Dresden, of which he became chairman in 1943. From 1930 Fischer worked as curator of the Museum of Mineralogy, Geology and Prehistory. During this time, among other things, the permanent collection Education and Economic Importance of Minerals (1930), participation in the Goethe exhibition of the Kunstverein (1932) and participation in the exhibition Sächsisches Edelgestein (1936). He was also able to take over the mineralogical and geological collections of the geologist Robert Nessig, who died in 1932, into the museum's possession . Fischer managed the museum library, taught geological exercises as a substitute for the increasingly ill Eberhard Rimann at the TH Dresden and published, among other things, his book Mineralogie in Sachsen von Agricola bis Werner in 1939 on the history of the museum.

After the first museum holdings had been relocated in 1942 to protect them from war destruction, the museum was closed in 1944. As early as 1943, Fischer had taken over the management of the museum on behalf of the seriously ill Rimann, who died in 1944. In addition, Fischer was appointed deputy head of the Mathematical-Physical Salon and the Museum of Animal, Ethnic and Racial Studies , which he was responsible for safeguarding the existence of.

After the end of the war, Fischer was one of two scientists who were entrusted by the Soviet headquarters with the management of museum affairs and, among other things, had to solve personnel issues and oversee the maintenance of the museums. In 1945 he was appointed director of the museum, which has been called the State Museum of Mineralogy and Geology since the prehistoric department was spun off in 1938 . On a provisional basis, he continued to head the Museum of Animal and Ethnology. Among other things, he organized rooms for the destroyed museums and took care of safeguarding the preserved holdings. On July 29, 1946, Fischer, like numerous other employees of the State Museums, was dismissed without notice without giving any reason.

In 1948, three years after the end of the war, Fischer left Dresden and the Soviet occupation zone . He went to Idar-Oberstein and worked as a teacher at the Birkenfeld district vocational school and technical school for gemstone processing , of which he was director until 1959. In 1953 he wrote Practical Gemstone Studies, the first specialist book on gemstones after the end of the Second World War . Numerous works on gemstones and the gemstone industry followed. Fischer joined in 1959 in the retired , moved to Stuttgart and later to Nuremberg, where he died 1979th

Works (selection)

• 1925: The Helvin deposit of Casa la Plata. Contribution to the knowledge of the constitution of Helvin and Danalith (diss.)
• 1934: The minerals in the Syenite des Plauenschen Grund near Dresden
• 1935: Work on Saxony mineralogy, geology and paleontology from 1935
• 1936: The economic importance of ore mining in Saxony according to official information for the years 1913 to 1934
• 1937: Basics of the history of the Rochlitz landscape
• 1938: The amethyst deposit at Purschenstein in the Ore Mountains
• 1939: Mineralogy in Saxony from Agricola to Werner: the older history of the State Museum for Mineralogy and Geology in Dresden (1560 - 1820) Digitized
• 1940: Natural and cultural history of Waldenburg a. Wolkenburg
• 1940: The occurrence of the "Rochlitz agate" in Wiederau near Rochlitz, Saxony
• 1941: Helvin and phenakite from the stock granite from Hilbersdorf, Görlitz district
• 1944: On the 450th birthday of Agricola, the "father of mineralogy" and pioneer of mining and metallurgy
• 1953: Practical gemstone studies
• 1956: From the Hunsrück to the Westrich
• 1957: The guild regulations of agate cutters from 1609
• 1961: Formation of rocks and deposits in the change of scientific views

literature

• Waltraud Voss : From Dresden to the World II. Early doctoral candidates at the TU Dresden in business, science and society . TUDpress, Dresden 2010, ISBN 978-3-941298-78-1 , pp. 16-23.

Footnotes

1. ↑ Mr. W. FISCHER honors the memory of the senior student councilor who died on February 21, 1932. R. Prof. Dr. ROBERT NESSIG . In: Gesellschaft Isis in Dresden (ed.): Meeting reports and papers . 1932, p. 40 f . ( slub-dresden.de ).

Web links

• Literature by and about Walther Fischer in the catalog of the German National Library