Wilhelm Hauchecorne

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Relief portrait of the geologist Wilhelm Hauchecorne (1828–1900) on his gravestone.

Heinrich Lambert Wilhelm Hauchecorne [ˌoʃˈkoʀn] / [ˌoʃˈkoʁn] (born August 13, 1828 in Aachen , † January 15, 1900 in Berlin ) was a geologist and the first president of the Prussian State Geological Institute in Berlin.

Life

Wilhelm Hauchecorne was born in Aachen in 1828 into a Huguenot family from Normandy who came to Berlin via Bayreuth at the beginning of the 18th century . His great-grandfather was Jean Henri Samuel Formey , whose daughter Anna Franziska was married to Wilhelm's grandfather, the pastor Friedrich Wilhelm Hauchecorne (1753-1825). His parents were Wilhelm Hauchecorne (* 1791; † after 1870) and his wife Amalie Dautzenberg (1799-1854). His father was a tax adviser ( councilor at a tax authority ) a. D. and special director of the Rheinische Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft , of which he was a co-founder. His grandfather was a preacher at the French Friedrichstadtkirche in Berlin as well as a professor of mathematics and school director. Life in the affluent parental home of Wilhelm and his three sisters was determined by aesthetic education and music. His love for minerals was aroused early on, and Wilhelm began to collect minerals, ores and stones in his youth. He maintained this hobby until the end of his life. He later arranged his private collection as the Hauchecornesche collection as the basis of the geological state institute, but his passion for the collection and acquisition of minerals remained unchecked.

Hauchecorne completed his Abitur at the Friedrich-Wilhelm-Gymnasium in Cologne and began his career with a practical year at the Oberbergamt Bonn. He then studied mineralogy and geognosy at the Bergakademie Berlin for six and a half years with Heinrich Ernst Beyrich , Gustav Rose and Christian Samuel Weiss and passed his legal traineeship in 1853 at the Bergakademie Freiberg . After graduating, he became the director of a state copper mine .

In 1856 he left the government to take up a job in private mining. But in 1858 he returned to government service and became a mountain juror in the area Mayen . From 1860 he was preparing for the second examination of the college at the Bonn Oberbergamt and was appointed mountain assessor in 1862 and mountain inspector in 1865 .

In 1866 he was in the ministerial department for the mountain - huts - and Saline being called to Berlin. He took over the editing of the journal for mining, metallurgy and saltworks and the position as deputy teacher at the Bergakademie Berlin . In the same year, after the death of the previous director, he was appointed director of the Bergakademie.

For a long time Heinrich Ernst Beyrich had requested the depiction of geological maps on a scale of 1: 25,000 for the Prussian land survey , but the production of these had always been rejected. Hauchecorne, who is now responsible for land registration in the ministry, supported the position of his former teacher. He succeeded in convincing the minister to create the maps and thus laid the foundation for the modern land survey. In 1876 he gathered the leading German geologists for this lengthy project and determined the type and scope of geodesy and the type of map design .

The Franco-German War of 1870/71 interrupted the preparations. Hauchecorne volunteered and at short notice took on a job as responsible for the mining, smelting and salt production in Haguenau in Alsace . He then headed the Imperial Tobacco Manufactory in Strasbourg before being a member of the so-called Border Regulation Commission accompanying the drawing of the border in Lorraine . The German side was supposed to secure the majority of the large iron ore deposits of Lorraine for Germany in the border negotiations . The experienced geologist Hauchecorne was so behind these goals that he is said to have staked every border post in Lorraine himself. His successful commitment was rewarded with the award of the Iron Cross and a meal in his honor by Chancellor Otto von Bismarck .

Hauchecorne was now known in the Prussian state. As a result, together with Beyrich, he was commissioned to found the Prussian Geological State Institute, a central state agency for coordinating geological land surveys in all Prussian provinces . In 1873 he became, together with Beyrich, 1st director of the state institute. This was combined with the Bergakademie Berlin and merged into an organizational unit, which also included the geological-mineralogical museum, the mining library taken over by the ministry and the chemical-metallurgical laboratory. Hauchecorne managed an extensive research and training center in Prussia.

Hauchecorne gained an international reputation as a cartographer with the extensive Prussian new recording that was now being tackled . He personally checked each sheet of the map series and made sure to present the often complicated geological situations in a clear and beautiful way. The color and display style he chose became a model for map design even beyond the borders of the empire. The International Geological Congress in Bologna in 1881 therefore entrusted him with the execution of the geological map of Europe on a scale of 1: 1.5 million. Hauchecorne and Beyrich presented the first sheet of this map in 1885 at the 3rd International Geological Congress in Berlin. Hauchecorne as Secretary General and Beyrich as President had a decisive influence on this congress and laid the foundation for the international standardization of geological maps. The coloring and design of the maps chosen by Hauchecorne found its way into the maps of numerous countries.

In 1890 Hauchecorne was appointed agent and chairman of an international conference to discuss the protection of industrial workers.

Wilhelm Hauchecorne died on January 15, 1900. He is buried in the family grave in the Trinity cemetery in Bergmannstrasse in Berlin-Kreuzberg . The tombstone was designed by Fritz Heinemann .

family

In 1855 he married Alwine Althans (born May 9, 1832), daughter of the secret mountain councilor Carl Ludwig Althans . The couple had several children;

  • Wilhelm Jr. (April 2, 1856 - October 2, 1940) Member of the Supreme Court in Berlin
  • Hermann Franz (born July 26, 1861)
  • Angelica Helene (born February 18, 1863)
  • Marie Elise (born September 11, 1868)
  • Alwine (born November 1, 1870)

His grandson Friedrich (1894–1938) was director of the Cologne Zoo from 1929 to 1938 . His great-granddaughter Amélie was a biologist and married the behavioral scientist Otto Koehler .

Honors

Works

  • Memorandum on the profitability of the extended railway company of the Rheinische Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft on the left bank of the Rhine in the Prussian Rhine province , DuMont-Schauberg, Cologne, 1855 ( digital copy )
  • Memorandum on the establishment of an Eifel railway from Düren to Schleiden in the Rhine Province , DuMont-Schauberg, Cologne, 1852 ( digitized version )
  • Sheets of memory of the 50-year duration of the Niederrheinische Musikfest. Dedicated to all participants by an earlier long-term contributor , Cologne 1868 ( Textarchiv - Internet Archive )
  • Frank Eberhardt: The father of the Prussian Geological State Institute . In: Berlin monthly magazine ( Luisenstädtischer Bildungsverein ) . Issue 10, 1997, ISSN  0944-5560 , p. 72-76 ( luise-berlin.de ).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ State Geological Services in Germany: Hauchecorn appointment document. Retrieved May 7, 2020 .
personal data
SURNAME Hauchecorne, Wilhelm
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Hauchecorne, Heinrich Lambert Wilhelm (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German geologist and first president of the Prussian State Geological Institute in Berlin
DATE OF BIRTH August 13, 1828
PLACE OF BIRTH Aachen
DATE OF DEATH January 15, 1900
Place of death Berlin