Wilhelm Otto Dietrich

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Wilhelm Otto Dietrich (born July 30, 1881 in Senden near Neu-Ulm , † March 26, 1964 in Berlin ) was a German paleontologist .

He was the son of a mill director, went to high school in Ulm and studied geology and palaeontology at the TH Stuttgart and the University of Tübingen from 1899 to 1904 , where he received his doctorate in 1903 under Ernst Koken (oldest Danube gravel on the Immendingen –Ulm route ). He then continued his studies at the Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg to further his training in petrography . In 1904 he became assistant to Ernst Anton Wülfing at the Geological-Mineralogical Institute of the TH Danzig , which was newly founded at that time and where he was involved in the development of the department. In 1907 he had to cure himself in Switzerland because of an otosclerosis , which ultimately left him completely deaf in the course of his life. In 1908 he became Eberhard Fraas's assistant in the Royal Natural History Cabinet in Stuttgart and was involved in paleontological excavations of Ice Age mammals in Steinheim an der Murr , including giant deer and a mammoth that was exhibited in the Stuttgart museum in 1910. In 1911 he became assistant to Wilhelm von Branca in the Geological-Paleontological Institute and Museum of the Humboldt University in Berlin . He stayed there for the rest of his career, becoming chief assistant and curator (after von Branca under Josef Felix Pompeckj and Hans Stille ). In 1959 he retired. However, he continued to work at the institute, in whose basement he had moved after a bombing in World War II. He died of pneumonia.

In addition to mammalian palaeontology, he also looked at foraminifera, corals, mussels and snails in the museum's collections. In terms of mammals, he preferred the African fauna from the Tertiary and Quaternary, especially elephants, predators and ungulates, but also monkeys and rodents, whereby he evaluated the Tendaguru expeditions and other expeditions such as that of Kohl. For many years he wrote reports of new mammalian fossil finds in the New Yearbook of Mineralogy, Geology and Paleontology.

In 1957 he received the Hans Stille Medal . In 1942 he became an honorary member of the Palaeontological Society and he was an honorary member of the Association for Patriotic Natural History Württemberg (1956) and the Upper Rhine Geological Association (1959). In 1962 he was awarded the Silver Patriotic Order of Merit .

He married Lotte Trendelenburg in 1921; their son died on the Eastern Front in World War II.

literature

  • WD Heinrich, Obituary in Zeitschrift für Geologische Wissenschaften, Volume 10, 1982, p. 883
  • R. Daber , Reports of the Geological Society of the GDR, Volume 10, 1965, pp. 99-106
  • W. Gross, obituary in New Yearbook for Geology and Paleontology, 1964, p. 385

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Dietrich Neue Riesenhirschreste from the Swabian Diluvium , annual notebooks of the Verein für vaterländische Naturkunde Württemberg, Volume 65, 1909, pp. 132–161, Elephas primigenius Fraasi , annual notebooks Verein vaterl. Naturk., Vol. 68, 1912, pp. 42-106
  2. ^ Honorary members of the Society for Natural History in Württemberg
  3. ^ New Germany , October 6, 1962, p. 4
personal data
SURNAME Dietrich, Wilhelm Otto
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German paleontologist
DATE OF BIRTH July 30, 1881
PLACE OF BIRTH Send
DATE OF DEATH March 26, 1964
Place of death Berlin