Wilhelm Witter

Wilhelm Witter (born November 11, 1866 in Altenau , † October 16, 1949 in Halle ) was a German metalworking engineer and prehistoric researcher. His life's work comprises three areas: Chairman of the Hamburg State Smelting Laboratory, consulting engineer in the design and construction of metal smelting works, researcher into the oldest German copper and bronze metallurgy in prehistoric times.

education

Karl August Wilhelm Louis Witter was born on November 11, 1866 in Altenau / Harz and baptized on December 2, 1866 in the Evangelical Lutheran Church of St. Nicholas in Altenau. His father, Karl Heinrich Christian Theodor Witter, was a carpenter in Altenau at the time, and later a carpenter at the fiscal silver works in St. Andreasberg / Harz. Wilhelm Witter began his professional career as a metalworker at the age of 16 in 1883 at the same silver smelter in Andreasberg. From 1886 he attended the mountain school in Clausthal to complete his training as a metalworker. There he heard lectures from engineer Arnim on the art of experimentation, teaching year 1886/87, chemistry, 1887/88, metallurgy, 1888/89, and from Bergrat G. Köhler a lecture on accounting, 1887/88. A lecture on quantitative analysis by engineer Arnim is also not clear among the surviving handwritten lecture notes written by Witter, the year is not clear. At the same time there is a diary of the daily "shifts", attested by the Silberhütte St. Andreasberg from August 1887 to July 1888 (1st mountain school year) and from August 1888 to July 1889 (2nd mountain school year). All of these documents are in the university archive of Clausthal University of Technology . Noticed for his outstanding achievements, he received approval from the Board of Trustees of the United Bergakademie and Bergschule to continue studying at the Bergakademie. He also received a scholarship from the Oberbergamt in Clausthal to finance his studies at the Bergakademie. After completing his studies, he left the university as a metalworker and inorganic chemist.

Career

After temporary practical work at the iron and steel works in Eisleben and Lautenthal , Wilhelm Hampe brought him back to the Bergakademie in 1891, where he worked in the Kgl. Chemical laboratory of the Bergakademie was active. In 1894 he got a job as laboratory manager at the Fiscal Copper and Silver Works in Altenau. But just one year later, in 1895, he was appointed director of the Hamburg and Münzwardein state smelting laboratory in the Hanseatic city. Here he succeeded in securing a good reputation for the institution in a short time. As we know from the experience with radioactivity from this time, no great attention was paid to the health dangers of the natural sciences. The dangers of toxic gases and vapors that arise in the chemical analysis of ores and alloys were apparently not recognized in Hamburg either. The consequence was that Wilhelm Witter soon had health problems that gradually increased. Eventually his health was so bad that he had to retire in 1906. It took several years to restore his health. The presentation is based on Witter's handwritten curriculum vitae, which can be found in the archive of the Leopoldina Academy in Halle. Then he worked as an industrial consultant in the construction and operation of metal works in Germany and Europe. When building new smelters, there was an interest in using scientific advances in the chemistry of metals and metal compounds for new concepts in smelting. Here Wilhelm Witter proved to be an extremely creative and innovative specialist, not only in the use of new chemical findings, but also in the design of new types of equipment. Numerous patents, which were registered in his name or under that of the commissioning company, testify to his creative abilities.

With Pape and Jules Babé in Honfleur (France) , Witter built a new type of plant for volatilizing zinc as zinc oxide ( Pape-Witter-Babé process ). A similar facility was built in Oker between 1905 and 1907 . Another task was the extraction of tin from tin slag and poor ores, using this process a large plant was built in Northfleet in England and in 1917 in Duisburg . A large-format photo work of the Duisburg tin works can be found in the Rheinisch-Westfälische Wirtschaftsarchiv Cologne (responsible for Duisburg) with a handwritten entry: “Mr. Witter, a reminder of the building and the commissioning of the Duisburg tin works 1916-17 ”. In 1922 he took over the construction of a plant for the extraction of mixed tin in Braunschweig and a similar plant in 1926 in Trotha near Halle. Here he also took up a permanent position as the smelter of the facility he built himself. In a biography of W. Witter, C. Schiffner goes into detail on this phase of life in his compilation "Men of the Metallurgy" (1942). His patents were mainly on the ironworks in Trotha and on the M. Lissauer company in Cologne.

Retirement and Prehistory Research

In 1931 Witter retired from professional life. Through his residence in Halle / Saale he found contact with prehistory research. The two prehistory researchers at the University of Halle, Hans Hahne and Walther Schulz , for whom the numerous prehistoric artefacts of weapons, tools and jewelry made of copper and bronze in central German museums had long been a research desideratum, now succeeded in getting Wilhelm Witter interested in prehistory research. At the time, it was believed that the copper in these early objects came from the Orient. As a specialist in the smelting of ores, it was clear to Witter that a precise chemical analysis of the objects, especially the minor admixtures, would enable conclusions to be drawn about the ore deposit, as each deposit has a different profile of impurities. Copper ores can contain small amounts of ores with tin, lead, silver, nickel, cobalt, antimony, arsenic and other substances at the same time. During smelting, these substances are transferred to the copper. If one had not processed copper from different deposits together, one can deduce the origin from the composition of the examined object. Much resistance had to be overcome in realizing this basic idea. First of all, the museums were unwilling to allow their valuable, unique copper finds to be taken for chemical analysis and thereby damage the objects. So an examination method had to be found that would only cause minimal damage. Spectroscopic analysis was ideal for this. At that time, however, a quantitative method was not known. The professor at the Mineralogical Institute of the University of Halle Ferdinand von Wolff finally found a young colleague, Johannes Winkler, who developed a quantitative spectroscopic analysis (quantitative spectral analysis of copper alloys for the analysis of prehistoric bronzes, 1935). A willingness to collaborate in the museums has now been found for the minimal amounts of substance. In the period that followed, J. Winkler examined 250 objects at the Mineralogical Institute, and his successor, Helmut Otto, examined a further 1,100. A final difficulty was to find prehistoric deposits in order to compare their analysis with those of the objects. Here Witter found a competent interlocutor in the mineral deposit scientist W. Röpke from the Geological Institute of the University of Halle. After a long review of printed documents from earlier centuries about copper mining, slag finds from distant times and ore analyzes from possible deposits, the reconciliation of the finds could begin. The result was that 97% of the objects examined could be assigned to central German storage facilities. The result was a sensation. It was proven that in Central Germany an independent development of copper metallurgy took place. Witter goes into detail in his essay "How I became a researcher of prehistoric metal extraction" (1949) on this part of his life.

family

Wilhelm Witter was married to Auguste Trenkner (1866 - 1916) and after their death in second marriage to Clara-Luise Knauth (1883 - 1946). There are 5 children from the first marriage. The two sons Erich and Heinz each had a grandson, the daughter Helene had descendants of the family name Westphal and the daughter Margarethe descendants of the family name Wehefritz. The grandchildren in turn have numerous descendants (great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren).

meaning

Wilhelm Witter was the first (?) Or at least one of the first prehistory researchers to apply new scientific methods to the investigation of hidden traces in the legacy of prehistoric people and thus to find an objectively proven solution for unknown facts. In these cases, prehistory had previously relied on guesswork. In the case of Wilhelm Witter's research on the origin of copper and bronze in the early finds from the museums of Central Germany, the presumption of prehistoric research was clearly refuted - as shown in the curriculum vitae.

Honors

• Gustav Kossinna Prize 1936/1937 of the Reichsbund for German Prehistory (1937)
• Membership in the Leopoldina Academy of Sciences (1940)
• Honorary doctorate from the Clausthal Mining Academy (Dr.-Ing.E. h.) (1946)
• Honorary member of the Society of German Metalworkers and Miners (1947)
• Honorary doctorate from the University of Halle (Dr. phil.hc) (1948)

Publications (selection)

• The exploitation of the central German ore deposits in the early metal age (= the oldest ore extraction in the Nordic-Germanic area of ​​life. Vol. 1). - Leipzig 1938 (= Mannus library. Vol. 60)
• The knowledge of copper and bronze in the old world (= the oldest ore extraction in the Nordic-Germanic sphere of life. Vol. 2). - Leipzig 1938 (= Mannus library. Vol. 63)
• Handbook of the oldest prehistoric metallurgy in Central Europe (with Helmut Otto). - Leipzig 1952

literature

• Wilhelm Witter, the winner of the Gustav Kossinna Prize in 1937. In: Germanen-Erbe 2 (1937), pp. 317-318.
• Bicker, FK: Central Germany as an independent country of origin of the copper and bronze industry. A tribute to the work of W. Witter. In: Mitteldeutsche Volkheit 5 (1938), pp. 70–87
• Cover, Werner: Wilhelm Witter on his 75th birthday. In: Mannus 33 (1941), pp. 589-592
• Schiffner, C .: Wilhelm Witter. In: Men of the metal industry. - Freiberg 1942, pp. 169-172
• Schulz, Walther: On the seventy-fifth birthday of Wilhelm Witter. In: Nachrichtenblatt für deutsche Vorzeit 18 (1942), pp. 36–38
• Otto, Helmut: Wilhelm Witter in memory. In: Zeitschrift für Erzbergbau und Metallhüttenwesen 3 (1950), pp. 63–64
• Wilhelm Witter. In: Poggendorffs Biographisch-literarisches hand dictionary, Vol. 7a, Supplement. 1971, pp. 778-779

Autobiography

• How I became an explorer of prehistoric metal extraction. In: Annual Journal for Central German Prehistory 33 (1949), pp. 98-107

Web links 

• Member Post by William Witter at the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina , accessed on 26 March 2018th

Individual evidence

1. ^ Wilhelm Witter: Staatshüttenlaboratorium: Former: Publications: Inorganische und Angewandte Chemie: Universität Hamburg. Retrieved March 25, 2018 . 
2. ^ TU Clausthal - History and University Development. Retrieved March 25, 2018 .