Wolfgang Pillewizer

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Wolfgang Pillewizer (born July 4, 1911 in Steyr ; † February 8, 1999 in Vienna ) was an Austrian cartographer , geomorphologist , glaciologist and mountain researcher .

Life

Wolfgang Pillewizer grew up in an educated and very progressive family. The mother, Michaela Pillewizer, was the first female student enrolled at the Technical University in Graz and later worked together with her father, the grammar school director Emerich Pillewizer, to found and maintain several girls' schools in Austria .

After graduating from the secondary school in Linz , Wolfgang Pillewizer studied geography and natural sciences at the University of Graz from 1930 to 1935 . Since 1932 he was a member of the NSDAP and was also a member of the SA and the NS-Lecturer Association. In Graz took place on 21 December 1934 his promotion to Doctor of Philosophy , and in 1935 his exam for teachers at secondary schools. From 1935 to 1936 he completed a probationary year as a teacher at the Realgymnasium in Graz , before he worked as an assistant to Richard Finsterwalder at the Technical University in Hanover from 1937 to 1939 , where he participated in expeditions to Jostedalsbre in southwest Norway (1937) and to Spitzbergen (1938 ) participated. From 1939 to 1942, Wolfgang Pillewizer worked as head of department for the cartographic department of the Reichsamt für Landesaufnahme in Berlin . 1940 habilitation he did for the subject of Geography at the University of Graz and in 1942 at the Technical University in Hanover for civil servant teachers of Geography and Cartography .

On April 1, 1940, Wolfgang Pillewizer was called up for military service, but was already able to work professionally again in May when he took part in an expedition to the Libyan Sahara under Otto Schulz-Kampfhenkel as a member of the Dora Special Command . He was then in its " Research Season zbV taken", where he worked in the Ukraine , in the Balkans , most recently in northern Norway and Finnish - Lapland and then as Hauptkartograph worked at the headquarters. In 1945 he became an American prisoner of war , where he remained until 1947.

From 1947 to 1957, Wolfgang Pillewizer was head of the cartographic department , then technical director of Karl Wenschow GmbH, Geographical Institute in Munich . In 1954 he led the scientific group of the German-Austrian Himalaya - Karakoram expedition.

In 1958, Wolfgang Pillewizer was appointed to what was then the Dresden University of Technology, where he took over the chair for cartography . After the chair holder Günther Köhler died unexpectedly, Wolfgang Pillewizer was given the provisional management of the Institute of Geography in September 1958 , which he held until Ernst Neef took over the chair in October 1959. In 1960 he also became the first director of the newly established Institute for Cartography at the Technical University, from 1961 Technical University of Dresden . As a result of the 3rd university reform in the German Democratic Republic (GDR), the Cartography Institute was renamed the Cartography Science Area in autumn 1968 and subordinated to the newly established Geodesy and Cartography Section . Wolfgang Pillewizer remained Head for the academic sector and was in addition deputy of the section director for planning and management of science and from 1969 Deputy Director of the Section Walter Zill . Due to the development of the political situation in the GDR, the tightening of the secrecy regulations for topographic maps as well as plans to introduce the elective cartography for geodesic students at the Technical University of Vienna , Wolfgang Pillewizer decided in 1970 to give up the chair for cartography in Dresden and - after he had taken over the teaching duties of a vacant chair for geography in Göttingen for one semester - to go to Vienna as a professor . From 1971 to 1981 he was a full professor at the new Institute for Cartography and Reproduction Technology at the Technical University, from 1975 Technical University of Vienna, the establishment of which required all his efforts.

Wolfgang Pillewizer was particularly interested in glacier research and the use of photogrammetry, especially for high mountain and glacier mapping. He was a participant in high mountain and polar expeditions and led the first independent polar expeditions of the GDR in 1962 and 1964 to Spitzbergen. During his activity in Dresden he expanded his field of activity also in the direction of thematic cartography . Two points on Svalbard were named after Wolfgang Pillewizer - the Pillewizerfjellet was one of the main measuring points from 1938 and Pillewizerknatten is the name of a point for speed measurements on the Gänsegletscher . In addition, a ridge spur of the Venediger Group in Austria - the 3000 m high Pillewizer , approx. 2 km north of the Großvenediger - was named after him in 1988 , where he had carried out glaciological surveying work on the Untersulzbachkees .

Wolfgang Pillewizer was married and leaves behind a son and a daughter. He was buried at the Hietzingen cemetery .

Publications (selection)

The Bibliography of Wolfgang Pillewizer includes about 30 scientific papers and several popular science books . Here is a selection:

  • The cartographic and glacier research results of the German Spitzbergen expedition (habilitation); 1940.
  • Between desert and glacier ice. German researchers in the Karakoram ; 1960, 2nd edition 1961.
  • Glacier land in the Arctic ; 1965.
  • The thematic country mapping . In: Vermessungstechnik , Vol. 16, No. 6, 1968, pp. 217-223 and No. 7, 1968, pp. 271-273.
  • Thematic recording maps as a follow-up production of topographic mapping . In: Wissenschaftliche Zeitschrift der TU Dresden, Vol. 19, No. 1, 1970, pp. 141–144.

Honors

literature

Web links

annotation

  1. ↑ In Petschel is February 2 cited as the date of death. But since the date February 8, mentioned in other sources, is also confirmed by the obituary, this should probably be the correct date.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Harry Waibel : Servants of many masters. Former Nazi functionaries in the Soviet Zone / GDR. Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main et al. 2011, ISBN 978-3-631-63542-1 , p. 249.
  1. ^ Hermann Häusler: Forschungsstaffel zbV A special unit for the military-geographical assessment of the site in World War II . MILGEO No. 21/2007 pages 177 - 178
personal data
SURNAME Pillewizer, Wolfgang
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian cartographer, geomorphologist, glaciologist and high mountain researcher
DATE OF BIRTH 4th July 1911
PLACE OF BIRTH Steyr
DATE OF DEATH February 8, 1999
Place of death Vienna