Gotthard Fliegel

Walter Gotthard Waldemar Mead ( born December 28, 1873 in Nieder- Dammer at Steinau, Silesia, † June 22, 1947 in Kleinmachnow near Berlin) was a German geologist.

Life

His father, Julius Mead, had a manor in Lower Silesia. Mead attended from 1884 to 1893, Maria Magdalena Gymnasium in Breslau. After high school he studied geology at the University of Breslau. Fritz Frech, Professor of Geology and Paleontology, promoted Fliegel, who with the work " The distribution of the marine Upper Carboniferous in South and East Asia " received his doctorate in 1898. Fliegel went in the same year as assistant to Clemens Schlüter to Bonn at the Geological- Palaeontological Institute. 1903 began his work at the Prussian Geological Survey in Berlin. In 1911 he became District Geologist, 1920 State Geologist and Division Director in 1923. Since 1919 he has also served as an adjunct professor at the Agricultural College in Berlin. The Nazis made ​​sure that he was prematurely retired in 1934. Fliegel 1907 married the daughter of a factory owner from Menden (Sauerland). From this marriage came three daughters and one son.

Performance

The particular merit of the Silesian Gotthard Fliegel was to investigate the geology of the Rhineland, especially the Lower Rhine with its lignite areas. Together with Wilhelm Wunstorf he published in 1910 completely new insights into the geology of the Lower Rhine Basin with its lignite deposits. He thus made the groundwork for today's lignite mining. Fliegel sat particularly to ensure that scientific knowledge has been translated into actionable results. His persuasion It was thanks to that basic research was connected in geology with applied science. His numerous essays and books reveal that he was always connected as scientists practice. Many young geologists who Fliegel has trained have been influenced in this sense.