Max Westermaier

Max Westermaier (also: Maximilian Westermaier; born May 6, 1852 in Kaufbeuren; † May 1, 1903 in of Fribourg, Switzerland ) was a German botanist.

Life and work

Max Westermaier was born as the fourth son of the royal Bavarian lawyer Joseph Westermaier and his wife Maria nee Zimmermann in Kaufbeuren. He attended high school at Kempten. At the Ludwig- Maximilians- University of Munich and at the local Technical College, he studied chemistry, mineralogy and descriptive natural sciences and became an active member of the Catholic Student Association K.St.V. Ottonia Munich in CT. In 1873 he passed his teaching exams. The professors Ludwig Radlkofer and Carl Wilhelm von Naegeli dedicated to young scientists as botany assistant and under the direction of the latter, he made his award-winning dissertation: The first cell divisions in the embryo of Capsella bursa pastoris.

1878 Max Westermaier went to Berlin to Professor Simon Schwendenerstrasse and supported him in building his new Botanical Institute, 1879 he received his habilitation. As a result, the German Academy of Natural Scientists Leopoldina appointed him in Halle ( Saale ) as member and one provisionally transferred him after the death of Robert Caspary ( † 1887) whose Botany Department at the University of Königsberg. Because of his dedicated commitment to the Catholic Church and its representatives, however, an appointment as professor came. Therefore Westermaier 1890 followed a call to the Lyceum of Freising, where hardly had time for scientific research him.

Max Westermaier died on 1 May 1903, a volvulus. The Chair took over his former assistant Alfred origin ( 1876-1952 ).

Appreciation

The University of Freiburg writes about the botanist:

"He attempted to demonstrate again and again that there can be no contradiction between scientific knowledge and faith in God, and laid by his personal life and work in an impressive way witness for Christianity from. For this reason, the preparations for the beatification Max Wester Maiers by the Catholic Church were finally in 1948 by Bishop François Charrière taken. "

Westermaier found his final resting place in Freiburg's Jesuit Church of St. Michael, from where you transferred his bones in 1969 in the crypt of the university chapel and sat him the inscription " Servus Dei " ( Servant of God ) on the grave stone. The beatification process has not yet been introduced, but there is the " Association of Friends of Max Wester Maiers " which advocates for this concern.