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In the guest blog, geologist and librarian Thomas Hofmann looks at three natural scientists who are primarily known to insiders, but who created something lasting in their fields.
The story of the research family begins on Sunday, August 16, 1812 in Prague, Karl Fritsch's birthday. The child of poor but ambitious parents was sent to school at the age of four. That was probably not a good idea, as Fritsch admits in his autobiography: "Because I didn't make any particular progress in the subjects I was learning due to a lack of talent."
Little Karl was a spectator, an observer: "Already as a four-year-old boy, I watched the rain for hours and, without letting anything stop me, followed all the phenomena in a thunderstorm, although I trembled out of fear and prayed to God." This should set the course for his later life. At the age of 15, he discovered the observations of the k. k. University Observatory, which was to determine his life from then on: “From that point on, I was a meteorologist with heart and soul”. The Prague Observatory became a place of “reverence and longing” for him.
From the 1830s onwards he devoted himself to studying mathematics, geometry, physics and practical astronomy at Prague University. Because "I lacked any talent for abstract and mystical studies. I had already begun to make meteorological observations myself and to partially manufacture the necessary instruments for this purpose." At the same time, he studied law in order to earn a meager but secure income as a concept intern in the civil service.
It was during this time that he met Karl Kreil (1798 to 1862), an adjunct at the Prague University Observatory. When Kreil went on a trip for several weeks in the fall of 1844, Fritsch, who had now published relevant scientific work, took over the work at the observatory. When Kreil toured up and down the country through the crown lands of Austria between 1846 and 1850 for his geomagnetic and geographical location determinations, he was its adlatus. Of course, he didn't just limit himself to henchman activities. He undertook his own meteorological and climatological research, but also in the field of "plant geography and other related branches of science".
In the early phase of the Academy of Sciences founded in Vienna in 1847, when it was clear that a "Central Institute for Meteorology" should be founded, Kreil and Fritsch were called from Prague. They were to become the men of the first hour in Vienna, the Central Institute for Meteorological and Magnetic Observations (today: GeoSphere Austria), founded by imperial handwriting on July 23, 1851.
1862 was Fritsch's fateful year. His wife of 19 years, Karoline, died in August. In December, Kreil, the director of the Centralanstalt, "almost my only patron and friend in my scientific endeavors since 1839," died. But the coming year brought him new happiness. On May 5, 1863 he married Marie Steinwender. In August, Carl Jelinek became the new director and Fritsch was promoted to deputy director. The following February, Karl and Maria Fritsch's son Karl junior was born. The increasingly ailing Fritsch always went on vacation to the city of Salzburg in the summer months. When he retired in the spring of 1872, the Fritsch family moved from Vienna-Wieden (Favoritenstrasse) to the city of Salzburg (Rupertgasse), where he took over the management of the Salzburg meteorological station and remained scientifically active. His heart belonged to living nature, to phenological observations of the animal and plant world. In 1877 he published the 25th annual phenological report and died in Salzburg on December 26, 1879.
The life of the boy, who was born in Vienna but grew up in Salzburg, initially had the same characteristics as his father. In high school, where he graduated in 1882, it was the natural science subjects that he loved. As a teenager, he traveled and expanded his knowledge through collecting. In the winter semester of 1882/83 he began studying botany at the University of Innsbruck. The next year he went to the University of Vienna, where he received his doctorate in 1886 ("Contribution to the anatomy of the genus Rubus") under Julius Wieser (1838 to 1916), who held a professorship for anatomy and physiology of plants. Three years later, Karl Fritsch junior started working as a volunteer at the Natural History Museum.
In 1890, the year of his habilitation, he was a demonstrator at the plant physiology institute under his teacher Julius Wieser. In April 1892 he moved to the Botanical Garden under the direction of Anton Kerner von Marilaun. As his assistant, he supervised his doctoral students. Kerner only assigned the topics; Fritsch did the rest, i.e. the scientific supervision of the doctoral theses. The next step in his career followed in 1895 when he was appointed associate professor of botany at the University of Vienna. After Kerner's death in 1898, he took over the interim management of the botanical garden and museum until Richard Wettstein was appointed Kerner's successor in 1899.
The next stop in Karl junior's life was Graz. Constantin Freiherr von Ettingshausen (born 1826) died here on February 1, 1897. As an old master, he covered the field of botany and also paleobotany, which was then still called phytopaleontology. Instead of one Ordinariate, two Extraordinariate should now be created. This was Fritsch's hour. He succeeded Ettingshausen on March 27, 1900 as an associate professor "with the title and character of a full professor." The university career continued steadily.
With effect from April 1, 1905, he was appointed full professor of botany. In 1912 he was dean of the University of Graz and was elected rector in 1924, which also gave him the title of court councilor. Among his works, the “Excursion Flora for Austria” has an outstanding position. The first edition (664 pages) appeared in 1897, a second edition (725 pages) followed twelve years later, and the third edition from 1922 consisted of more than 900 pages as "Excursion flora for Austria and the former Austrian neighboring areas".
Fritsch, "a more contemplative and at the same time cheerful nature", was not only required to advance research and teaching in Graz, he also had to solve major tasks of a spatial nature and in terms of equipment. The acquisition of the herbarium from Josef Kerner from Marilaun, Anton's brother, formed the basis of the Graz University Herbarium with 65,000 plants, together with Fritsch's own herbarium. It continued to grow steadily and today has around 1.2 million objects. In 1907 he began to campaign for the creation of an institute for systematic botany. Three years later he also took over the management of the botanical garden. And again three years later, construction began on the building in the Botanical Garden (Holteigasse 6, today: Plant Sciences Department of the Institute of Biology at the University of Graz). Due to the war, it was not possible to move into it until 1916.
The main lecture in systematic botany and morphology was "one of his favorite activities". He must have been a pleasant teacher. "Fritsch was one of the fair, mild and never sarcastic examiners." The scholar found balance in music; In his limited free time he trained as a bandmaster.
Posthumously in 1936, an alley in the Schallmoos district of Salzburg, where he grew up, was named after him. His Graz colleagues came up with something special. In 1994 they founded the specialist magazine "Fritschiana" - volume number 100 was published in 2022. But that's not all: each volume contains a short biography of Karl Fritsch, who lives on.
When Karl Fritsch died in Graz in the evening hours of January 17, 1934, he left behind three sons, Paul, Karl and Julius. None devoted themselves to a scientific profession. It was only Paul Fritsch's son Wolfgang (1928 to 1970) who turned back to the realm of nature as a geologist. His sister Renate (born in 1925) still has fond memories of their grandfather. "During excursions, walks or our family's summer vacation in Salzburg, he never tired of inspiring me about botany," says the granddaughter.
Wolfgang, the “quiet, overly modest-seeming student,” completed his geology studies in Graz in 1952. Three years later he found a job as a geologist at the mining company in Hüttenberg in Carinthia. His professional interests as a crystalline geologist went far beyond mining, including the classification of crystalline slate. He was unable to complete his advanced habilitation at the Montan University in Leoben.
His death was tragic and far too early. "On July 31, 1970, the mining geologist at Hüttenberg drove into a mining site after several shots were fired and was seriously injured by suddenly falling ore. Despite the quickest medical help, he died at the entrance to the tunnel." (Thomas Hofmann, March 20, 2023)