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Wars in the Middle East almost always lead to oil supply shortages. The dependence of numerous countries on black gold is constantly becoming apparent. Even ambitious efforts in the renewable energy sector do not yet offer a full replacement. The 1950s, when Austria was able to supply itself entirely with domestic oil, are long gone. Today – according to the responsible Ministry of Finance – just nine percent of the oil required comes from domestic sources.
The Galician oil fields made Austria a big player in the petroleum sector in the 19th century, as crude oil was called in the early days. With Hans Höfer, born in 1843, the monarchy had an expert whose petroleum knowledge was recognized worldwide not only back then, but also today. A first look at Wikipedia reveals details of his career.
The center is the Styrian city of Leoben with the Montanuniversität (MUL), where he enjoyed his education and taught as a professor from 1882 to the summer semester of 1910. In addition to the MUL main building, which opened in autumn 1910, Höfer-Heimhalt-Straße was named after him in 1937. As a geologist and mining expert at the interface between research, teaching and practice, he was broadly positioned in terms of content.
“One of the most eminent European petroleum geologists,” writes Adam Wróblewski in his 1924 obituary in the Bulletin of the Society of American Petroleum Geologists (AAPG). More than 50 years later, Edgar Wesley Owen finds almost identical words in his petroleum monograph "Trek of the Oil Finders: A History of Exploration for Petroleum"; he calls him "one of the most prominent European petroleum geologists".
Transatlantic appreciation began during Höfer's lifetime. When his textbook "Petroleum and its Relatives" was published in the fall of 1888, he cited honorary membership of the prestigious American Institute of Mining Engineers (AIME), which he had been awarded on February 24th. The association, founded in 1871, had close contacts with Europe. The third honorary membership awarded went to the Leoben Ordinary Peter Tunner (1809–1897) in 1873.
In 1924, the AAPG also honored the now ennobled Hans Höfer von Heimhalt and also awarded him honorary membership on March 26, 1924 in Houston (Texas). What the gentlemen didn't know at the time was that the honoree had already died on February 9th.
When Höfer ended his active professional life in Leoben as a university professor in 1910, the list of his national and international honors was long. One should be highlighted: honorary membership in the Imperial Moscow Society of Natural Scientists (MOIP) in Russia, founded in 1805. Anyone looking for his grave can find it at the Vienna Central Cemetery (Group 22, Row 1). In addition to names and dates of life, there are also titles such as "K.K. Hofrat", "Dr. mont. h.c." and "Knight of the Order of the Iron Crown III. K." as well as his profession, "Emer. o.ö. Professor at the k.k. Montan-Hochschule in Leoben" carved in stone (red granite).
Höfer's legacy lives on today. When honoring deserving researchers, he is the namesake twice. The Austrian Geological Society (ÖGG) has been offering the Hans Höfer von Heimhalt Prize for all areas of applied geosciences since 2014. The Austrian Society for Energy Sciences (ÖGEW), founded in 1960, has been awarding the Hans Höfer Medal for outstanding achievements in energy science since 1973.
Hans Höfer was born on May 17, 1843 in Elbogen (today: Loket in Bohemia), where he attended elementary and secondary school. His preference for natural sciences was already evident back then. In 1863 and 1864 he graduated from the k.k. Bergakademie in Leoben (today: MUL) the technical schools for mining and metallurgy with excellent success. "Without neglecting his studies, he also enjoyed student life in Leoben to the fullest and was a co-founder of the 'Tauriscia' corps," his son Hans writes about him in an unpublished CV.
Peter Tunner, the director at the time, “one of whose favorites was Höfer,” offered him a position in the ironworks in Neuberg/Mürz. The young Höfer refused. He wanted to work as a geologist and became a miner in the gold mines of Nagyág in Transylvania (today: Săcărâmb, Romania). At his own request he spent the years 1867 and 1868 at the k.k. Geological Institute in Vienna (today: GeoSphere Austria). Here he carried out geological mapping and, with Franz Foetterle, developed a map of the occurrence and circulation of coal in the monarchy (1868). Höfer's time in Vienna, where he worked as a k.k. Montan engineer also heard lectures by Eduard Suess, which was beneficial for his technical knowledge.
In a letter dated January 12, 1869 from Klagenfurt, where he had taken over the management of the newly founded mountain school at the beginning of the year, he thanked the Reichsanstalt "for what I learned there, which opened up a new circle of perspective for me not only in geology but also in mining."
During his time in Klagenfurt, which lasted until 1879, he was hired by Hans Graf Wilczek as an expedition geologist for his polar expedition in the summer and autumn of 1872. Höfer's task was to research the geology of Spitsbergen and Novaya Zemlya. "The greywacke (Silurian and Devonian) was developed in Novaya Zemlja as lime, black and green (then solid) slate, especially as quartzite," he wrote in 1874. After his return from the far north, in February 1873 he married his wife Johanna, who came from Wolfsberg (Carinthia), with whom he had three children, daughter "Hansi" and sons Hans and Hugo, both of whom also worked in mining.
A trip to America from June to September 1876 as a reporter at the World's Fair in Philadelphia (Pennsylvania) set the course for his future career. The trip brought - as his son put it - "the impulse to study petroleum issues in more detail and to specialize in this field of knowledge, in which Höfer found himself most comfortable and comfortable until the end of his life." The resulting publication “The Petroleum Industry of North America: in Historical, Economic, Geological and Technical Regards” (1877) was groundbreaking. It was the first summary of the then young branch of petroleum engineering. The findings from America that many oil deposits are tied to geological structures (anticlines = fold crests) brought new impetus to oil production in native Galicia and the breakthrough of the "anticline theory". From then on, Höfer visited “all major coal, ore and petroleum mining areas” and worked as a mining geological expert.
From Klagenfurt, Höfer went to the Mining Academy in Příbram, Bohemia, as a full professor in 1879. There he gained an excellent reputation as a teacher, which was reflected in increasing student numbers. In the late autumn of 1881 it worked in Leoben. After five semesters in Příbram, he was the first to accept an appointment from the professorial staff as a full public professor of mineralogy, geology, paleontology and deposit science at the local k.k. Mining Academy.
Here he taught his "favorite subjects", a wide range of geoscientific topics. According to the course catalog ("program") for the 1882/83 academic year, these were: mineralogy including exercises for mineral identification, geology with knowledge of rocks and formations with regard to usable minerals, paleontology with an overview of the most important fossils for recognizing the formations, and deposit theory with a focus on ore, coal and salt deposits and their respective specifics. In a word: Höfer taught the Leoben students the nuts and bolts of geological fundamentals. In addition, in the winter semester there was a two-hour extraordinary lecture "On Petroleum" with a focus on the deposits in Galicia ("formation, economic conditions, prospecting and extraction...").
From 1887 to 1889 he was director in Leoben, a position that corresponds to today's rector. At the 50th anniversary of the Mining Academy on October 11, 1890, he gave the speech with a historical review. "The systematic mining studies were first created in the world by Maria Theresia."
“A Request” deserves mention. This short note in the Austrian Journal for Mining and Metallurgy (January 1899) identifies Höfer as a supporter of Darwin's theories. In order to close the “gaps in the geological material,” he asked that finds be “send in, be it just for identification or as a generous gift to the Mining Academy Collections.”
Incidentally, this still applies today; Anyone who wants to promote research should make finds accessible to research.
After his first work from 1877 on "The Petroleum Industry of North America", the world's first textbook on petroleum was published in the autumn of 1888, Höfer's 179-page work with the unwieldy name: "Petroleum and its relatives - history, physical and chemical properties, occurrence, origin, discovery and extraction". The author says in the foreword: "The present work is completely new in its kind; it is the first attempt to give a general natural history of petroleum and its relatives." Here you can find fundamental things, such as the animal origin of petroleum, which was still being discussed at the time, but was beyond doubt for him.
He realized that the conversion of organic matter to petroleum could take place at relatively low temperatures, if these temperatures lasted long enough. The book became a classic and was published in 1922 in a fourth, revised edition (384 pages). A lot has changed in the intervening 32 years. Höfer was emeritus, was raised to the nobility in 1911, from then on called himself Höfer von Heimhalt and moved from Leoben to Vienna-Landstrasse (Hintzerstrasse 10).
The political world order was fundamentally changed by the First World War. As an oil expert, he had his own point of view in February 1922: "It [oil] helped decide the world war and was and has repeatedly become the focus of attention in the subsequent negotiations between the victorious states, so that the diplomats also dealt and will deal with oil." In the energy sector, no stone was left unturned. "Oil operation is displacing steam operation."
But that's not enough. Together with Carl Engler he edited the multi-volume work "Petroleum, its Physics, Chemistry, Geology, Technology and its Business" (1907–1925).
There is no question that Höfer-Heimhalt has found his place in the professional world as an internationally recognized petroleum expert. Wolfgang Schollnberger, the Austrian-born petroleum expert and recipient of the Hans Höfer Medal (2008), praises him as a bridge builder between geology and oil exploration. "Hans Höfer von Heimhalt was one of the early pioneers, who brought the science of geology into exploration."
But Höfer also wrote numerous works on other geological topics, which once again underline the broad approach with which he took up his professorship in Leoben. The range extends from the minerals of Carinthia (1871), the ice age of Carinthia (1873), faults (1886), the mineability of the deposits (1901), groundwater and springs: a hydrogeology of the subsoil (135 pages, 1912) to the geothermal conditions of the coal basins of Austria (179 pages, 1917). (Thomas Hofmann, April 24, 2026)