Dr Hans Karl Becker

Onze oproep over de publicaties van Becker aan onze Duitse kameraden in speleoland heeft een mooi resultaat gekregen. Van Gerhard Stein kregen we het volgende mailtje:

Hans Karl Becker was the president of the "Verein für Höhlenkunde in Frankfurt am Main" from 1922 (the founding of this club) to the end (due to the political system in Germany) in 1937/1938.

In World War I, Hans Karl Becker was "Heeresgeologe" (this means something like military geologist") in Belgium and visited some Caves there.

The whole collection of caving books, papers and surveys of Hans Karl Becker were lost in World War 2, when the house of Hans Karl Becker in Frankfurt burned down in 1944, like the whole city of Frankfurt. So today we have no more of the original surveys.

But in my collection (Höhlenkataster Hessen) I have copies of a lot of the publications from Hans Karl Becker. I will sent you the scans of:
-  Die alten Höhlenflüsse der Lomme und Lesse. Published in "Speläologisches Jahrbuch 1923"
-  Kleiner Leitfaden der Höhlenkunde, Frankfurt am Main 1923 (also published in a  reprint in 1985 by the "Höhlenforschergruppe Rhein-Main") I will sent you a copy of the reprint.

There is also an other publication "Leitfaden der Höhlenkunde" by Hans Karl Becker. It has more pages then the "Kleiner Leitfaden", but the text about the caves in Belgium is the same as in the "Kleiner Leitfaden".

Both works "Leitfaden der Höhlenkunde" and "Kleiner Leitfaden der Höhlenkunde" were - due to the times (in 1923 the club had no money for printing a book) - multiplied with typewriters! And also the included surveys were copied by hand and do not look like "real" surveys. All other surveys are lost...

Gerhard Stein

Ik heb de tekst en tekeningen in een aparte pagina op dit blog gezet. Je kunt ernaartoe via de link: Dr Hans Karl Becker, links boven aan deze pagina.
Hieronder alleen zijn topo van de Nou Maulin, getekend tijdens zijn dienstverband in 1918.

topo Dr. Hans Karl Becker published in 1923