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In the guest blog, geologist and librarian Thomas Hofmann shows important stages in the life of Eduard Suess, to whom Vienna also owes the first high-spring water pipeline.
Most monuments, plaques and statues commemorate generals or people from politics and art, while personalities from the (natural) sciences are in the minority. The question of where scientists can be located and the search for places of remembrance goes far beyond specifying places of residence and work (science tracing). If you follow the geologist, politician and long-time President of the Academy of Sciences (ÖAW) Eduard Suess, varied city walks (science trails) open up from the center to the Kahlenberg.
A memorial plaque for Eduard Suess, unveiled at the end of July 2022 at Afrikanergasse 9 in Vienna-Leopoldstadt, at the house where he lived and died, lists key details of his career: university professor and rector of the University of Vienna, President of the Academy of Sciences, honorary citizen of the City of Vienna and "father" of the first Viennese high spring water pipeline. There is no question that Suess, who was born in London on August 20, 1831 and died on April 26, 1914, was one of the greats of the natural sciences. The fact that he was also active as a politician, first in the Vienna City Council and then in the Reichstag, gives him a further dimension. In addition to Afrikanergasse, there are 19 other residential addresses known just around the corner in Novaragasse at numbers 49 and 28 and in Weintraubengasse. Suess also once lived at Große Mohrengasse 25 and Praterstrasse 35 with his wife Hermine and their seven children. His daughter Paula was married to the paleontologist Melchior Neumayer in April 1878 in St. Nepomuk Church (Praterstrasse). In 1899, the funeral service for Hermine, who was most recently the owner of the property at Afrikanergasse 9, took place.
When he took over a leather factory at Sechshaus number 114 in what is now the 15th district (Rudolfsheim-Fünfhaus), his father Adolf Heinrich Suess, who first lived in London and then in Prague, settled with his family in Vienna (Wollzeile 7). Eduard was sent ahead in the fall of 1845 and found Dr. Philipp Olschbauer's first place to stay at Schönlaterngasse number 8 (Innere Stadt), opposite the Basilisk House. From here it was only a few steps to the school. At that time, the academic high school was located at Bäckerstrasse 28 in the immediate vicinity of the former university location.
Suess received his further education at the Polytechnic, today's TU-Wien (Karlsplatz 13) in Vienna-Wieden. From here he went to the barricades in 1848 as a student and member of the academic legion, decorated with a hat and feather. He writes in his “Memoirs” (1916). "... and today when my path takes me through Bockgasse (today: Postgasse), I often think of the eventful hours I spent up there." Specifically, he mentions a red marble plaque at the old Dominican monastery (Postgasse 4a): "My post was at this plaque, high above the street, on the left side of the barricade (…)."
The young Suess used his geological and paleontological knowledge in the collections at the k. k. Natural History Cabinet, the forerunner institution of the Natural History Museum, then located in the Augustinian wing of the Hofburg (Josefsplatz area). The second address was the k., founded in 1849. k. Geological Reichsanstalt, today Geological Federal Institute. Until 1851 it was located in the building of today's Austrian Mint (Am Heumarkt 3) in Vienna-Erdberg, before the geologists moved to the noble Rasumofsky Palace at Rasumofskgasse 23. Both here and there, Suess was an eager visitor whose expertise in identifying fossils was in demand. He can also be found here later as a lecturer, for example on January 3, 1888, when he spoke "On the History of the Seas".
In the spring of 1852 he became an assistant at the k. k. Natural History Cabinet, 1857 unpaid a. o. Professor of paleontology, in the summer semester of 1858 Suess began lecturing "On general paleontology" in the rooms of the academic high school. There were also “explanatory demonstrations in the Imperial and Royal Minerals Cabinet and at the Imperial and Royal Geological Institute” at the well-known addresses. In 1862 he became a professor of geology and moved to the University of Vienna at Bäckerstrasse number 20, where the Institute of Geology was located on the ground floor (today: Aula der Wissenschaften). The monumental main building of the university on Ringstrasse was built according to plans by Heinrich von Ferstl (1828–1883) and was ceremoniously opened on October 11, 1884. Suess was rector here (1888/89). Here he graduated his son Hermann with a doctorate in law on November 3, 1888. Here he gave his farewell lecture in the geological lecture hall on July 13, 1901.
Diagonally opposite the first university location, at Dr.-Ignaz-Seipl-Platz number 2 (formerly: Universitätsplatz), was the Academy of Sciences, whose founding address was in the Polytechnic (Karlsplatz 13). Suess says: "This first appearance (December 11, 1851) in front of the Academy left a deep impression on me. The regular meetings at that time still took place in a hall on the first floor of the Polytechnic." The then 20-year-old never thought that he would become its president in 1898. As such, he opened the first independent institute of the ÖAW, the Institute for Radium Research (today: Stefan Meyer Institute), on October 28, 1910 at Boltzmanngasse number 3 (Vienna Alsergrund).
After the publication of his book "The Soil of the City of Vienna" (1862), he gave a lecture on Vienna's water supply in the Streitberger Restaurant (Bäckerstrasse 8) in March 1863. Mayor Andreas Zelinka (1802–1868) then brought him into the Vienna City Council, which met in the rooms of what was then the town hall at Wipplingerstrasse 8 (Inner City) until 1885. Suess resigned his mandate in 1873 and moved to the Reichsrat, where he was politically active until 1897. Suess not only knew Theophil Hansen's current parliament building on Vienna's Ringstrasse, where the first meeting took place in 1883, he was also familiar with the previous building, the now defunct House of Representatives (Währingerstrasse 2-4) in Vienna-Alsergrund.
The name Suess is inextricably linked to the construction of the first Viennese high spring water pipeline, which was opened on October 24, 1873. He himself gave the signal - in the presence of the emperor - for the jet to spray upwards. In 1928 he was honored with a monument here. In 1938 his marble bust had to go because Suess had a Jewish mother. But Suess, i.e. the monument, returned after the end of the Nazi era.
In 1844, Grillparzer raised the Kahlenberg to higher spheres with his words: "Once you have seen the country around you from Kahlenberg, you will understand what I wrote and what I am." Suess also loved this mountain. Franz Steindachner, director of the Natural History Museum, wrote on October 29, 1909: "My dear friend. Years ago you were kind enough to attend an intimate little family celebration on Kahlenberge to mark the completion of the third volume of my book ("Antlitz der Erde", 1883-1909). Now the last volume is finally going to print and we want to get together again, but not on Kahlenberge, but in Afrikanergasse (…). You are extremely pleased with your loyal and devoted E. Sueß."
Suess' grave cannot be found in Vienna, but in Marz (near Mattersburg) in Burgenland. His father, his brother Friedrich, his daughter Sabine, who died as a child, and numerous other family members rest at the Matzleinsdorf Cemetery in Vienna Favoriten.
The central cemetery in Vienna-Simmering, which opened in 1874, was no stranger to him; he was a mourner at funerals countless times, often as a speaker, including on March 28, 1893, at the "corpse funeral" of Adolf Fischhof (1816–1893), who had called for freedom of teaching and the press in his famous speech in the revolutionary year of 1848. Suess in the original tone: "Adolph Fischhof! A student of the academic legion comes to the edge of your grave to thank you. The feather no longer flows from the hat; my hair is gray and thinning, but there are memories that rejuvenate." (Thomas Hofmann, August 26, 2022)