Civil engineer Fritz Schumacher on his 80th birthday

Fritz Schumacher, the long-time lecturer in cultivation technology at the German training center for tropical farmers in Witzenhausen, turned 80 on September 24, 1969. Born in Lützingen near Waldbröl in the Oberbergisches Land, he came into contact with crop technology at an early age. At the age of 10, he regularly had to look after the slope irrigation systems on his grandfather's farm at weekends in spring and fall. The inclination towards agricultural engineering, which later became his profession and purpose in life, may have been developed during this time. An agricultural apprenticeship and two semesters at agricultural college preceded his studies in agricultural engineering at what is now the State Construction School for Structural Engineering, Civil Engineering and Water Management in Siegen. In 1909, he joined the then Preuß. Melioration Construction Administration. At the cultural construction offices in Bonn, Lublinitz, Oppeln and Celle, as well as through his membership of a special technical department during the First World War, he gained the practical tools for his later work as a lecturer in cultural engineering at the German Colonial School in Witzenhausen. On June 15, 1921, he was appointed to this German training school for tropical farmers. He has been a member of the teaching staff at this school and its successor institutions to this day, with one interruption from 1938 to 1956. Among the teaching staff, he was the one who emphasized the value and necessity of practical, especially practical-technical training for tropical farmers and never tired of it. Beyond his studies, he maintained a close comradeship and lively correspondence with his numerous students who worked all over the world. They revered him not only as a teacher, but also as a fatherly friend who was always on hand with help and advice. Outside of his purely professional activities, Schumacher was also committed to agriculture and agricultural engineering with the youthful vigor that is still characteristic of him today: from 1924 to 1933, he worked voluntarily as managing director of the Witzenhausen Agricultural District Association, and in 1955 he founded the Witzenhausen District Irrigation Association, of which he is still managing director today; he also advised on numerous water management and agricultural engineering projects in the immediate and wider surroundings of Witzenhausen. He did not stand on the sidelines when it came to professional issues either; from 1921 to 1922, for example, he was chairman of the Association of German Cultural Engineers and in this capacity successfully applied for the reform of studies at German cultural engineering schools. Schumacher studied the current problems of cultural engineering on trips abroad, which took him to Spain, southern France, Egypt, Sudan and the USA, among other places. In the 80-year-old cultural technician, we now have an expert who has mastered the field of cultural technology in the tropics and subtropics, which is so important today, like few others besides him. Today, he is particularly interested in agricultural engineering issues in the context of development aid. His lectures and practical instruction in the field of agricultural technology are an integral part of the preparation of German agricultural experts and development aid workers from GAWI and DED. If you ask him about the effects of his advanced age, he says: "Growing old is a grace and I am grateful for that.

[from: Der Tropenlandwirt 1969 , page 218-219]