Maack, Reinhard b. October 2, 1892; Herford (Westphalia), Prussia d.August 13, 1969; Curitiba, Brazil
German Brazilian geologist and geographer who was a pioneer in the geoscientific exploration of the Brazilian state of Parana. Maack received training as a surveyor in the land registry office in Herford between 1908 and 1911.
After he had completed his training, Maack left Germany for German Southwest Africa, where he was in charge of surveying land and appropriating private farmland and public grassland. During World War I he was captured by British troops and interned as an enemy alien. He was, however, able to escape British internment and spent several months in the Kalahari Desert and, under an assumed identity, in Swakopmund. Maack achieved fame when, in 1917, he discovered ancient cave paintings in Brandberg. The cave was later named “Maack Shelter” in his honor. In 1919 Maack embarked on two private expeditions to the desert of Namib, where he explored the Tsondab river and produced a survey of the mineral resources in the Kakao-Veld for the British Survey Service.In 1921 Maack returned to Germany where he stayed for just two years. In 1923 he left for Brazil, where he explored the gold and iron ore resources in Minas Gerais for the German-Brazilian Mining Company. While surveying the Western Mountains, Maack found many geological similarities to the Kakao-Veld in Southwest Africa. It was this observation that caused him to adopt the continental drift theory of Alfred Wegner. To broaden his knowledge, Maack returned to Berlin to study geography and geology at the University of Berlin. In 1928 he went back to Brazil to organize the diamondmining industry in the region around the Rio Tibagι in Parana and to investigate the manganese, chalk, and coal resources in Santa Catarina, as well as its geographic and geological conditions. In 1932 he acquired a farm in Parana’s tropical forest and engaged in agriculture and pig breeding.
With funding from Germany, Maack embarked on an expedition along the Rio Ivaι and in the northern part of Parana in 1933 and 1934. He returned to Germany to finish his university education.In 1937 Maak left Germany for good and settled down in Brazil. He explored the coastal regions of Parana and produced a map of this region. He climbed southern Brazil’s highest mountain, which he named Pico do Parana. When the Brazilian government of Getulio Vargas engaged in a policy directed against ethnic minorities with the goal of “brazilianizing” all people living in Brazil, Maack defended the contributions of Germans to Brazilian society in his article “The Germans of South Brazil,” which was published in The Quarterly Journal of Inter-American Relations in 1939. Many Brazilian authors immediately attacked Maack for this publica- tion—a fact that made him a perfect hero for National Socialist propaganda. During World War II Maack was, like so many other Germans, interned at the Ilha Grande camp for two years. In 1946, however, he was appointed professor of geology and paleontology at the University of Curitiba. The University of Bonn granted him a doctoral degree for his book Geolo- gia e geografia da regiao de Vila Velha, Es- tado do Parand e consideraς∂es sobre a glaciaςao carbonifera no Brasil (Geology and geography of the Vila Velha Region, in the State of Parana and thoughts on carboniferous glaciers in Brazil) in the same year. Throughout the remainder of his life, Maack dedicated his activities to the research of geological and geographical aspects of Parana’s flora. By the beginning of the 1940s, he was criticizing the destruction of tropical forests and pointed to the dangers of soil erosion and uncontrolled growth of coffee plantations. His warnings that the clearing of the tropical forest would change the climatic and ecological conditions in this region were ignored for a long time.
Among Maak’s most important scholarly accomplishments are a map of the geographic distribution of plants (Mapa fito- geogrdfico do Estado do Par and, 1950) and the geological map of Parana (Mapa ge- ologico do Estado do Parana, 1953).
At the age of seventy-six, Maak finally decided to retire from his teaching position at the University of Curitiba. In the last years of his life, he worked intensively on several projects. His Kontinentaldrift und Geologie des sudatlantischen Ozeans (Continental Drift and the Geology of the South Atlantic Ocean, 1969), as well his book about the groundwater resources of the Parana- Uruguay basin, Notas preliminares sobre as agues do sub-solo da Bacia Parand-Uruguai (1970), appeared posthumously. Maack was able to finish only the first volume (1968) of his projected multivolume work, Geografia fisica do estado do Parand (Physical Geography of the State of Parana). He received several awards and honors from both Germany and Brazil. In 1969, he was given the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany, and in Brazil one park in Curitiba (Bosque Reinhard Maack) and one school, close to his farm near Maringa (Fazenda Reinhard Maack), were named after him.Heinz Peter Brogiato
See also Brazil
References and Further Reading
Kohlhepp, Gerd. “Das geographische Lebenswerk von Reinhard Maack.” Geographische Zeitschrift (Wiesbaden) vol. 59 (1971): 165-176.
Kurowski, Ursula Maack. “Lebenslauf von Reinhard Maack.” Boletim paranaense de geografia. Curitiba, 1964, 7-24.
Maack, Reinhard. “Es begann in Herford. Der Weg durch ein bewegtes Leben.” Herforder Jahrbuch vol. 8 (1967): 7-79.
Reinhard Maack und seine lusitanischen Gegner. 5 Stimmen aus der Auseinandersetzung um das Lebensrecht des Brasiliendeutschtums. Stuttgart/Hamburg: Publikationsstelle, 1943 (Schriftendienst Ubersee: Reihe B; 2).