The Institute's Profile

History of the Institute up to 1989

The Institute of Geography - together with the Dresden University of Technology and its predecessor institutions - can look back on a long tradition.

Geographical studies have been conducted in Dresden since 1874. In that year, Sophus Ruge was appointed to a Chair of Geography and Ethnology at the Royal Saxon Polytechnic. From April 29, 1920, geography was an independent subject in teacher training at the Dresden University of Technology. This was regulated by a decree of the Ministry of Culutre, which was issued at the request of Kurt Hassert, who has been appointed full professor of geography and director of the Geographical Institute of Dresden University of Technology in 1917. 

The development of teaching and research on geography from that time onwards was very changeable. The teaching and research profile was developed due to interdisciplinary tendencies and the 2nd World War subjected to many changes. Political decisions after 1945 led to institutional fragmentation but at the same time it was associated with specialisation. Transport geography became the domain of the University of Transportation which was spun off in 1952, the training of geography teachers was provided by the Dresden Pedagogical University, a subject-related basic training remained at the Dresden University of Technology (from 1961 Technische Universität) and the application-oriented research was carried out in the Saxon Academy of Sciences. Partially, these institutions cooperated in teacher training and further education, in publix relations work within the framework of the Geographical Society of the GDR and in the preparation of materials for spatial planning and information.

The tradition of geographical research and teaching in this phase is associated with names such as Ernst Neef, Karl Herz, Ludwig Barth and Karl Mannseld. The latter supported Wolfgang Kaulfuß and Manfred Kramer in their efforts to re-establish the Institute of Geography at the TUD after 1989.

The re-foundation of the Institute in 1992

© K. Heller

After the political upheavals of 1989/90, geography was repositioned in terms of content and institution. In 1992 the re-foundation of the Institute of Geography at the TU Dresden took place. Since then, the training of graduate geographers and trainee teachers has taken place "under one roof". Thanks to the cooperation within the faculty and the cooperation with non-university research institutions, such as the now dissolved Working Group on Natural Resources and the Institute for Ecological Spatial Development, founded in the early 1990s, a broad-based education with numerous specialization options can be guaranteed.

(Source: Kaulfuß, Wolfgang & Hartmut Kowalke (2003): Das Institut für Geographie an der Technischen Universität Dresden. Zum 10jährigen Jubiläum seiner Wiedergründung und zur mehr als 125jährigen Geschichte geographischer Ausbildung und Forschung in Dresden. - Dresdner Geographische Beiträge SH 4, 58 S.)

The recent development of the Institute

Technological developments in recent years have led to new research priorities and challanges that have had an impact on research and teaching at the Institute of Geography. The latest methods of determining the age and origin of sediments have led to a much more precise dating of substrates such as loess or river gravel and thus a deeper understanding of the periglacial precursors of our present landscape. The introduction of methods of geoinformatics allows analyses that would have been unthinkable a short time ago. Through the development of integrative methods, after decades of professional differentiation, physical and human-geographical ways of thinking are brought closer together, enabling a deeper understanding of spatial processes and the study of human-society phenomena under various aspects.