Insights into the History of the Collection

Karl Kübler

3.10.1831 – 11.1.1907

Born in Munzingen, Karl Kübler attended the Freiburg Lyceum between 1843 and 1848. He worked as an assistant in Zurich and Neckargemünd from 1851 to 1854. He then began to study pharmacy, which he completed in Freiburg in 1856. After his training, he took over his father's local pharmacy. In 1887, two years after the death of his son Karl, he gave it up and retired. From that time on he was chiefly engaged in charitable work. He was, for example, the chairman of the Freiburg Section of the Black Forest Association, the Breisgau Association Schauinsland and the Kunstverein. He was also a founding and honorary member of the Baden Botanical Society, of which he was president from 1898 until 1902. Kübler was also politically active: as a member of the II Baden Chamber from 1888 until 1892. His all-round voluntary and charitable commitment was honoured with the Order of the Zähringer Lion, Knight Second Class.

Kübler Donation

Karl Kübler gave at least fifty-four mineral objects to the museum on 16 June 1899. He was honoured for this by being included by name on the roll of honour for the year 1899. His donation formed the initial basis for the museum's regional collection of local minerals, which was later expanded successively. It was chiefly made up of finds made in old mines in the Black Forest and in the quarries of the Kaiserstuhl.

After his death, Karl Kübler's heirs donated prehistoric finds from his estate to the City of Freiburg's municipal collections. Eugen Fischer valued of the entire Kübler collection to be in the region of 400 to 500 marks.

Ore specimen with sphalerite crystals ("Black Jack", "Zinc Blende"), Schauinsland mine near Freiburg, southern Black Forest, Baden-Württemberg, Germany, Kübler Collection, inventory number IX,624a, photo: Axel Killian
Ore specimen with sphalerite crystals ("Black Jack", "Zinc Blende"), Schauinsland mine near Freiburg, southern Black Forest, Baden-Württemberg, Germany, Kübler Collection, inventory number IX,624a, photo: Axel Killian