Curt Netto
| Curt Netto | |
|---|---|
| Born |
August 21, 1847 Freiberg Kingdom of Saxony |
| Died | February 7, 1909 (aged 61) Frankfurt am Main, Germany |
| Nationality | German |
| Occupation | metallurgist, educator |
Curt Adolph Netto (August 21, 1847 – February 7, 1909) was a German metallurgist and educator. He is regarded as a precursor for the industrial utilization of aluminium. He was active in early Meiji period Japan.
Netto was born in Freiberg, Saxony, where his father, Gustav Adolph Netto was a mining official. As a youth, he relocated with his family to Schneeberg, Saxony, but returned to Freiberg by 1860. He enrolled in the Freiberg University of Mining and Technology in 1864. He left school in 1869, and volunteered for the military, joining the mountain troops corps. He saw combat in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1871, and was decorated with the Iron Cross (second class). After the war, in 1871, he obtained a job as a chemist working with enamels at the workshop of Ernst August Geitner. In 1873, he was recruited by the Japanese government as a foreign advisor and was placed in charge of modernizing the Kosaka mines, a lead, copper and zinc mine at Kosaka, Akita in northern Honshu. He was one of the co-founders of the German Society of Natural History and Ethnology of Asia (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Natur- und Völkerkunde Ostasiens).
The mines were privatized in 1877, and Netto travelled to Tokyo, where he obtained a job as a lecturer on metallurgy at Tokyo Imperial University in 1878. He took a one-year sabbatical leave from 1882-1883 for research in Europe, Mexico and the United States. In June 1885, Emperor Meiji conferred upon him the Order of the Rising Sun. Netto's contract with Tokyo Imperial University expired in November 1885, and he returned to Germany in 1886. However, soon after his return, he was forced to sell much of his large collection of Japanese woodblock prints as he lost all of his savings in a bank failure.
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