He was inspired by the book Lehrbuch der Mineralogie by Paul Niggli that he came across in Christmas of 1920 and attended seminars by Arrien Johnsen at Berlin.
He then worked on colloidal chemistry under Herbert Freundlich at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institut and joined as Privatdozent at the University of Berlin.
He then joined Rostock University at the newly created department of geology and made use of X-ray diffraction to study minerals.
He took a special interest in clay minerals, studying Mecklenburg soils and the ocean-bed core samples from the Meteor Expedition.
He was noted for his teaching, mentoring nearly 61 doctoral students and his textbook Einführung in die Mineralogie (1949) was considered a landmark in geology.