Fifty years ago in Leipzig Die Grundschicht der Troposphäre was published, a book from the early phase of the internationally developing atmospheric boundary layer research at that time. The anniversary is cause for being concerned with living and working of Karl Schneider-Carius, the author of this work. Emphasis is thereby the time in Leipzig, his last, short, but weighty period of life and creative. Request of Schneider-Carius was the co-operation and development of the three main branches of general geophysics in one university institute. He created the maritime observatory in Zingst at the Baltic Sea, which should provide both courses for students of different universities and research adapted to the local conditions. At the geophysical observatory Collm, he forced its personnel and material development; he promoted the continuation of the seismological investigations and, particularly the creation of an ionosphere-physical branch. In such a way, Schneider-Carius acted in the spirit of his predecessors Vilhelm Bjerknes and Ludwig Weickmann, and he lastingly promoted the geophysics on the whole at the University of Leipzig.