Hanno Beck (geographer)

Hanno Beck (born September 13, 1923 in Eschwege ; † September 20, 2018 there ) was professor for the history of natural sciences , especially geography , at the University of Bonn . He worked as a biographer and editor of works by Alexander von Humboldt and founded the historical research field of the history of scientific travel .

Life

Beck graduated from the Friedrich Wilhelm School in Eschwege in 1942 and was then drafted into military service. After he was first taken prisoner by the Americans, he studied geography, history and German studies from 1946 to 1954 with the literary historian Werner Milch and the geographer Heinrich Schmitthenner at the Philipps University of Marburg . In 1951 he received his doctorate with a thesis on the role of the explorer Moritz Wagner (1813–1887) in the history of geography. After the state examination, he did his legal clerkship at a grammar school in Eschwege, where he initially worked as a teacher. From 1956 to 1961 he was a fellow of the German Research Foundation . From 1961 to 1987 he taught history of natural sciences at the University of Bonn. In 1963 he completed his habilitation. In 1988 he retired .

From 1970 to 1972 he was President of the Germany Section of the World Association for the Protection of Life .

In 2009 the Leibniz Institute for Regional Geography acquired Hanno Beck's 10,000-volume library on the history of geography and travel, the most valuable part of which is the Humboldt Collection.

Research on Alexander von Humboldt

As early as 1947 Beck began systematically researching Alexander von Humboldt, on which his first essay appeared in the Werra-Rundschau in 1948 . This research represented the bracket of his scientific life work. With it he founded the research area of ​​the history of scientific travel.

As part of the grant from the German Research Foundation from 1956 to 1961, he wrote a comprehensive two-volume biography of Humboldt, with which he also completed his habilitation. His comprehensive and material-rich description of the explorer's life and work is the leading biography in this field to this day.

In 1956 the German Academy of Sciences in Berlin appointed Beck to the international Alexander von Humboldt Commission. On the 100th anniversary of Humboldt's death in 1959, Beck gave the lecture at the Academy’s anniversary celebration and published the “Conversations of Alexander von Humboldt” which he had edited.

Beck was also responsible for the reprint of Humboldt's writings, namely the three volumes of the "Relation historique du Voyage aux Régions équinoxiales du Nouveau Continent" (1970), the 30 volumes of the American Travel Works (1970–1973) and the study edition of important publications (1987–1997 ).

Honors

• Honorary member of the Swiss Society for the History of Medicine and Natural Sciences (since 1969)
• Full member of Academia Cosmologica Nova (since 1982)
• Humboldt Medal of the German Academy of Sciences in Berlin (East) (1959)
• Euler medal
• Silver Carl-Ritter-Medal of the Society for Geography in Berlin (1979)
• Silver Medal of the Humboldt Society (1984)
• Humboldt badge of the Humboldt Society (1998)
• Golden Medal of the Humboldt Society (2007)
• The American Biographical Institute named him one of the "One Hundred Most Fascinating People of 2003".

Fonts (selection)

Monographs

• Conversations by Alexander von Humboldt. Berlin 1959.
• Alexander von Humboldt. 2 volumes. Wiesbaden 1959–1961.
• Geography. European development in texts and explanations . ( Orbis academicus Volume II / 16) Verlag Karl Alber, Freiburg / Munich 1973. ISBN 3-495-47262-2 .
• Art discovers a continent in: German artists in Latin America. Exhibition: Ibero-American Institute of Prussian Cultural Heritage, Berlin and Paulskirche , Frankfurt am Main, ISBN 3-496-01006-1 .
• Carl Ritter . Genius of geography. Berlin 1979.
• Great geographers. Pioneers - Outsiders - Scholars , 1982.
• Alexander von Humboldt's journey through the Baltic States to Russia and Siberia 1829 , Stuttgart 1983; 6th edition, Edition Erdmann, Wiesbaden, 2009, ISBN 978-3-86539-807-9 .
• Alexander von Humboldt's American Journey , Stuttgart 1985, ISBN 3-522-60540-3 ; 6th edition, Edition Erdmann, Wiesbaden, 2009, ISBN 978-3-86539-806-2 .

As editor

• Hanno Beck (ed.): Alexander von Humboldt - study edition. 7 volumes (published in 10 volumes). Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 1987–1997, ISBN 3-534-03100-8 (with detailed comments and information on the creation and edition history of the individual works in the sense of a historical-critical edition); contains:
  • Vol. 1: Writings on the geography of plants. 1989, ISBN 3-534-03101-6 .
  • Vol. 2: The research trip to the tropics of America. 3 volumes, ISBN 3-534-03102-4 .
  • Vol. 3: Cuba work. 1992, ISBN 3-534-03103-2
  • Vol. 4: Mexico factory. 1991, (online) ISBN 3-534-03104-0 .
  • Vol. 5: Views of Nature. 1987, ISBN 3-534-03105-9 .
  • Vol. 6: Writings on physical geography. 1989, (online) ISBN 3-534-03106-7 ,
  • Vol. 7: Cosmos. 2 volumes, 1993, ISBN 3-534-03107-5 ,

The second, reviewed edition of all volumes of the study edition was published in 2008 as the “Darmstädter Ausgabe”, again from the Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, and has also been available digitally as an eBook since 2014, ISBN 978-3-534-19691-3 .

literature

• Karl Mench: On the way to a history of geography. For Hanno Beck's 80th birthday . In: The Earth . tape 134 , issue 1, 2003, p. 111–113 ( digizeitschriften.de [PDF; accessed January 19, 2018]).
• Ingo Schwarz: Hanno Beck on his 90th birthday . In: International Journal for Humboldt Studies . tape 27 , 2013, p. 84-86 ( uni-potsdam.de ).

Festschriften on Hanno Beck

• Cosmographia Spiritualis. For Hanno Beck's 60th birthday . In: Selected Series . tape 6 . Hafiz, Bonn 1983.
• Detlef Haberland (Ed.): Geographia spiritualis. Festschrift for Hanno Beck . P. Lang, Frankfurt am Main 1993, ISBN 3-631-46113-5 .
• “He who cannot remember cannot hope”. A thank you from the Johann Gottfried Herder Library to the "Father of Humboldt Research", Prof. Dr. Hanno Beck . J.-G.-Herder-Bibliothek Siegerland, Siegen 1997.
• Wolf-Dieter Grün, Sabine Melzer: Attempt on views of the cosmos. Alternative Festschrift Prof. Dr. Dedicated to Hanno Beck on the occasion of his 80th birthday . Turn 2003.

Trivia

Hanno Beck took the side of Ryke Geerd Hamer , about whom he wrote a book and whom he saw as a victim of a suppression of knowledge.

Web links

• Literature by and about Hanno Beck in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e} Ingo Schwarz: Hanno Beck on the 90th birthday . In: International Journal for Humboldt Studies . tape 27 , 2013, p. 84-86 ( uni-potsdam.de ).
2. ↑ See the family's obituary in the General-Anzeiger Bonn, https://trauer.general-anzeiger-bonn.de/trauerbeispiel/hanno-beck
3. ^ ^{A b} Hanno Beck: Greetings to the 100th meeting of the Humboldt Society . In: Homepage of the Humboldt Society . September 13, 2014 ( Online ( Memento from January 19, 2018 in the Internet Archive ) [PDF]).
4. ↑ Karl Mench: Towards a history of geography. For Hanno Beck's 80th birthday . In: The Earth . tape 134 , issue 1, 2003, p. 111–113, here 111 ( digizeitschriften.de [PDF; accessed on January 19, 2018]).
5. ↑ Karl Mench: Towards a history of geography . P. 112.
6. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h i j} Karl Mench: On the way to a history of geography . P. 113.
7. ↑ Obituary notice. In: General-Anzeiger . Retrieved July 10, 2020 . 
8. ↑ Cataloging of the Hanno Beck scholarly library. Leibniz Institute for Regional Geography, accessed on January 19, 2018 . 
9. ↑ Dagmar Hülsenberg, Georg von Humboldt-Dachroeden: Laudation for Hanno Beck on November 4th, 2007 in Bad Nauheim - Humboldt Society for Science, Art and Education eV (PDF) Retrieved on November 13, 2018 (German). 
10. ↑ Hanno Beck: Cancer is curable . 2nd Edition. Amici di Dirk Ges. F. med. Schriften mbH, Cologne 1994, ISBN 3-926755-03-2 ( archive.org [PDF]). About the author: “Prof. Dr. Hanno Beck, b. 1923 in Eschwege / Werra, from 1961/62 to 1988 he represented the subject of the history of natural sciences [...] at the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität in Bonn. "
11. ↑ Hanno Beck's letter of August 19, 1986 to the Sigmaringen Administrative Court : "I had to be convinced by facts that this is the most glaring case of cognitive suppression that I have been doing in my research for 50 semesters at the Rheinische Friedrich- Wilhelms-Universität Bonn could determine. "