Alfred Brehm

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Alfred Edmund Brehm
Alfred Brehm bust in the predator house in the Friedrichsfelde zoo with signature in the base

Alfred Edmund Brehm (born February 2, 1829 in Unterrenthendorf, today Renthendorf ; † November 11, 1884 ibid) was a German zoologist and writer . His name became a synonym for popular scientific zoological literature thanks to the book title Brehms Tierleben . He also tried to educate the general public about nature and to love nature through lectures and through his work as a zoo director and designer. Alfred Edmund Brehm was the son of the pastor and ornithologist Christian Ludwig Brehm . At his birthplace, the rectory in Renthendorf, there is now a museum dedicated to the life and work of both naturalists, the Brehm Memorial . The doctor and later pioneer of Spanish ornithology Reinhold Brehm was his younger brother.

Life

Brehm's place of birth, the rectory in Renthendorf

Alfred Brehm (nickname: Chalihl Effendi) was born on February 2, 1829 in the Thuringian village of Unterrenthendorf as the son of pastor Christian Ludwig Brehm and his second wife Bertha (née Reiz). His father was known as an ornithologist in the professional world, in particular through his extensive collection of prepared birds (> 9000 pcs.) And through publications based on studies on this material, among other things. His father's research aroused Alfred's interest in zoology at an early age . Nevertheless, Brehm initially intended to become an architect. After he had finished school in Renthendorf (he was dismissed with a 1 as a very good student), he began an apprenticeship as a mason with a master builder in Altenburg , where he learned the trade by September 1846 and graduated from the Altenburg School of Arts and Crafts . At the end of 1846 he went to Dresden to study architecture. After two semesters, he broke off his studies because the ornithologist Johann Wilhelm von Müller , who was known at the time , was looking for a companion for an Africa expedition .

Expedition to Africa (1847-1852)

This phase of Brehm's life is often described as the most formative for his subsequent life: As secretary and assistant to Baron von Müller, Brehm set out on a five-year expedition to Africa on May 31, 1847, which took him to Egypt , Sudan and the Sinai. Peninsula led. Despite the Baron's departure in the meantime, Brehm remained in Egypt, charged with preparing a second research trip. The baron did not return to Africa, however, and only sent a small part of the promised money, which was brought by Brehm's stepbrother Oskar.

Together with him and the doctor Dr. Richard Vierthaler (1820–1852) from Köthen, Alfred Brehm started the planned expedition in March 1850 despite financial difficulties. On May 8th, Oskar Brehm drowned while bathing in the Nile. Alfred Brehm continued the expedition and returned to Chartum in February 1851. There he found that Baron Müller had not sent any more money. Brehm was stuck penniless in Chartum for 6 months. It was only with the support of friends that he was able to return to Cairo and, in the last year of his stay in Africa, carry out further collecting operations in Egypt and on the Sinai peninsula.

Despite financial hardship and the adverse conditions, Brehm carried out extensive animal studies there, hunted animals and brought them to Europe - both live and prepared. The scientific yield was so significant that at the age of 20 he was awarded membership of the Academy of Natural Scientists (Leopoldina). He also received a doctorate for his travel sketches from Northeast Africa .

  • Inscription by Alfred Brehm at the Hathor temple on Philae

  • Brehm's route through Egypt (1847-1852)

Studies (1853-1856)

After his return, Brehm sought to back up his experience in animal science with a degree. He moved to Jena , where he lived at Am Rähmen 19 and began studying natural sciences at the university in 1853 . His two monkeys, brought from Africa, liked to climb the roof of the house. Like his brother Reinhold, he became active in the Corps Saxonia Jena in 1853 . His research trips through North Africa earned him the respectful nickname "Pharaoh" from his corps brothers. After four semesters, he completed his studies in 1855 with a doctorate .

Travel to Spain and time in Leipzig (1856–1862)

After completing his studies, Brehm went on a two-year trip to Spain with his brother Reinhold Brehm in 1856 and other travel companions . It led to Andalusia in southern Spain . The group also stayed in Grenada for a long time . After 1 ½ years she returned with a large collection of birds. To cover travel expenses, the Brehms had sold shares , the owners of which had the right to participate in the hunted prey.

Then, from 1858, he settled as a private tutor and freelance writer in Leipzig and wrote numerous popular science articles for the well-known magazine Die Gartenlaube and other magazines. He also made friends with the publisher Ernst Keil and the natural scientist Emil Adolf Roßmaessler , both of whom contributed significantly to his career as a writer.

In 1860 he went on an expedition to Norway and Lapland . Ernst Keil provided Brehm with the financial means for this trip. In return, Brehm published his travel experience in his family magazine, the gazebo . Brehm advanced to the North Cape and was able to study the Nordic fauna.

In 1861 Brehm became a Freemason on the recommendation of his friend Hans Zille and belonged to the Apollo Masonic Lodge in Leipzig, which raised him to the master's degree in 1873 .

Wedding and second trip to Africa (1862–1863)

On May 14, 1861, Brehm married his cousin Mathilde Reiz in the Protestant town church in Greiz. In the following years she would be of great help to him. Brehm always informed her by post about events during the lecture and research trips. She worked on his stenographic notes at home and organized them systematically.

In 1862, however, Brehm accepted an invitation from Duke Ernst II of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha to accompany him on a trip to Abyssinia . His wife was also allowed to accompany him. But it became more of a courtly pleasure trip than a research trip. Nevertheless, Brehm was able to collect some additional knowledge about the way of life and behavior of African wild animals, especially large game.

Brehm as zoo director in Hamburg and publication of "Thierleben" (1863–1866)

The zoological garden was opened in Hamburg in 1863 . Brehm had already been appointed as the first director a year earlier. He made the zoo an educational facility for the general public. During this time, the first editions of Brehm's main work, the Illustrirten Thierleben, appeared . At the end of 1866 there were disputes with the administrative board of the Hamburg zoo about public relations, which were criticized as insufficient, which resulted in Brehm's dismissal in 1866.

These years were also eventful for Brehm in private life: his son Horst was born in Hamburg in 1863, followed by daughter Thekla Elise in 1864 and Leila Wanda Brehm in 1866. Alfred Brehm's father Christian Ludwig Brehm died in Renthendorf in 1864 , whereupon his mother Bertha had a new house built next to the rectory in 1865 and moved into it with their mentally handicapped sons.

Brehm as director of the Berlin aquarium and further trips (1866–1878)

1869 was created by Brehm's ideas in Berlin Unter den Linden , the Berlin Aquarium , which he was director until 1878th The aquarium was designed in such a way that the visitor was shown a cross-section of the entire animal world on water, on land and in the air along a 300 m long path, and that in the most natural possible environment for the animals. Meanwhile, the zoo in Düsseldorf was completed in 1876 , which had been designed by Brehm and the city's court gardener Heinrich Friedrich Hillebrecht .

During these activities, Brehm's life was still shaped by numerous trips: in 1871 he made a trip to Croatia , in 1874 to the Giant Mountains and in 1875 he traveled across Germany and Austria for lectures and hunting, in 1876 to Siberia . The trip to Siberia was financed by the Bremen "Association for the German North Pole Trip". The head of the company was Otto Finsch , then director of the Natural History Museum in Bremen. The companion on the trip was Count Karl von Waldburg-Zeil-Trauchburg. The group's path led them to the Chinese border area at Dsung Alatau when a reindeer epidemic forced them to return home early. Brehm's daughter Frieda Brehm was born in 1870, and his mother Bertha Brehm (née Reiz) died in 1877.

  • Memorial plaque on the house, Unter den Linden 62, in Berlin-Mitte

  • Crocodile grotto in the Berlin Aquarium

  • Alfred Edmund Brehm's route through Siberia in 1876.

The last years (1878-1884)

Grave of Alfred Brehm in Renthendorf

In 1878 and 1879, Brehm made two trips to Hungary and Spain at the invitation of Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria , who was a passionate ornithologist and who remained on friendly terms with Brehm until his death. The two-week stay in Spain in the spring of 1878 was mainly used for eagle hunting , while in the early summer of 1879 water birds were observed and shot on the central Danube. Meanwhile, Brehm's son Alfred Rudolf Johannes was born in Berlin in 1878. In the same year his wife Mathilde died at the age of 38.

In the winter of 1883/1884 Brehm went on a lecture tour to the USA . Shortly before he left, his four children living with him fell ill with diphtheria . Brehm, who was a widower, decided to travel anyway, as he could not raise the money for the otherwise due contractual penalty. During his lectures, he not only informed the audience about the fauna of the countries he had visited, but also reported on the various peoples he was able to get to know there (Horst Brehm later published some of his lectures in the volume From the North Pole to the Equator ).

At the end of January he received news of the death of his youngest son. In addition to mental pain, there was malaria , which Alfred Brehm had suffered from at a young age in Africa. He returned to Berlin on May 11, 1884. To find peace, Brehm moved back to his homeland in Renthendorf in July 1884, where he died on November 11th.

Works

  • Travel Sketches from Northeast Africa (1853)
  • Travel Sketches from North America (1855)
  • The life of the birds. Shown for home and family (1861, 2nd edition 1867)
  • Results of a trip to Habesch (1863)
  • Illustrirtes Thierleben (1863–1869) ( Works (as digitized and full text) by Alfred Brehm in the German Text Archive .), Known in later editions as Brehms Tierleben
  • The animals of the forest , two volumes (together with Emil Adolf Roßäßler , 1863–1867)
  • My position on the Hamburg Zoological Garden and my dismissal . Hamburg 1866
  • Captured birds. A handbook and textbook for lovers and keepers of native and foreign cage birds (1872, with many scientists)
  • Journey to the Kyrgyz people . From the Siberia diary 1876 (1982)
  • Polar star and tropical sun . Reprint of the original. Salzwasser-Verlag, Paderborn 2011, ISBN 978-3-86444-456-2 .
  • Exploring north and south . Reprint of the original from 1927. Salzwasser-Verlag, Paderborn 2011, ISBN 978-3-86444-191-2 .

Brehm's animal life and general reception

The essays and travelogues Brehm with the richly decorated descriptions of wildlife were very popular in wide circles of the educated middle class , so that the publisher Herrmann Julius Meyer at Brehm early as 1860 a large, multi-volume work about the animal kingdom for the Bibliographical Institute in Hildburghausen had ordered. The first six volumes of Illustrirten Thierleben appeared between 1863 and 1869 and made it known worldwide. Although Brehm's behavioral descriptions of animals from today's perspective also contain misinterpretations, Brehm's animal life is still known to many today. From a scientific point of view, however, there were already violent attacks on Brehm and his publications in the 1860s, especially by the Eberswalde zoologist and forest scientist Bernard Altum for Brehm's often humanized animal descriptions.

  • Illustration by Fedor Flinzer from Brehms Thierleben (1886)

  • Translations of Brehm's works during his lifetime.

Contributions to science

In addition to his writing career, which tended to take place in the popular science field, Alfred Brehm also made scientific contributions. "Winter in Egypt in ornithological terms" was his first publication and appeared in 1849 in Naumannia . Brehm summarized his ornithological observations from the Nile Delta there. Like his father Christian Ludwig Brehm, he was the first to describe various bird species and subspecies, such as B. Pica Pica melanotos (AE Brehm, 1857), Motacilla flava pygmaea (AE Brehm, 1854), Garrulus glandarius fasciatus (AE Brehm, 1857) and the Theklalerche Galerida theklae (AE Brehm, 1857), which Brehm honors his early deceased Sister so named. Brehm was a member of various scientific associations: the "Natural Research Society of the Osterland", the German Society for Anthropology, Ethnology and Prehistory , the Leopoldina , the German Ornithological Society , the Society of Friends of Natural Sciences in Berlin , the "Imperial-Royal Zoological-Botanical Society zu Vienna ”and the“ Royal Hungarian Natural Science Society of Budapest ”.

Honors and nominations

  • In the parsonage in Renthendorf, the place where Brehm spent his youth, as well as in the house that was built by Bertha Brehm after the death of his father, is now the Brehm memorial , a memorial museum , which Alfred E. Brehm and his father Christian Ludwig Brehm is dedicated.
  • A monument to Brehm, created by the Tyrolean sculptor Norbert Pfretzschner , was erected in Altenburg.
  • There are Alfred Brehm Streets in numerous German towns , for example in Alsdorf, Bad Vilbel, Bremen, Chemnitz, Dahlen, Delmenhorst, Erfurt, Ingolstadt, Pulheim, Reutlingen, Triptis and Windischholzhausen. There is an Alfred-Brehm-Weg in Halle an der Saale, and an Alfred-Brehm-Platz in Frankfurt am Main. There are also Brehmstraßen , in Hamburg a Brehmweg and several Brehmplatz .
  • A silver commemorative coin (face value ten marks) appeared in the GDR in 1984 for Alfred Brehm.
  • There was an Alfred Brehm school in Jena and an Alfred Brehm elementary school in Berlin .
  • An Alfred Brehm House with an area of ​​5300 square meters has belonged to Tierpark Berlin since 1963 .
  • In memory of Alfred Brehm, there is a resting place called Brehms Ruhe near Schmannewitz .

  • Postage stamp 1984

  • Stamp pad of the GDR (1989) in memory of Alfred Brehm and his father Christian Ludwig Brehm

  • House built by Bertha Brehm in Renthendorf and today part of the Brehm memorial

  • For the 100th birthday

See also

literature

  • Erik Brädt: Alfred Edmund Brehm. Portrait of a researcher . Brauns, Wedel in Holstein 1946 (= The great role models . Volume 3)
  • Andreas W. Daum : Science popularization in the 19th century. Civil culture, scientific education and the German public, 1848–1914 . 2nd, supplementary edition, Oldenbourg, Munich 2002, ISBN 978-3-486-56551-5 .
  • Kurt Floericke : animal father Brehm - his research trips - a memorial sheet for his 100th birthday . Franck'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, Stuttgart 1929. and reissued in 2012 as a reprint of the original edition with ISBN 978-3-86347-316-7 and in 2015 as a completely revised new edition with ISBN 978-3-95801-261-5
  • Joachim W. Frank: Brehm, Alfred Edmund . In: Hamburg biography . Volume 3. Wallstein Verlag, Göttingen 2006 ISBN 978-3-8353-0081-1 , pp. 58-60.
  • Wolfgang Genschorek: Foreign countries, wild animals. The life of the "animal father" Brehm . FA Brockhaus Verlag, Leipzig 1984 ( pioneers of mankind )
  • Wolfgang Genschorek: Alfred Brehm (1829-1884). Animal father - zoo director - ornithologist. Edition at Gutenbergplatz Leipzig 2016, ISBN 978-3-95922-092-7 http://www.eagle-leipzig.de/092-genschorek.htm
  • Hans-Dietrich Haemmerlein: The son of the bird pastor. Evangelical Publishing House, Berlin 1985.
  • Hans-Dietrich Haemmerlein: Alfred Brehm: Biography in time and personal reports. Sax-Verlag Beucha, Markkleeberg 2015, ISBN 978-3867291538 .
  • Joachim Heimannsberg: Brehm's travel life. Between the Arctic Ocean and the Equator. On the go with the great animal researcher. Bibliographisches Institut, Mannheim 2010, ISBN 978-3-411-08390-9 .
  • Wilhelm Hess :  Brehm, Alfred . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 47, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1903, pp. 214-216.
  • Adolf Kleinschmidt:  Brehm, Alfred Edmund. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 2, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1955, ISBN 3-428-00183-4 , p. 569 f. ( Digitized version ).
  • Otto Kleinschmidt : From AE Brehm's diaries. (= Die Neue Brehm-Bücherei. Volume 28) 3rd edition. Westarp Sciences, Hohenwarsleben 2002, ISBN 3-89432-521-6 .
  • Otto Kleinschmidt: The magic of Brehm's animal life. (= Die Neue Brehm-Bücherei. Volume 20) 3rd edition. Westarp Sciences, Hohenwarsleben 2002, ISBN 3-89432-515-1 .
  • Carl W. Neumann: Brehms life. Severus Verlag, Hamburg 2011, ISBN 978-3-86347-202-3 .
  • Siegfried Schmitz: animal father Brehm. His travels, his life, his work . Harnack, Munich 1984.
  • Luca Zordan: Between Myth and Science. Greening in collaboration between artists and scientists in the 19th century: Kretschmer's and Brehm's Illustrirtes Thierleben . Bielefeld: transcript Verlag, 2019, ISBN 978-3-8394-4676-8

Film documentaries

  • Alfred Brehm - The animal father from Thuringia . TV documentary by Lew Hohmann in the History of Central Germany series . Germany 2007 ( MDR television ), 45 minutes
  • Alfred Brehm - The feelings of animals (1: The African adventure + 2: The wilderness in the living room). 2-part docu-drama by director Kai Christiansen with actor Vladimir Burlakov , 2013, total 105 min. Narrator: Roger Willemsen - produced by Doclights GmbH Hamburg for NDR and arte

Web links

Commons : Alfred Brehm  - album with pictures, videos and audio files
Wikisource: Alfred Brehm  - Sources and full texts
Wikiquote: Alfred Edmund Brehm  - Quotes

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Kösener Corpslisten 1930, 76/244.
  2. ↑ Eckart Roloff : "If you still want to travel in over-educated Europe, you have to go to Norway." Alfred Brehm about his experiences in the north 150 years ago. In: dialog. Announcements from the German-Norwegian Society , Bonn, issue 46 from June 2015, pp. 54–55.
  3. ↑ Jürgen Holtorf: Die Logen der Freemaurer Nikol, Hamburg, ISBN 3-930656-58-2 , p. 141.
  4. ^ Brigitte Hamann : Crown Prince Rudolf. One life. Piper Verlag, Munich, ISBN 978-3-492-24572-2 , pp. 118-141.
  5. ↑ http://www.muenzkatalog-online.de/katalog/muenzen/muenze_285.html
  6. ↑ Tierpark Berlin # Alfred Brehm House: Plants and Animals
  7. ↑ https://www.heidestadt-dahlen.de/dahlen/content/12/20090616144549.asp , accessed on January 30, 2020
personal data
SURNAME Brehm, Alfred
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Brehm, Alfred Edmund
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German zoologist and writer
DATE OF BIRTH February 2, 1829
PLACE OF BIRTH Renthendorf , Germany
DATE OF DEATH November 11, 1884
Place of death Renthendorf