Alfred Rust

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Alfred Friedrich Wilhelm Rust (born July 4, 1900 in Hamburg , † August 14, 1983 in Ahrensburg ) was a German prehistorian .

Live and act

Alfred Rust, who came from a humble background, only graduated from elementary school. In 1915 Rust began training as an electrical engineer, and in 1926 he became a master in this profession. In 1918 he was used as a pioneer in Flanders during the First World War . He attended from 1923, u. a. with Gustav Schwantes , prehistory and early history lectures at the Hamburg Adult Education Center , founded in 1918 .

In order to gain a better understanding of the origins of Central European Paleolithic stone tools, Alfred Rust and Kuno Schladetzki traveled by bike from Hamburg via the Balkans and Turkey to the Middle East at the suggestion of his teacher in 1930. There he discovered the Jabrud Caves, one of the most important paleolithic sites of the Middle East. Rust published the adventurous story of the discovery and the results of his excavations in Jabrud between 1931 and 1933 in an accompanying volume for the magazine Offa .

Rust, who worked full-time in an electrical company and was considered an amateur, was promoted by the North German prehistoric Gustav Schwantes . Through excavations in the 1930s, he proved the existence of Ice Age people in the Ahrensburg -Meiendorfer tunnel valley near Hamburg. He found artefacts from reindeer antlers and flint as well as bones from sacrificial animals and was able to prove that reindeer hunters of the late Paleolithic Hamburg culture hunted in this area around 15,000 years ago at the end of the Ice Age. In a warmer climatic phase that followed, the hunters of the Callenhard Magdalenian culture lived here about 13,400 years ago, followed by the reindeer hunters of the Ahrensburg culture when the cold relapsed again about 12,700 years ago .

During the time of National Socialism , Rust was a member of the SS sub-organization Research Foundation for German Ahnenerbe and exempted from military service. In 1942 he attacked the theses of Julius Andree (1889–1942). Andree postulated the existence of a high culture in Germany 250,000 years ago and its spread across the globe. In 1942, Rust completed his habilitation in Kiel without ever having completed a degree. After the Second World War he was a research assistant at the State Office for Prehistory and Early History in Schleswig-Holstein . Among other things, Rust worked on tool shapes in the Paleolithic .

Rust came under strong criticism for its membership in the Ahnenerbe , the celebrations for his 100th birthday (in 2000) in Ahrensburg were canceled.

Honors

Rust was established in 1940 from the University of Kiel , the honorary doctorate awarded. In 1955 he was elected a member of the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina . In 1965 the city of Ahrensburg made him an honorary citizen. Since 1970 he has been a corresponding member of the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences . In September 2005, the Alfred Rust hiking trail (from the Ahrensburg Ost underground station to the Stellau estate in the immediate vicinity of some sites) was inaugurated. In 1966 he received the Albrecht Penck Medal .

Whereabouts of the finds

In 1961 and 1978, Hermann Schwabedissen acquired Jabrud's finds for the teaching collection of the Cologne Institute for Prehistory and Early History. In 2013, the finds from Jabrud's further research trip , the Jallah Jallah excursion , were offered to the institute by the granddaughter and were also acquired in 2014 with the help of sponsors and donations.

Publications (selection)

  • The Paleolithic reindeer hunter camp in Meiendorf , Neumünster 1937
  • The Palaeolithic and Mesolithic finds from Stellmoor , Neumünster 1943
  • The Jabrud cave finds (Syria) . Offa books 8, Neumünster 1950
  • Jallah Jallah, On the search for prehistoric humans with a bicycle, tent and saucepan , Brockhaus Mannheim 1952
  • Tools of early man in Europe , Neumünster 1971

literature

Web links

Commons : Alfred Rust  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ BArch R / 4901 fol. 3–5 (résumés of Alfred Rust).
  2. ^ Michael H. Kater : The "Ahnenerbe" of the SS 1935-1945: A contribution to the cultural policy of the Third Reich. 4th edition. Oldenbourg, Munich 2006, ISBN 3-486-57950-9 , p. 300 ( online ).
  3. ↑ According to German biography
  4. ↑ Alfred Rust's membership entry at the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina , accessed on June 23, 2016.
  5. ↑ Prof. Dr. Alfred Rust. Member entry at the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences , accessed on June 25, 2016 .
  6. ↑ Bauernblatt Schleswig-Holstein 2008  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.bauernblattsh.de  
  7. ↑ Report on purchase from KölnAlumni from November 20, 2014 ( Memento from December 2, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) (accessed November 2014)
personal data
SURNAME Rust, Alfred
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Rust, Alfred Friedrich Wilhelm
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German archaeologist
DATE OF BIRTH 4th July 1900
PLACE OF BIRTH Hamburg
DATE OF DEATH August 14, 1983
Place of death Ahrensburg