Friedrich Robert von Beringe

Friedrich Robert von Beringe (born September 21, 1865 in Aschersleben , † July 5, 1940 in Stettin ) was German imperial captain . He is the discoverer of the mountain gorillas ( Gorilla beringei beringei ). He was the first to come across the hitherto unknown gorillas on October 17, 1902 at Kirunga ya Sabyingo, one of the six Virunga volcanoes in Rwanda . Today all East African gorillas ( Gorilla beringei ) are named after him.

Life

Friedrich Robert von Beringe was born on September 21, 1865 in Aschersleben on the north-eastern edge of the Harz Mountains as the eldest son of Rittmeister Karl Robert von Beringe and his wife Mathilde Luise. In the small town in what is now Saxony-Anhalt, which at that time belonged to the Kingdom of Prussia, the father was stationed as squadron chief of Hussar Regiment No. 10 .

Following his father's example, Friedrich Robert von Beringe embarked on the career of an officer. From 1894 to 1906 he was a member of the 1st Leib-Hussar Regiment No. 1 (Totenkopfhusaren). From this time, von Beringe was also the bearer of the skull ring and was in deep friendship with August Mackensen , who later became Field Marshal von Mackensen. At his own request, he went to the Imperial Protection Force for German East Africa, which comprised the present-day states of Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi.

Discovery of the mountain gorillas

On October 17, 1902, Hauptmann von Beringe and Dr. Engeland together with five Askaris and the necessary porters for the summit; they carried a tent and eight water containers with them. At an altitude of 3,100 m the two Germans pitched their tent after covering the ground with collected moss as flat as possible. The ridge was so narrow that they had to attach the tent pegs to the slope. The askaris and porters sought shelter in rock caves in order to protect themselves against the sensitive cold by fire.

This set the scene for the historical encounter, which von Beringe describes in the Deutsches Kolonialblatt with the following words: “From our camp we saw a herd of black, great monkeys trying to climb the highest peak of the volcano. From these monkeys we succeeded in delivering two large animals to the route, which crashed with a great bang into a crater gorge opening to the northeast. After five hours of strenuous work we managed to rope up an animal. ”It was a male, large, human-like monkey, five feet long and weighing more than 200 pounds. He had no chest hair, but had huge hands and feet. "Unfortunately I was unable to determine the species of the monkey," regretted the captain. Because of the size of the animal, in his opinion, it could not be a chimpanzee, and the occurrence of gorillas - known from the lowlands - in the area around the East African lakes had "not been determined" until then. Robert von Beringe therefore decided to send his find to the Zoological Museum in Berlin for investigation . The monkey's skin and one hand were eaten by a hyena on the way back to Usumbura. However, based on the skull and part of the skeleton that arrived in Berlin intact, the museum professor Paul Matschie (1861–1926) classified the animal as a new species of gorilla, which he named Gorilla beringei after its discoverer .

In 1906 Hauptmann von Beringe returned to Germany. Up until the beginning of the Second World War he lived with his family in Dresden. On July 5, 1940, he had been suffering from diabetes for years and died in Stettin . A plaque at the entrance to the 400 square kilometer Virunga National Park commemorates him .

Web links

• Son's private website
• Report on Focus.de
• Page about mountain gorillas (English)