German-Bulgarian Institute for Agricultural Research
The German-Bulgarian Institute for Agricultural Research was a joint institute near Sofia planned during the Second World War by the Kaiser Wilhelm Society in Berlin and the Bulgarian Ministry of Agriculture .
When a delegation from the Bulgarian Ministry of Agriculture visited Berlin in June 1940, the participants also visited the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Breeding Research in Müncheberg . The Bulgarian guests were so impressed that they expressed their wish to set up a similar institute in Bulgaria with German participation. At the initiative of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society, a founding statute was drawn up a few months later and the organizational structure was laid down in a contract signed in February 1941. The main task of the institute should be to intensify research directions in the field of plant production that have so far only been represented to a small extent in Bulgaria.
In October 1941, Arnold Scheibe , professor of arable and crop production at the Technical University of Munich , and Dontscho Kostoff , professor of plant breeding at the Technical University of Sofia , were appointed to the scientific management and management of the institute . The concrete planning and preparation tasks did not begin until the beginning of 1942. The official laying of the foundation stone on a site eight kilometers south of Sofia took place on September 12, 1942. Due to the events of the war, however, there were considerable difficulties in procuring building material, so that until mid-1944 only construction pits could be dug. The scientific equipment, magazines and books supplied to the institute from Germany up to that point were initially stored in other buildings.
With the occupation of Bulgaria by the Soviet Army in autumn 1944, the planned German-Bulgarian joint institute came to an early end.
See also
literature
- Arnold Scheibe: Planning and establishment of the "German-Bulgarian Institute for Agricultural Research (Kaiser Wilhelm Institute)" in Sofia . In: From German research over the past few decades. Dr. Dedicated to Ernst Telschow on the occasion of his 65th birthday on October 31, 1954. Edited by B. Rajewsky and G. Schreiber. Georg Thieme Verlag Stuttgart 1956, pp. 326–337.
- German-Bulgarian Institute for Agricultural Research (BMS) , in: Eckart Henning , Marion Kazemi : Handbook on the history of the institute of the Kaiser Wilhelm / Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science 1911–2011 - Data and Sources , Berlin 2016 , 2 volumes, volume 1: Institutes and research centers A – L ( online, PDF, 75 MB ) Pages 318–320 (chronology of the institute)