Edwin Hennig

Edwin Hennig (born April 27, 1882 in Berlin , † November 12, 1977 in Tübingen ) was a German paleontologist .

Hennig was one of five children of a businessman who died when Hennig was ten years old. The transport scientist and historical geographer Richard Hennig was one of his brothers . From 1902 he studied natural sciences, anthropology and philosophy at the Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg , where he received his doctorate in 1906 under Otto Jaekel (Gyrodas and the organization of the pycnodonts ). Then he was assistant to Wilhelm von Branca at the Geological-Paleontological Institute of the Humboldt University in Berlin , where he completed his habilitation in 1913 and became a private lecturer. During the First World War he was a military geologist. From 1917 he was a professor at the University of Tübingen , where he was rector from 1929/1930, and director of the Geological-Paleontological Institute. In 1937 he joined the NSDAP . In 1945 he was removed from office and subjected to a denazification process. In 1951 he retired.

Hennig is known as the excavator (under Werner Janensch ) of dinosaurs in the Tendaguru expedition in East Africa from 1909. In 1948 he described Australopithecus afarensis finds from East Africa, collected by Ludwig Kohl-Larsen . He wrote some popular science books.

Similar to Othenio Abel before , he was a follower of orthogenic theories of evolution, as was Karl Beurlen , who was his assistant.

In 1952 he became an honorary member of the Association for Patriotic Natural History in Württemberg and the Upper Rhine Geological Association .

Fonts

• Dinosaurs in East Africa. Exploration trip through the East African bush . Lux-Verlag, Murnau 1961
• Past worlds. On the hunt for dinosaurs in the East African bush , Albert Müller Verlag 1955
• Am Tendaguru: Life and work of a German research expedition to excavate pre-worldly giant dinosaurs in German East Africa , Swiss beard 1912, Reprint, Nabu Press 2010
• Geology of Greater Germany , Enke Verlag 1942
• Geology of Württemberg together with Hohenzollern , Berlin: Borntraeger 1923
• The middle Jura in the hinterland of Dar es Salaam (German East Africa) , Borntraeger 1924
• Life of the past. Introduction to petrification science , Munich, Lehmann 1938
• Nature and ways of paleontology; an introduction to the theory of petrification as a science , Borntraeger 1932
• Earthly becoming , Lux-Verlag 1953
• Of forced flow and suppleness in organic development , JBCMohr, Tübingen 1929 (Rector's speech)
• Paleontological contributions to evolutionary theory , Tübinger Naturwissenschaftliche Abhandlungen, JBC Mohr, 1922
• The scientific worldview of the present , breakthrough publishing house 1937
• with Erich Krenkel Geology of Württemberg together with Hohenzollern , Borntraeger 1923 (Handbook of Geology and Natural Resources in Germany)
• The development of the human race , Tübingen, Matthiesen 1950
• James Cook. Developer of the Earth , Stuttgart, Wissenschaftliche Verlagsgesellschaft 1952
• Tübingen's prehistory and history , Tübingen 1957
• Contemporary historical discoveries; a contribution to research into the recent past , Munich, Türmer Verlag 1964

literature

• Gerhard Maier: African dinosaurs unearthed. The Tendaguru Expedition , Indiana University Press 2003
• Helmut Hölder , Helmut Kiderlen (editor): Edwin Hennig festival volume on the completion of the 70th year of life , New Yearbook for Geology and Paleontology, Volume 97, 1953
• Helmut Hölder, Wolf von Engelhardt : Mineralogy, Geology and Paleontology at the University of Tübingen from the beginning to the present , JCB Mohr, Tübingen 1977

Individual evidence

1. ^ Georgy Levit, Lennart Olsson Evolution on Rails. Mechanisms and Levels of Orthogenesis , Annals of the History and Philosophy of Biology, Volume 11, 2006, p. 99. With a short biography by Hennig.
2. ^ Honorary members of the Association for Patriotic Natural History in Württemberg