Elisabeth Schiemann

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Elisabeth Schiemann (born August 15, 1881 in Fellin , Livonia Gouvernement , Russian Empire ; † January 3, 1972 in West Berlin , Germany ) was a German geneticist , crop researcher and resistance fighter during the Nazi era. Your official author abbreviation in the botanical specialist literature is " E. Schiem. ".

Origin and education

Elisabeth Schiemann, daughter of the historian Theodor Schiemann (* 1847, † 1921), lived in Berlin since 1887. In the family there was a tolerant climate towards German Jews. Elisabeth belonged to the first generation of women in Germany who could study and to whom - albeit initially within narrow limits - an independent professional activity as an academic was open to.

She attended a seminar for teachers and spent several years in Paris to study languages . She then worked for a few years as a teacher at a girls' school. From 1908 she studied at the University of Berlin and received her doctorate there in 1912 with a thesis on mutations in Aspergillus ; her doctoral supervisor was Erwin Baur .

The botanist

academic career

From 1914 to 1931 she was assistant or senior assistant at the Institute for Heredity Research at the Agricultural University in Berlin , headed by Erwin Baur . In 1924 she completed her habilitation with a thesis on the genetics of the winter and summer types in barley . As a private lecturer , she gave lectures on seed science and reproductive biology at the Agricultural University. Her real research area, however, became the history of cultivated plants .

From 1931 to 1943 Elisabeth Schiemann was a visiting scientist at the Botanical Institute in Berlin-Dahlem. Her book Origin of Cultivated Plants was published in 1932 . It brought her international recognition and became a standard work in crop research. In 1943 she published another fundamental treatise on her new field of research under the same title in the journal Results of Biology . In 1931 she qualified as a professor at the Philosophical Faculty of Berlin University. Since she openly spoke out against the so-called racial politics of National Socialism and its pseudo-scientific vulgar Darwinism , against the persecution of the Jews and the abolition of the multi-party system, she came into conflict with the regime. After a denunciation and a dispute about the conversion of her extraordinary to an unscheduled professorship, her venia legendi was revoked in 1940 .

In 1943 Elisabeth Schiemann took over the management of an independent department for the history of cultivated plants at the newly founded " Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Cultivated Plants Research " in Vienna-Tuttenhof, but her department remained in Berlin. In 1946 she received a professorship (professorship with a full teaching assignment was called that at the time) at the reopened Berlin University. Due to the Cold War, she had to give up the professorship in 1949. She was able to continue her research work in initially makeshift accommodation. In 1948, the Department for the History of Cultivated Plants, together with the remaining Kaiser Wilhelm Institutes in Berlin-Dahlem , was transferred to the newly established German Research University Foundation . From 1952 to 1956, Elisabeth Schiemann headed this department as a research center of the Max Planck Society . After her retirement in 1956, the department was closed.

Research content

In her research on the history of cultivated plants, Elisabeth Schiemann combined systematic plant-geographical and experimental methods. Many of their working hypotheses gave impetus to crop research. Her list of publications includes over 80 titles, including archaeobotanical works on Stone Age and ancient sites, such as B. pile dwellings , pharaohs tombs and Troy . Her work Wheat, Rye, Barley , published in 1948, became fundamental . Systematics, history and use . Elisabeth Schiemann has also recognized the scientific achievements of plant breeders in numerous contributions.

Honors

Elisabeth Schiemann has received several awards for her scientific life's work. In 1953 she became a Scientific Member of the Max Planck Society (as the first female scientist since 1945). In 1954 she received the Cross of Merit (Steckkreuz) of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany . In the same year she became an honorary member of the Botanical Society of France, in 1956 a member of the German Academy of Natural Scientists Leopoldina in Halle / Saale, in 1959 she was awarded the Darwin plaque of the Leopoldina (as the only woman among 18 scientists). In 1962 the Agricultural Faculty of the Technical University of Berlin awarded her an honorary doctorate (which was the first time the university honored a woman). In 2003, in Berlin-Falkenberg , Lichtenberg district , Elisabeth-Schiemann-Strasse was named after her. A Schiemann competition has been held at the Free University of Berlin since 2010.

The resister

Gravestone of Elisabeth Schiemann in the St Anne's churchyard in Berlin-Dahlem

Elisabeth Schiemann vigorously and resolutely campaigned for those persecuted by the Nazi regime. She belonged to a network of women friends, including Elisabeth Schmitz . She and her sister Gertrud took part in the life of the Confessing Church in Berlin-Dahlem . Schiemann did not shy away from writing committed letters to pastors and ministers, defending Jewish colleagues at scientific symposia and helping the persecuted underground.

She was close friends with the physicist Lise Meitner until she escaped in July 1938, as evidenced by an extensive correspondence that has been kept for decades, has been largely preserved and was first published in 2010. After the end of the Second World War , there were arguments between the two about the causes of the Nazi regime, the lack of broad resistance of the German population against this regime, about the future of a new Germany and the need to come to terms with the Nazi past.

The Yad Vashem Memorial honored her on December 16, 2014 with the title “ Righteous Among the Nations ”.

death

Elisabeth Schiemann's grave is in the St-Annen-Kirchhof in Berlin-Dahlem . It has been dedicated to the city of Berlin as an honorary grave since 2018 .

Major works

  • Gender and crossbreeding issues at Fragraria . Verlag Gustav Fischer, Jena 1931 (= Botanical Treatises; 18).
  • Origin of cultivated plants . Verlag Borntraeger, Berlin 1932 (= Handbuch der Vererbungswissenschaften, Vol. 3).
  • Origin of cultivated plants . In: Results of Biology Vol. 19, 1943, pp. 409-552.
  • Wheat, rye, barley. History, creation and use . G. Fischer publishing house, Jena 1948.
  • The history of cultivated plants in the change of methods . In: Botanik Tidsskrift Vol. 51, 1954, pp. 308–329.
  • Biology, archeology and crops . In: Yearbook of the Max Planck Society 1955, pp. 177–198.

literature

  • Hans Stubbe : Elisabeth Schiemann on her 70th birthday on August 15, 1951 . In: The Breeder. Vol. 21, 1951, pp. 193-195 (with picture).
  • Paula Hertwig : Elisabeth Schiemann on her 75th birthday. In: Journal of Plant Breeding. Vol. 36, 1956, pp. 129-132 (with picture).
  • Hermann Kuckuck : Elisabeth Schiemann 1881 to 1972 . In: Reports of the German Botanical Society. Vol. 93, 1980, pp. 517-537 (with picture and bibliography).
  • Anton Lang: Elisabeth Schiemann. Life and career of a scientist in Berlin In: Claus Schnarrenberger, Hildemar Scholz : History of botany in Berlin. Colloquium, Berlin 1990, pp. 179-189.
  • Mathilde Schmitt: Elisabeth Schiemann . In: Heide Inhetveen , Mathilde Schmitt (ed.): Pioneers of agriculture. Heydorn, Uetersen 2000, pp. 81–85 (with picture).
  • Elvira Sheikh : Elisabeth Schiemann (1881–1972) - patriot in conflict . In: Susanne Heim (Ed.): Autarkie und Ostexpansion. Plant breeding and agricultural research during National Socialism (= history of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society during National Socialism. Vol. 2). Wallstein, Göttingen 2002, pp. 250-279.
  • Elvira Scheich: Science, Politics, and Morality: The Relationship of Lise Meitner and Elisabeth Schiemann , in: Osiris, Vol. 12, Women, Gender, and Science: New Directions (1997), pp. 143-168.
  • Mathilde Schmitt, Heide Inhetveen :  Schiemann, Elisabeth. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 22, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-428-11203-2 , p. 744 f. ( Digitized version ).
  • Annette Vogt : From the back entrance to the main portal? Lise Meitner and her colleagues at the Berlin University and in the Kaiser Wilhelm Society (= Pallas Athene. Vol. 17). Steiner, Stuttgart 2007, ISBN 978-3-515-08881-7 , pp. 379-383, 393, 404-407, 413-420.
  • Annette Vogt: Scientists in Kaiser Wilhelm Institutes A – Z (= publications from the archive of the Max Planck Society. Vol. 12). 2nd, expanded edition. Archive of the Max Planck Society, Berlin 2008, pp. 164–167.
  • Martina Voigt: companion in the resistance. Elisbeth Schiemann's commitment to equal rights for Jews . In: Manfred Gailus (Ed.): Elisabeth Schmitz and her memorandum against the persecution of the Jews. Outlines of a forgotten biography (1893–1977) . Wichern, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-88981-243-8 , pp. 128-162.
  • Jost Lemmerich (Ed.): Bonds of friendship: Lise Meitner – Elisabeth Schiemann. Annotated correspondence 1911–1947 . Publishing house of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna 2010, ISBN 978-3-7001-6847-8 .
  • Reiner Nürnberg, Ekkehard Höxtermann, Martina Voigt (eds.): Elisabeth Schiemann 1881–1972. On the dawn of genetics and women in the upheavals of the 20th century (Symposium Berlin 2010) . Basilisk press published by Natur & Text, Rangsdorf 2014, ISBN 978-3-941365-13-1 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Voigt, p. 131.
  2. ^ Annette Vogt: Barriers and Careers - Using the Example of Women Scientists in Institutes of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society. In: Hildegard Küllchen, Sonja Koch, Brigitte Schober and Susanne Schötz (eds.): Women in Science - Women at the TU Dresden. Conference on the occasion of the admission of women to study in Dresden 100 years ago, Leipzig 2010, pp. 161–179, here: 169–170.
  3. ↑ Pfahlbauweizen - historical and phylogenetic. in: Journal of Plant Breeding Vol. 17 (1931) pp. 36–53.
  4. ↑ Determination of some plant finds from the tomb of Tut-Ench-Amon. in: Englers Botanische Jahrbücher Vol. 71, Schweitzerbart, Stuttgart, 1941, pp. 511-519.
  5. ↑ Emmer in Troy. New determinations on the Trojan grain finds. in: Reports of the German Botanical Society Vol. 64 (1951) pp. 155–170
  6. ↑ Member entry by Elisabeth Schiemann at the German Academy of Natural Scientists Leopoldina , accessed on October 22, 2015.
  7. ^ Elisabeth Schiemann on The Righteous Among The Nations

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Schiemann, Elisabeth
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German botanist
DATE OF BIRTH August 15, 1881
PLACE OF BIRTH Fellin , Livonia Governorate , Russian Empire
DATE OF DEATH 3rd January 1972
Place of death Berlin