Ernst Dieffenbach

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Allegory: Ernst Dieffenbach reaches the summit of Mount Egmont

Johann Karl Ernst Dieffenbach , sometimes called Ernest Dieffenbach in the English-speaking world , (born January 27, 1811 in Gießen , Landgraviate Hessen-Darmstadt ; † October 1, 1855 there , Grand Duchy of Hesse ), was a German physician , geologist , natural scientist and later also a professor at the University of Giessen . He earned special services through his scientific research into New Zealand .

Early years

Ernst Dieffenbach was born in Giessen on January 27, 1811, the son of Ludwig Adam Dieffenbach , a Protestant clergyman and professor of theology at the University of Giessen. His mother was Christiane Louise Henriette Hoffmann from Ober-Mockstadt . His sister Christiane married Johann Gros , who later became a member of the state parliament . From 1828 to 1833 he studied medicine in Gießen, but also became interested in other natural sciences . So he was u. a. Student of Justus Liebig , chemist and professor at the same university.

Also interested in politics, Dieffenbach joined the democracy movement of the fraternities during his student days , which in turn received further impetus after the July Revolution of 1830 in Paris and culminated in May 1832 with the Hambach Festival and in April 1833 with the Frankfurt Wachensturm . In Gießen he became a member of the old Gießen fraternity Germania in 1828 . In the failed attempt to start a revolution , many students were arrested or fled abroad. Dieffenbach, presumably involved in the uprising and also persecuted, fled to Strasbourg in France in August 1833 . In May 1834 he was expelled from the University of Giessen. A good two months later, Dieffenbach went to Zurich in Switzerland to continue his medical studies. In 1835 he graduated with a doctorate.

Also politically active in Switzerland, Dieffenbach joined the Swiss Young Germany section . In 1836 he was jailed for two months for political activities and for participating in a duel. In August 1836, the Swiss authorities finally expelled Dieffenbach, also at the instigation of the Austrian government.

England

Dieffenbach went to England via France , where he found refuge in London . There he wrote articles for the British Annals of Medicine and the Edinburgh Review , taught German, worked as a prosector at Guy's Hospital and at times as a doctor for a factory in London. His living conditions during this time were precarious and the activities were not enough to sustain him. But his work for scientific journals made him known in the British professional world, and so it was that, nominated by two officials of the Royal Geographical Society , he was given the opportunity by the New Zealand Company in the spring of 1839 to join the Colonization Society's expedition to explore New Zealand to direct.

New Zealand

In May 1839 Dieffenbach sailed on the Tory , a settler ship of the New Zealand Company under the direction of William Wakefield , from Plymouth towards New Zealand. The ship reached the North Island in August 1839. Dieffenbach worked in the budding colony for two years. He toured the Marlborough Sounds , the Hutt Valley , the Taranaki region , the west coast of the North Island and the Volcanic Plateau , traveled up to Northland and visited the Chatham Islands for four weeks . This made him the first scientist to research and live in New Zealand. Dieffenbach collected and documented the flora and fauna of the country as well as the landscape with its geological conditions. His collection later found entry into the Royal Botanic Gardens , in the London borough of Kew and the British Museum .

But Dieffenbach was not only attracted by the scientific challenge. In December 1839 he climbed Mount Taranaki on the second attempt . Together with James Heberley , who mastered the four-day ascent with him and is said to have reached the summit 20 minutes earlier, he is one of the first to climb the 2,518 m high active volcano. The initiative for the ascent came from Dieffenbach.

In his honor, the Dieffenbach railroad (Gallirallus dieffenbachii) , which he cataloged in 1840 but died out in 1872, was named after him. The Mount Diffenbach in New Zealand also bears his name.

Back in England

In October 1841 Dieffenbach returned to England, published his first book New Zealand and its Native Population and worked on his work Travels in New Zealand , which appeared in two volumes in London in 1843. An April 6, 1844 article in the Times reviewed his book and said it would be of great value to anyone interested in the new colony for any reason. The two volumes thus became handbooks for travelers and colonialists and were a good basis for future explorers.

In January 1843 Dieffenbach became a founding member of the London Ethnological Society and represented Johann Gottfried Herder's view that the individuality of every people is a product of a dialectic between global human nature, the individual character of the race and the specific environment in which the race develops. In his essay On the Study of Ethnology Dieffenbach assumed that with the relatively stable classification of race types, ethnologists could create an ethnological map of the world with the precision of a botanist , which would show the geographical boundaries in which each race lives.

Back in Germany

In the course of 1843 Dieffenbach returned to Germany and initially faced new difficulties due to his earlier political activities. But support came from Liebig and Humboldt . On a short trip to England on behalf of Liebig, Dieffenbach hoped to get another order for an expedition to New Zealand in a conversation with Lord Stanley . He turned down the offer to go on a scientific trip to South America . Back, Dieffenbach translated Darwin's Journal of Researches into German, contributed to work on scientific journals and was only able to work more freely after the German Revolution in 1848 . He took over the editing of the liberal Freie Hessische Zeitung and in 1849 became a private lecturer at the University of Giessen. Whether he turned down an offer to get a seat in the first German parliament, the Frankfurt National Assembly , has not been proven. In 1850 he was offered an extraordinary professorship in geology and in 1852 published his translation of The Geological Observer by Henry Thomas de la Bèche .

In April 1851 Dieffenbach married Katharina Emilie Reuning . The marriage resulted in two daughters, Klara and Anna. In 1855 Dieffenbach fell ill with typhus and died on October 1st of the same year in Giessen. Since then, his grave has been in the old cemetery in Gießen. It was relocated in 2016 and given a plaque.

Works

  • Smith, Elder and Co., Cornhill (Ed.): New Zealand and its Native Population . London 1841 (English, google.de ).
  • The Journal of the Royal Geographical Society of London (Ed.): An Account of the Chatham Islands . Vol. 11 , 1841, pp. 195-215 , JSTOR : 1797646 .
  • John Murray (Ed.): Travels in New Zealand - with a contribution to the Geography, Geology, Botany, and Natural History of that Country . Volume I, II . London 1843, doi : 10.5962 / bhl.title.25939 (English).
  • On the Study of Ethnology . London January 31, 1843 (English, 11-page essay, presented at the founding event of the Ethnological Society, Thomas Hodgkin's House in London).
  • Charles Darwin's Scientific Journeys to the Islands of the Green Foothills, South America, Tierra del Fuego, the Falkland Islands, Chiloe Islands, Galápagos Islands, Otaheiti, New Holland, New Zealand, Van Diemen's Land, Keeling Islands, Mauritius, St. Helena, den Azoren etc. Vieweg, Braunschweig 1844 (translation with annotations from the work Journal of Researches by Charles Darwin ).
  • Preschool of Geology - A guide to the observation and correct understanding of the changes that are still taking place on the surface of the earth and to study geological phenomena in general. Vieweg, Braunschweig 1853 (translation and German adaptation with additions of The Geological Observer by Henry Thomas de la Bèche ).

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Dieffenbach, Ludwig Adam. Hessian biography. (As of March 14, 2013). In: Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS).
  2. ^ A b Robert Grant : New Zealand 'Naturally' - Ernst Dieffenbach, Environmental Determinism and the Mid Nineteenth-Century British Colonization of New Zealand . In: Department of History - The University of Auckland (Ed.): New Zealand Journal of History . Volume 37, Issue 1 . Auckland 2003, p.  24 (English).
  3. ^ Paul Wentzcke : Fraternity lists. Second volume: Hans Schneider and Georg Lehnert: Gießen - The Gießener Burschenschaft 1814 to 1936. Görlitz 1942, F. Germania. No. 270.
  4. ^ Helge Dvorak: Politician AE . In: Universitätsverlag Winter (ed.): Biographical Lexicon of the German Burschenschaft . tape I . Heidelberg 1996, p. 196 .
  5. ^ A b Oliver J. Harrison : The Paradise of the Southern Hemisphere - The Perception of New Zealand and the Maori in Written Accounts of German-speaking Explorers and Travelers 1839-1889 . Ed .: The University of Auckland . Auckland 2006, p.  61 (English, doctoral thesis for the doctorate in philosophy in German).
  6. ^ A b c Guy Hardy Scholefield : Dieffenbach, Ernst . In: Department of Internal Affairs (Ed.): A Dictionary of New Zealand Biography . Volume 2 . Wellington 1940 (English).
  7. ↑ Denis McLean : Dieffenbach, Johann Karl Ernst . In: Dictionary of New Zealand Biography . Ministry for Culture & Heritage , accessed June 14, 2012 .
  8. ^ Sorrel Hoskin : Ernst Dieffenbach - the first European to climb Mount Taranaki? . Puke Ariki - New Plymouth District Council , April 12, 2005, accessed December 3, 2015 .
  9. ^ Robert Grant : New Zealand Travels. By Ernest Dieffenbach, MD, late naturalist to the New Zealand Company . In: The Times . Issue 18577 . London April 6, 1844, p.  5 (English).
  10. ^ Robert Grant : New Zealand 'Naturally' - Ernst Dieffenbach, Environmental Determinism and the Mid Nineteenth-Century British Colonization of New Zealand . In: Department of History - The University of Auckland (Ed.): New Zealand Journal of History . Volume 37, Issue 1 . Auckland 2003, p.  25 (English).
  11. ↑ Freie Hessische Zeitung. Berlin State Library, accessed on January 24, 2013 .
  12. ^ Joerg-Peter Schmidt: Ernst Dieffenbach - New tombstone for New Zealand researchers. Der neue Landbote, December 28, 2016, accessed on February 2, 2017 ( notification from the Oberhessischer Geschichtsverein Gießen eV).
  13. ↑ today: Bonn Zoological Bulletin .
personal data
SURNAME Dieffenbach, Ernst
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Dieffenbach, Johann Karl Ernst
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German physician, geologist, natural scientist and professor at the University of Giessen
DATE OF BIRTH January 27, 1811
PLACE OF BIRTH to water
DATE OF DEATH October 1, 1855
Place of death to water