Erwin Patzke

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Erwin A. Patzke 1990 Elmpter Bruch

Erwin Alfred Patzke (* December 8, 1929 in Marienwerder , West Prussia ; † February 28, 2018 in Aachen ) was a German botanist with a research focus on floristry , phenology and systematics . He taught from 1967 to 1995 at the PH Rheinland and later at the RWTH Aachen . The official botanical author abbreviation of Erwin Patzke is Patzke .

Live and act

Childhood and youth

Patzke was born in 1929 as the second of three sons in Marienwerder in West Prussia. His parents were Erna Patzke, geb. Dehne and the civil engineer Reinhard Patzke. He spent his childhood in Dahme / Mark (1930–1936) and in Königsberg , today Kaliningrad (1936–1945).

In East Prussia he attended elementary and high school ( Hufengymnasium ) for four years each , until all schools in Königsberg were closed on January 23, 1945. At the end of the Second World War , Patzke fled at the age of 15 in January 1945 with his mother from Königsberg to Gotenhafen and tried to find accommodation on the Wilhelm Gustloff , which was already fully occupied. They were given a place on the freighter Göttingen , which was then involved in the rescue attempts of the survivors of the Wilhelm Gustloff. Except for the eldest son, who stayed in Hamburg after the war , the family now lived together in Dahme / Mark. Regular school lessons did not begin again until the beginning of 1946. Two school years later, Patzke passed the school leaving examination on August 5, 1947. During his school days he was guided by the botanist and teacher Max Schmattorsch and developed a preference for grasses .

Study time in East Germany

So, after a forced break, he began to study biology, chemistry, pedagogy and psychology in East Berlin in the winter semester 1949/50 at the University of Education. In the summer of 1950, studies were shortened from six to four semesters in order to alleviate the teacher shortage in East Berlin. This gave rise to the long-awaited change of university to the Humboldt University. Here Patzke passed an intermediate examination after three semesters and registered for the final exam at the end of 1952. For Richard Kolkwitz he wrote a term paper on "the plant conditions in the areas bordering on the west of Niederlausitz". This resulted in two publications later (1960 and 1964). He also chose biology for the exam. As political incidents kept coming up, one of which was described in the book Abgeholt: Chronicle of a Robbed Youth from 1947 by his school friend Werner Pfeiffer, who was then imprisoned for many years himself, the family decided in 1953 to leave the GDR .

Study time in West Germany

Patzke came from the West Berlin emergency reception center Marienfelde via the transit camp Hamburg-Wandsbek to the main transit camp for refugees Wipperfürth and was sent from there to Bonn in May 1953 , where Patzke received the funds for a new course of studies in the Federal Republic as a student trainee at the Bayer paint factories Leverkusen acquired. In the winter semester of 1954/55 he enrolled at the mathematics and natural sciences faculty of the Rheinische Friedrich Wilhelm University in Bonn. From May 1957 he worked at the Pharmacognostic Institute as a student, then as a research assistant and finally until the end of April 1966 as administrator of the official business of a research assistant. In between, he completed his studies with a major in chemistry in September 1962. He took up his work as an administrator because he was only interested in the management of internships, since as a member of the German National Academic Foundation he was financially secure for several years.

Research and Teaching

During his studies, he met his future wife Gerda Mettig, a pharmacy student and also a refugee from the GDR. Without them, he would not have had the freedom to concentrate solely on his botanical research work and later teaching. He wrote his doctoral thesis under Maximilian Steiner on a topic from the systematics of plants: investigations into the phenology and root fluorescence of fescue species to classify the family group Festuca L. (1753) . Even before the oral exam was finished on December 20, 1968, Patzke began his service as a teacher of botany on September 1, 1967 at the University of Education in the Rhineland, Aachen department. After the PH was incorporated into RWTH on October 29, 1982, he became professor of biology and its didactics, and on June 1, 1987, university professor.

From 1982 to 1989 time-consuming ecological investigations and mapping were carried out and in 1990 the book Die Flora des Oberbergischer Kreis was published with Patzke as one of two employees of Rainer Galunder. Galunder had found that the Oberbergische Kreis was a "white spot" from the point of view of botanists. Albert Schumacher examined the plants in the area from 1910 to the 1970s. Patzke got to know the Oberbergischer Kreis during his studies in Bonn through Schumacher and was thus able to ideally support Galunder.

On February 28, 2018, Patzke died and found his final resting place in the Aachen forest cemetery .

Honors and memberships

On March 1, 1995, he retired. As an experienced Festuca connoisseur around the world, experts and students continued to contact him on botanical questions for many years. He was a member of various natural science associations, such as the Natural History Association of the Rhineland and Westphalia e. V. and worked on floral lists.

On December 12th, 2009, an extraordinary Rhenish Florists' Day took place on the occasion of his 80th birthday.

Ingeborg Markgraf-Dannenberg (March 18, 1911– March 22, 1996) named a sweet grass after him:

  • Patzke fescue ( Festuca patzkei Markgr.-Dann. ), A type of grass named after Patzke.
  • Patzkea paniculata (L.) GHLoos , a species of the genus Patzkea from the sweet grass family (Poaceae), which was named after Patzke.

Publications (selection)

  • 22. Erwin Patzke: On the question of the division of the Sect. 63 Spirostachyae Drejer of the genus Carex in the scope of the treatment by G. Kükenthal . In: Reports of the German Botanical Society . tape 77 , no. 1 , October 1964, ISSN  1438-8677 , p. 196-197 ( wiley.com ).
  • Investigations on root fluorescence of fescue species for the classification of the family group Festuca Linné. (Poaceae: Pooideae: Poeae). (= Dissertation at the University of Bonn 1968, 22 pages.) In: Senckenbergiana biologica. 51, No. 3/4, August 14, 1970, pp. 255-276. ( books.google.de )
  • with Rainer Galunder, Roland U. Neumann: Flora of the Oberbergischer Kreis. Groneberg, Homburg 1990, ISBN 3-88265-156-3 .
  • various articles in the Decheniana of the Natural History Association of the Rhineland and Westphalia, Bonn ISSN  0366-872X .
  • further articles in the Austrian botanical journal ISSN  0029-8948 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Obituary notice on aachen-gedenken.de
  2. ↑ Patzke, Erwin (1929–). on ipni.org In: International Plant Names Index.
  3. ^ Patzke, Erwin. on kiki.huh.harvard.edu In: Index of Botanists. from Harvard University Herbaria & Libraries.
  4. ↑ [ Sukopp, H. 2016/2017: Connections between botanists in Berlin (West) and Brandenburg. - Prohib. Bot. Ver. Berlin Brandenburg 149: 173-180. ] on botanischer-verein-brandenburg.de.
  5. ↑ The DECHENIANA. Volume 153. (2000) on naturhistorischerverein.de.
  6. ↑ Flora list on kp-buttler.de.
  7. ^ Extraordinary Rhenish Florists' Day on the occasion of the 80th birthday of Prof. Dr. Erwin Patzke on December 12, 2009 (PDF) on flora-deutschlands.de.
  8. ↑ Species information on floraweb.de.
  9. ↑ Species information on preservons-la-nature.fr.
  10. ↑ Lotte Burkhardt: Directory of eponymous plant names - Extended Edition. Part I and II. Botanic Garden and Botanical Museum Berlin , Freie Universität Berlin , Berlin 2018, ISBN 978-3-946292-26-5 doi: 10.3372 / epolist2018 .
personal data
SURNAME Patzke, Erwin
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Patzke, Erwin Alfred (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German botanist
DATE OF BIRTH December 8, 1929
PLACE OF BIRTH Marienwerder , West Prussia
DATE OF DEATH February 28, 2018
Place of death Aachen