Friedrich Merkenschlager

Friedrich Merkenschlager (pseudonym Fritz Merkenschlager ; born November 19, 1892 in Hauslach near Georgensgmünd ; † February 10, 1968 there ) was a German agricultural botanist , phytomedicist , local researcher and poet .

Live and act

Friedrich Merkenschlager, son of Economics Council, studied botany in Erlangen , Göttingen and at the University of Munich , where he in 1920 with a dissertation on the chlorosis of Lupine Dr. phil. received his doctorate. After a short assistantship with Lorenz Hiltner at the Bavarian State Institute for Plant Production and Plant Protection in Munich, he worked from 1921 to 1924 with Friedrich Boas at the Botanical Institute of the Agricultural University of Weihenstephan . In 1925 he completed his habilitation at the University of Kiel with a paper on the methods for the physiological diagnosis of cultivated plants . From 1925 to 1933 he worked at the Biological Reichsanstalt for Agriculture and Forestry in Berlin, since 1927 as a councilor and head of the botany laboratory. According to his own résumé, Merkenschlager was connected to the National Socialist movement at an early age and counted himself among the old fighters from the time of the Hitler putsch in Munich. According to his own assessment, he was the first SA man in northern Germany.

In 1933, Merkenschlager was dismissed from service in the Reich because he had opposed the racial doctrine advocated by the National Socialists in essays and writings that (like Karl Saller , Walter Scheidt and originally Friedrich Keiter ) represent a dynamic concept of race . He temporarily headed the biological department of the Bavarian State Institute for Crop Production and Plant Protection in Munich. He was arrested in 1937 and spent three years in prison without charge or conviction. After serving in the Wehrmacht and being a prisoner of war , he took over a professorship for horticultural botany and horticultural plant protection at the Horticultural College in Weihenstephan in 1946 . He worked here until his retirement in 1958.

Merkenschlager was an imaginative and ingenious exponent of agricultural and horticultural botany. He always tried to look at science from a holistic point of view. Basic problems, but also current questions about plant nutrition , plant physiology , plant ecology and plant protection in potatoes , lupins , broad beans and serradella were the focus of his research. His book Plant Constitution Theory (1933) , which he wrote together with Maximilian Klinkowski , is a noteworthy conceptual structure for the entire field of plant sciences .

Merkenschlager has also emerged as a local researcher with numerous publications . He also wrote poems , short stories and novels . Together with Friedrich Boas , he published a biologist's breviary in 1947 , a collection of quotes from the works of important thinkers from antiquity to the present.

Publications (selection)

Lupine chlorosis on limestone soils. Dissertation. University of Munich 1920. Typescript.
F. Boas and F. Merkenschlager: The lupine as an object of plant research. Morphology, anatomy, physiology and pathology of the yellow lupins. Parey, Berlin 1923.
Problems of germination physiology. Datterer, Freising-Munich 1924 (= natural science and agriculture, H. 1.)
Sinapis. A crop and a weed. Gerber, Munich 1925.
Methods for the physiological diagnosis of cultivated plants. Depicted on buckwheat. Habilitation thesis. University of Kiel 1926. Springer, Vienna 1926 (= Zugl. In: Advances in Agriculture. Vol. 1, 1926, pp. 137–141, 174–180, 212–218, 242–248 and 347–352.)
(as Fritz M.): Gods, Heroes and Günther. A defense of Günther's racial science . Spindler, Nuremberg 1927
From Keuperbucht. History of a Franconian village. Korn & Berg, Nuremberg 1928.
On the folklore and race of the Spreewald. Heine, Cottbus 1931
Racial segregation, racial mixing, racial change. Hoffmann, Berlin 1933.
F. Merkenschlager and M. Klinkowski: Plant constitution doctrine. Depicted on cultivated plants. Parey, Berlin 1933.
Between megalithic grave and pile dwellings. The original styles of European culture . Hoffmann, Berlin 1934.
Sabina. Rogalla, the minstrel of God. Novellas. Spindler, Nuremberg 1939. 2nd edition 1941. 3rd edition: Weigl, Schwabach 1950
Thomas. A song of life of stones, flowers and love. Spindler, Nuremberg 1939
Biologist's Breviary . Edited by F. Boas and F. Merkenschlager. Stromverlag, Hamburg-Bergedorf 1947. 2nd edition: Datterer, Freising 1951.

literature

Friedrich Boas: Professor Merkenschlager 60 years. In: German agricultural press. Vol. 75, 1952, p. 293 (with picture).
Karl Saller : Friedrich Merkenschlager. In: 100 Years of the Schwabach District (1862–1962). A home book. Edited by Willi Ulsamer on behalf of the district. Schwabach 1964, pp. 287-296 (with picture).
Professor Dr. Friedrich Merkenschlager † . In: News sheet of the German Plant Protection Service. Vol. 20, 1968, p. 80.
Willi Ulsamer: memorial booklet for Friedrich Merkenschlager. From the home of Spalter. Local history booklets. Published by the Heimatverein Spalter Land, 9th episode, Schwabach 1970 (with picture and list of scriptures).
Gerd Berghofer: Friedrich Merkenschlager. A scientist defies the racial ideas of the Nazis, wek-Verlag , Treuchtlingen 2010.

Web links

Literature by and about Friedrich Merkenschlager in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

↑ Cornelia Essner: The “Nuremberg Laws” or the Administration of Rassenwahns 1933 - 1945 , Paderborn: Schöningh, 2002, ISBN 3-506-72260-3 , p. 62
↑ Ute Felbor: Racial Biology and Hereditary Science in the Medical Faculty of the University of Würzburg 1937–1945. Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 1995, ISBN 3-88479-932-0 (= Würzburg medical-historical research. Supplement 3.) - At the same time: Dissertation Würzburg 1995), p. 115 f.

personal data
SURNAME	Merkenschlager, Friedrich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	German agricultural botanist, phytomedicist, local researcher and poet
DATE OF BIRTH	November 19, 1892
PLACE OF BIRTH	Hauslach near Georgensgmünd
DATE OF DEATH	February 10, 1968
Place of death	Hauslach near Georgensgmünd

[1] Cornelia Essner: The “Nuremberg Laws” or the Administration of Rassenwahns 1933 - 1945 , Paderborn: Schöningh, 2002, ISBN 3-506-72260-3 , p. 62

[2] Ute Felbor: Racial Biology and Hereditary Science in the Medical Faculty of the University of Würzburg 1937–1945. Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 1995, ISBN 3-88479-932-0 (= Würzburg medical-historical research. Supplement 3.) - At the same time: Dissertation Würzburg 1995), p. 115 f.