Günther Hecht (zoologist)

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Günther Hecht (born July 15, 1902 in Völpke , Borde district ; declared dead on December 31, 1945 in Berlin ) was a German zoologist , specialist author and Nazi racial ideologist . Hecht is known as a herpetologist , but also stands for the racial ideology of the National Socialists.

Life

As a youth, Hecht fought in the youth border guard from 1917 and in the Freikorps against the French occupation of the Rhineland from 1919 .

He was interested in herpetology and at the age of 16, at the suggestion of Willy Wolterstorff, founded the vivaristic salamander association with like-minded people . The German Society for Herpetology and Terrarium Science emerged from it in 1964 . Later he campaigned vigorously for the protection of adders and achieved that from 1931 onwards no more catch premiums were paid for them in Germany.

After studying natural sciences and philosophy in Frankfurt a. M. , Kiel and Berlin doctorate he in the summer of 1930 at the Berlin Friedrich-Wilhelms University for Dr. phil. with a work on the water snake genus Tropidonotus (today: Natrix ). The two German herpetologists Lorenz Müller and Robert Mertens publicly criticized his dissertation .

Despite several efforts, Hecht did not succeed in getting a permanent position as curator in the Berlin Museum of Natural History , but was employed there for almost eight years as a scientific assistant in the museum exhibition. Applications to head the Natural History Museum in Magdeburg and the State Museum for Natural History in Münster in Westphalia also failed. He was considered a Nazi in the museum.

Hecht joined the NSDAP on May 1, 1933 and the Motorrad-SA (later: NSKK ) on July 10, 1933, and maintained close contact with the Nazi lecturers at Berlin University. When, despite their repeated advocacy, he saw no professional prospects for himself in the Berlin Museum of Natural History and also not as a scientific specialist author, he switched to the Race Political Office of the NSDAP (RPA) in April 1937 . Here he headed the department for ethnic Germans and minorities as a scientific consultant, was an expert on colonial-political issues, published articles on problems of " racial hygiene " and, together with the lawyer Erhard Wetzel, worked out the secret memorandum The question of the treatment of the population of the former Polish areas racial considerations .

After the general tasks of the Racial Political Office were more and more performed by the SS , Hecht was called up for military service. During World War II he served on the Western Front near Liège , at the Brandenburg-Briest military airfield and most recently in a replacement intelligence department in Potsdam . From there he reported one last time on April 24, 1945 to his family, who had fled from Berlin to Kassel. On the same day, Soviet spearheads reached Potsdam- Babelsberg . Then Hecht's trail is lost.

Publications (selection)

  • To the knowledge of the northern border of the Central European reptiles. Communications of the Zoological Museum Berlin, Volume 14 (3/4), Berlin 1929, pp. 501–597.
  • The Brandenburg green lizard Lacerta viridis Laur. ssp. brandenburgiensis, subsp. nov. Das Aquarium, Volume 4 (4), Berlin 1930, pp. 62 and 68.
  • Systematics, history of expansion and ecology of the European species of the genus Tropidonotus (Kuhl) H. Boie. Communications of the Zoological Museum Berlin, Volume 16, Berlin 1930, pp. 244–293.
  • The adder plague near Bad Orb - a fear psychosis. Frankfurter Zeitung from August 26, 1930.
  • For the implementation of the law for the prevention of genetically ill offspring in a nursing home. Archive for population science (folklore) and population policy . Volume 6, Leipzig 1936, pp. 52-58.
  • Biology and National Socialism. Journal for the whole of natural science, Vol. 3, Braunschweig 1937/1938. Pp. 280-290.
  • Can you think racially? . Series of publications by the Racial Political Office of the Reichsleitung of the NSDAP, Vol. 14, Berg & Otto Verlag, Hamburg 1938, pp. 1–30.

swell

  • Chr. Year (ed.): The Berlin University in the Nazi era, Volume 1: Structure and people. Franz Steiner Verlag, Wiesbaden 2005, 257 pp.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Hans-Joachim Paepke: The short but varied life of Dr. Günther Hecht: Vivarium enthusiast and field herpetologist, free corps fighter, museum zoologist, specialist author, racial ideologist and political agitator. Contributions to the literature and history of herpetology and terrarium science, Volume 13 (1), Bonn 2013, ISSN 1612-2399, pp. 27–44
  2. ↑ Salamander. Casual association of younger aquarium and terrarium friends (SZV). Sheets for aquarium and terrarium science. '' Vol. 29 (9), Stuttgart 1918, p. 112.
  3. ↑ Abolition of the adders premium for all of Germany. Euskirchener Volksblatt of June 10, 1931 and August 11, 1931.
  4. ↑ Lorenz Müller & Robert Mertens: Critical remarks on the scientific names of some amphibians and reptiles in Europe . Zoologischer Anzeiger, Volume 92 (11/12), Jena 1931, pp. 289-300.
  5. ^ Reply to the article by Lorenz Müller and Robert Mertens, Zool. Number Vol. 9, H. 11/12. Zoologischer Anzeiger Vol. 95 (9/10), Jena 1931, pp. 221-226.
  6. ↑ Erhard Wetzel, Günther Hecht. The question of the treatment of the population of the former Polish territories from a racial perspective . In: Walter Gross (Ed.) Racial Guidelines for Foreign People Policy of the German Reich . Federal Archives Berlin, Federal Document Center (BDC) Personal file Walter Gross, No. 03853, Berlin 1940.
personal data
SURNAME Hecht, Günther
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German herpetologist and racial theorist
DATE OF BIRTH July 15, 1902
PLACE OF BIRTH Volpke
DATE OF DEATH April 1945
Place of death Berlin