Gottfried Amann

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Gottfried Amann (born April 25, 1901 in Munich , † December 21, 1988 ibid) was a German forest scientist and author of popular identification books on forest life .

Live and act

Gottfried Amann was the son of a senior government councilor. He studied forest sciences and received his doctorate in 1927 at the political science faculty in Munich with a thesis on the possibilities of using machines in the forest to obtain a doctorate in political science (Dr. oec. Publ.). In the same year he passed the Great Forest State Examination as 19 of 39 candidates on the main note II. As a forest assessor he was then in the wind throw areas of toads and Reit im Winkl in action and came 1930 as Regierungsforstrat to the Forestry Department of Tegernsee .

During the time of National Socialism he was one of the few Bavarian foresters who did not become members of the NSDAP - according to Amann's later assessment, 98 percent of the forest officials in the Free State of Bavaria had been party members by the end of the war . The convinced Christian did not have it easy in the Nazi state . Transferred to the Lohr Forestry School as a "teaching forestry officer", one of his students denounced him as an opponent of the SA . The allegations also included an alleged vilification of the “Führer” Adolf Hitler . When the Nazi Office for Civil Servants in the Brown House sought an investigation, however, its opponents refrained from making a statement. It was not until 1936 that Amann was transferred to the Hofolding branch as a government forestry officer, but the transfer of a forestry office management in his Bavarian homeland was no longer effective.

Because at the beginning of World War II in occupied Poland seconded Gottfried Amann had initially forestry inspectorate there Jaslo in Western Galicia to conduct, in 1941 the one in Stanislau . In these functions he tried, as far as he could, to help the locals with food and at least to delay the removal of Jewish citizens.

As a politically unaffected person, forester Amann was taken over by the military government as a personnel officer in the newly established Bavarian forest administration shortly after the end of the war in autumn 1945 . Within the ministerial forestry department , he took care of the integration of displaced forest officials and forest workers and had to correct some inconsistencies in the denazification process . He was also appointed to chair the audit committee. A transfer to the forest research institute that Amann sought was not approved. In what would later become the State Forestry Administration of Bavaria, he became a ministerial advisor and was head of the forest personnel and training department in the Bavarian State Ministry for Food, Agriculture and Forests until his retirement in 1963 .

However, Amann became known far beyond the narrow forest sphere, above all as a pioneer in the field of popular scientific identification books. His first, Die Kerfe des Waldes , appeared in 1941. This and his later pocket picture books, based on the same pattern, also enable laypeople to quickly and correctly address plants, mushrooms and animals in the forest thanks to their handy size on site. In addition to short, precise and clear texts, the works owe a large part of their success to the detailed color pictures by the painter Paul Richter .

According to the Neumann-Neudamm publishing house , Trees and Shrubs of the Forest, which was first published in 1954, has so far had a total print run of 500,000 copies; the 17th edition was published in 2004. Amann's other identification books also quickly developed into bestsellers , with numerous editions and a wide audience. For example, mushrooms of the forest , which were initially part of the forest's soil plants , have developed as a small booklet into a classic companion for mushroom pickers , and Amann pays special attention to their interests. It also contains some mushroom recipes from his wife Elisabeth Amann. Claudia Summerer now continues Amann's books in an updated form . They are also very successful in Polish translations. There were other translations into Dutch and Swedish .

Due to his didactic and rhetorical skills, Amann was also given a teaching position at the Agricultural Faculty Weihenstephan , which awarded him the title of honorary professor in 1965 . Despite his teaching activities and the great success of his books, Dr. Amann, who remained childless, had a very reserved lifestyle. His first wife was Elisabeth Amann nee Schmaußer. After her death, he married Felicitas Amann nee Bauer, who also actively promoted his book publications.

When he was about to be awarded the Federal Cross of Merit 1st Class , he rejected this request on the grounds that he did not like the fact that Federal President Gustav Heinemann was supporting efforts to make sodomy out of punishment.

Ministerialrat a. D. Professor Dr. Gottfried Amann died after a long illness on December 21, 1988 in his hometown of Munich. He found his final resting place in the Ostfriedhof there . "Those who were born later will appreciate the fact that this deeply kind person has never let himself be crushed by the zeitgeist," said Heinrich Rubner in 1994.

Works

scientific publications

  • The forest machine question , dissertation, Berlin / Munich 1927
  • together with Wilhelm Mantel et al .: Forest and forestry in Bavaria . Commissioned by the Bavarian State Ministry for Food, Agriculture and Forests, Ministry Forestry Department, compiled by Wilhelm Mantel. Munich, Basel and Vienna, 1963

Popular scientific works

  • Die Kerfe des Waldes , Melsungen 1941 (currently under ISBN 3-7888-0760-1 )
  • Trees and bushes of the forest. Pocket picture book of needles and leaves, flowers, fruits and seeds, twigs in the winter state and seedlings of the most remarkable trees and bushes of the Central European forest with text part about their construction and life , Melsungen 1954 ( ISBN 3-89440-558-9 )
  • Soil plants of the forest , Melsungen 1960 ( ISBN 3-7888-0761-X )
  • Mushrooms of the forest , Melsungen 1962 ( ISBN 3-7888-0763-6 )
  • Birds of the forest. Paperback book of the most notable birds of the Central European forest, their eggs, nests and feathers , Melsungen 1976 ( ISBN 3-89440-499-X )
  • Mammals and cold-blooded animals of the forest , Melsungen 1987 ( ISBN 3-7888-0762-8 )

literature

  • Heinrich Rubner : Gottfried Amann . In: Heinrich Rubner: Hundreds of important forest people in Bavaria (1875 to 1970) . Bavarian Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Forestry, Munich 1994 ( Messages from the State Forestry Administration Bavaria 47, ISSN  1616-511X ), pp 58-60.

Web links

Wikiquote: Gottfried Amann  - Quotes

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Heinrich Rubner: German Forest History 1933-1945. Forestry, Hunting and Environment in the Nazi State . 2nd, expanded edition. Scripta-Mercaturae-Verlag, St. Katharinen 1997, ISBN 3-89590-032-X ; P. 151.
  2. ^ Heinrich Rubner: Gottfried Amann . In other words: Hundreds of important foresters in Bavaria (1875 to 1970) . Munich 1994, pp. 58-59.
  3. ^ Heinrich Rubner: Gottfried Amann . In other words: Hundreds of important foresters in Bavaria (1875 to 1970) . Munich 1994, p. 59.
  4. ^ Heinrich Rubner: Gottfried Amann . In other words: Hundreds of important foresters in Bavaria (1875 to 1970) . Munich 1994, p. 59.
  5. ↑ Heinrich Rubner: Gottfried Amann , in ders .: Hundred important forest people in Bavaria (1875 to 1970) . Munich 1994, p. 58.
personal data
SURNAME Amann, Gottfried
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German forest scientist and non-fiction author
DATE OF BIRTH April 25, 1901
PLACE OF BIRTH Munich
DATE OF DEATH December 21, 1988
Place of death Munich