Hans Duncker (ornithologist)

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Hans Julius Duncker (born May 26, 1881 in Ballenstedt , Anhalt , † December 22, 1961 in Saarbrücken ) was a German ornithologist , geneticist and racial hygienist .

Studies, family, work and bird research

Bremen secondary school

In 1905 Hans Duncker received the Petsche-Labarre Prize for his work On the Migration of Birds . He finished his studies in zoology in Göttingen in 1905 with the dissertation "On the homology of cirrus and elytron in aphroditides / A contribution to the morphology of aphroditides" with Ernst Ehlers . Military service and various schools follow. On October 5, 1907, he married Elsa Zwerusmann (born June 4, 1884) in Dessau; In 1908 their first child was born. From 1909 he worked as a teacher for natural sciences and mathematics at the Bremen secondary school . In 1912 he became a member of the German Ornithological Society . His son was born on April 24, 1913, and died on January 27, 1914. His second daughter was born on August 28, 1915. In 1921, in collaboration with the canary breeder Karl Reich (1885–1944), he began experiments on a canary strain that was supposed to sing like nightingales , but found that only the learning behavior of his birds had improved (Duncker 1922). At the beginning of the 1920s, he and Reich began to investigate the inheritance of plumage colors and structures, such as the formation of a bonnet, with numerous cross-breeding attempts. From 1925 Duncker also cooperated with Carl Hubert Cremer and extended his experiments to include budgies, among other things .

“With his large-scale hybridization experiments, Duncker has successfully linked the practice of bird keeping with theoretical science. He had understood that bird keepers and scientists can benefit from each other in equal measure. ”(Birkhead, Schulze-Hagen, Palfner 2003, p. 254.)

From 1927–1933 he published the magazine he founded, birds of the distant lands , and wrote numerous specialist articles for the Feathered World , the Journal for Ornithology and other ornithological journals.

Racial hygiene until 1945

In the Weimar Republic, Duncker was chairman of the Bremen branch of the German Society for Racial Hygiene . In 1930 he was chairman of the Race Hygiene Society in Bremen. From 1931 he was one of the driving forces behind the “Racial Hygiene Society in the Natural Science Association in Bremen”, which organized specialist lectures with exponents of Nazi racial politics, such as Robert Ritter , in cooperation with the health department. As a committed eugenicist, Duncker advocated the forced sterilization of the handicapped (Meyer & Duncker 1933). In 1934 he and Friedrich Lange published a book that described the “new goals and ways of teaching biology” under National Socialism (this book was placed on the list of literature to be segregated after the end of the war in the Soviet occupation zone ). He worked on the genealogy of old families, such as the Uhden .

Duncker had memberships in the NSLB (November 1933), in the Stahlhelm, Bund der Frontsoldaten (before 1933), in the NSDAP (from 1941) and functions as a consultant at the BDM's secondary school as well as on the speakers at the NSDAP's Racial Policy Office .

After the end of National Socialism

Bremen overseas museum

On April 7, 1948, Hans Duncker was classified as a “fellow traveler”. After the end of National Socialism , he dedicated himself to rebuilding the bird collection at the Bremen Überseemuseum .

Quotes

"We want to thank our Führer Adolf Hitler, ... that the genetically healthy and fertile middle-class family should be treated with special care in the new state."

Publications

  • New goals and ways of teaching biology. ed. by Hans Duncker and Friedrich Lange. Diesterweg, Frankfurt am Main 1934.
  • The growth of the descendants of Council Chamberlain Peter Uhden in Egeln (1623–1684). In: The Race. Volume 7, 1940, pp. 256-256.
  • Uhde sex. Verlag CA Starke, 1940. (Contents of the first delivery: Prehistory of Uhdes, the collection of documents on Uhde history and the descendants of lines 1–3. Printing proof)

literature

  • George Arc, Franz Robiller (ed.): The great lexicon of bird care . Ulmer, Stuttgart 2003, ISBN 3-8001-4425-5 .
  • HO Wagner: Obituary for Dr. Hans Duncker . In: Treatises of the Natural Science Association Bremen . tape 34 , no. 3 , 1957, pp. 173-175 .
  • Hubert Walter (1990): The Racial Hygiene Society (1931-1945) in the Natural Science Association in Bremen. In: Treatises of the Natural Science Association Bremen. Volume 41, Number 2, 1990.
  • Tim R. Birkhead, Karl Schulze-Hagen, Götz Palfner: The Color of Birds: Hans Duncker, Pioneer Bird Geneticist . In: Journal of Ornithology . tape 144 , 2003, ISSN  0021-8375 , p. 253-270 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ According to a detailed biography: Birkhead, Schulze-Hagen, Palfner 2003, the identity of Hans Duncker with Hans Julius Duncker is confirmed.
  2. ↑ a b c d e f Birkhead, Schulze-Hagen, Palfner 2003, p. 254.
  3. ↑ a b c Birkhead, Schulze-Hagen, Palfner 2003, p. 256.
  4. ↑ "Karl Reich died on September 7, 1944 in Bremen (information from Dietrich Steilen, Bremen)." Quote from: Bernhard Schneider: When the budgies came to Europe. In the footsteps of Karl Russ and Karl Neunzig . A journey through 100 years of bird-loving history. Self-published, Berlin 2005, p. 308.
  5. ↑ Hans-Walter Schmuhl : Crossing borders: the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Anthropology, Human Heredity and Eugenics 1927-1945. Wallstein Verlag, 2005, ISBN 3-89244-799-3 , p. 483. limited preview in Google book search
  6. ^ A b Hans-Christian Harten: Racial hygiene as an educational ideology of the Third Reich. Akademie Verlag, 2006, ISBN 3-05-004094-7 , p. 424. limited preview in Google book search
  7. ↑ Walter 1990.
  8. ↑ Tim R. Birkhead: The color of birds: Hans Duncker, pioneer bird geneticist - Springer. In: springerlink.com. Accessed December 31, 2014 .
  9. ^ Letters X, Y and Z, list of literature to be discarded. Published by the German Administration for Public Education in the Soviet Occupation Zone. In: polunbi.de. January 1, 1947, accessed December 31, 2014 .
  10. ↑ a b Denazification in Bremen ( Memento of October 13, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) In: gaebler.info
personal data
SURNAME Duncker, Hans
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Duncker, Hans Julius (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German ornithologist, geneticist and racial hygienist
DATE OF BIRTH May 26, 1881
PLACE OF BIRTH Ballenstedt , Anhalt
DATE OF DEATH December 22, 1961
Place of death Saarbrücken