Hans Joachim Wiehler

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Hans Joachim Wiehler (born July 8, 1930 in Klettendorf , Marienburg district , West Prussia ; † 2003 ) was a German-American botanist and Mennonite pastor. His botanical author's abbreviation is " Wiehler ".

Live and act

childhood

Wiehler comes from the Mennonite family Wiehler, whose ancestors emigrated from Switzerland as religious refugees in the 1640s. Among other things, family members settled in the Vistula delta. His parents Alfred and Hedwig Wiehler (* 1907) owned a very large farm in Klettendorf and were therefore wealthy. Alfred Wiehler raised horses and cattle and employed 14 workers on his estate. He was also the mayor of Klettendorf.

Hans Joachim Wiehler was born in Klettendorf as the oldest of three brothers. He attended elementary school in Klettendorf from 1937 to 1942, then from 1942 to January 1945 he went to the Winrich-von-Knipprode-Gymnasium in Marienburg.

His father Alfred was drafted into military service in World War II , but was initially allowed to stay on his farm because the German military needed horses and agricultural products. In November 1944 he was drafted and died in a Soviet prisoner-of-war camp in Budapest in March 1945, which his surviving family members did not find out until 1955.

Escape

In the winter of 1944, the Soviet troops, who switched to the counteroffensive after Hitler's Russian offensive was repulsed, advanced so close to Klettendorf that the thunder of cannons could be heard. Hedwig prepared to flee from the Soviet troops practically overnight. The escape began on January 24, 1945. Four of the 14 employees, all four of whom came from Ukraine , including the foreman Krüger, accompanied the refugees, while the other 10 employees decided to stay in Klettendorf and took over the property. Hans and his mother were accommodated in a horse-drawn carriage with nine other people; there were eight people in a second carriage; there was also a third supply car. The streets were partly difficult to pass due to slippery ice, partly due to deep snow, and overcrowded due to the swelling stream of refugees. On the night of January 27, 1945 there was a frost of −25 ° C; Krüger had to shoot Alfred Wiehler's favorite horse - a riding horse that couldn't withstand the rigors of being a draft animal. On January 30th, Kruger’s grandmother died and was buried in the ditch by the roadside.

On February 8th, Hedwig's sister Käthe and Hans's two younger brothers, Reinhard (9) and Frank (3), separated from the caravan in order to give them a faster escape route to the west with a truck. Hedwig and her eldest son Hans stayed on the trek even though they suffered from a high fever and diarrhea. On March 8, SS soldiers made it possible for Hedwig to travel west with Hans in an ambulance. Since Hedwig hoped to find her two other sons, she agreed; Kruger took over the caravan management. After a relatively short drive, the ambulance dropped Hedwig and Hans down early in the night in Lauenburg . Both civilians and soldiers were now on the run from the Soviet troops in panic. Hedwig and Hans made their way to Gotenhafen on the coast of the Danzig Bay, where they boarded a torpedo boat with about 500 other refugees , which was heading for Northern Germany or Denmark. After two hours of travel, the boat was badly hit by a torpedo from a Soviet submarine and began to sink. Hedwig grabbed lifebuoys and jumped into the water with Hans. They were picked up by a lifeboat and taken back to Gotenhafen. On March 18, they were able to board a converted anti-mine vehicle that docked in Swinoujscie , which was bombed by the British Royal Air Force . Fortunately, Hedwig still had her rations book with her so that she could get something to eat.

In April 1945, the two found Hedwig's sister Käthe and Hans' brothers Reinhard and Frank. They continued to flee by train, which was attacked by Allied airmen, to Mirow north of Berlin. They continued their escape via Wittenberg and Hamburg to Glückstadt , where they found accommodation in a refugee camp. A month later the war was over.

Post-war and theological career

In September 1945 the family moved to Oldendorf , a small town about 40 kilometers south of Hanover . From spring 1946 Hans went back to school; he attended the Scharnhorstgymnasium in Hildesheim, 30 kilometers away . His mother Hedwig, who had to raise her children by herself, was ill and therefore had no income. The children contributed to the livelihood in need by stealing coal or wood from trains, for example. Food was so scarce that Hans spent the night to guard in the leased garden property during harvest time. Later in 1946, aid shipments of CARE packages from North American Mennonites began. The family sold the coffee it contained on the black market. In 1948 Hans was baptized in the Mennonite congregation in Göttingen. He was involved in the organization of youth camps that were supported by the Mennonite churches from North America. In 1950 he graduated from school with a high school diploma.

Hans Wiehler was faced with the choice between two career options: The first was to begin vocational training at a plant seed breeding establishment of the Max Planck Institute, which would have enabled him to study botany at the University of Göttingen . The second option was to study theology at Eastern Mennonite College in Harrisonburg , Virginia , USA , for a year as an exchange student on a scholarship . Wiehler chose the latter option. He stayed at Eastern Mennonite College for a semester ; then he moved to Goshen College ( Mennonite College ) in Goshen, Indiana . After a year in the USA - his exchange scholarship had expired - Wiehler returned to Oldendorf in 1951.

Here he worked as a youth pastor of the Hamburg Mennonite Church in the Mennonite Youth of Northern Germany . In 1953 he returned to the United States, where he spent a junior year at Eastern Mennonite College in Harrison, Virginia. He then moved back to Goshen College, where he received a Bachelor of Arts in Bible studies in 1954. 1956 awarded him the Goshen Biblical Seminary to Bachelor of Divinity .

Wiehler joined the Bruderhof community, a Christian community, in Rifton , New York, where he met his future wife Anne Gale (born July 22, 1931 in Carver, Minnesota). The two married on October 12, 1958; they moved to Deer Spring and then to New Meadow Run , Pennsylvania , where they lived in the Bruderhof community there. A first child of the two named Dirk (* 1959) died in the year of birth. The two then had four children: Johanna (* 1960), Simeon (* 1962), Maria (* 1964) and Daniel (* 1966).

Wiehler gave courses in social studies, German, biology and art at school level at the Bruderhof commune.

Botanical career

In 1965 Wiehler left New Meadow Run's Bruderhof and his family to start a new life. He worked in a nearby greenhouse for a few months. In September 1966 he became a student of botany at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York , where he received a full scholarship because he had no funds of his own. He became a research assistant at Cornell Plantations and a teaching assistant at LH Bailey Herbitorium . There he took up his research on the Gesneriaceae plant family , which should form the botanical focus of his further life. Wiehler received his bachelor's and master's degrees from Cornell University. His dissertation is entitled " Studies in the Morphology of Leaf Epidermis, in Vasculature of Node and Petiole, and in Intergeneric Hybridization in the Gesneriaceae- Gesnerioideae ".

Wiehler then worked on obtaining the Ph.D. in botany. To this end, he studied with Calaway Dodson, a respected orchid researcher, at the University of Miami . In the spring of 1973 Dodson became director of the new Marie Selby Botanical Gardens in Sarasota , Florida , and convinced Wiehler to follow him there. Two moving trucks were needed to pick up the plants that Wiehler had collected during his time at Cornell University - both living and herbarium specimens. In May 1979 Wiehler received a Doctor of Philosophy from the University of Miami; his dissertation is entitled Generic Delimitation in a New Classification of the Neotropical Gesneriaceae . In summary, he expressed himself as follows in this work:

"Previous classifications of the American Gesneriaceae were long outdated."

"Earlier classifications of the American Gesneria family have long been out of date."

He summarized his own research contribution with this work as follows:

"This revision contains a new subfamily, a new tribe, and several new genera, as well as new tribal and generic re-alignments."

"This revision contains a new subfamily, a new tribe and several new genera as well as corrected tribal and generic affiliations."

Wiehler saw his West Prussian hometown Klettendorf once again, as a tourist in the summer of 1991. He died in 2003.

literature

  • L. Desmon: Hans Wiehler: a Tribute . In: Selbyana . tape 25 , no. 2 , 2005, p. 239-244 .

swell

Web links

Single receipts

  1. ↑ See IPNI entry.
personal data
SURNAME Wiehler, Hans Joachim
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-American botanist and Mennonite pastor
DATE OF BIRTH July 8, 1930
PLACE OF BIRTH Klettendorf , Marienburg district , West Prussia
DATE OF DEATH 2003