Hans Klose (conservationist)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Johannes Karl Wilhelm Klose (born February 11, 1880 in Schalke ; † February 28, 1963 in West Berlin ) was a German high school teacher. He became known as a nature conservation official during the Nazi era and in the early Federal Republic of Germany.

Life

As a scion of Silesian ancestors, Klose graduated from high school in Gelsenkirchen in 1899 . From 1899 to 1901 he studied natural sciences ( geology and palaeontology , geography , biology and physics ) for the higher teaching post at the Westphalian Wilhelms University and Royal University of Greifswald . With a geological doctoral thesis in Greifswald in 1904 with the thesis The old river valleys of Western Pomerania: Their origin, original shape and hydrographic development in connection with the lowering of the Litorina , Klose was awarded a Dr. phil. PhD . In 1905 he passed the state examination for higher teaching qualifications in biology, geography and physics and was employed as a high school teacher in Münster , Gelsenkirchen , Posen and Berlin-Wilmersdorf .

In 1899, Klose in Münster became a member of Normannia, a mathematical and scientific association with unconditional satisfaction in the Goslar Cartell Association . In Greifswald he joined the Academic Medical Association, later the Corps Marchia Greifswald , in 1901 . Later he also became a member of the Corps Irminsul in Hamburg. From 1933 to 1954 he was chairman of Marchias Altherrschaft. At the Rudolstadt Senior Citizens 'Convention , he was one of the two advisory boards on the board of the old gentlemen's association and was significantly involved in the union of the RSC with the Weinheim Senior Citizens' Convention .

Early work

Klose's first place of work outside of school service was the West Prussian Provincial Museum in Gdansk in 1903 . Klose knew the director Hugo Conwentz from his studies; he had sparked his interest in nature conservation . From 1910 to 1913 Klose represented Conwentz as head of the office for natural monument preservation in Berlin . In 1913 he became deputy head of the Brandenburg Provincial Commission for the Preservation of Natural Monuments under Wilhelm Wetekamp . In 1914 he went to the First World War , from which he returned as a captain in 1919 .

Back in school, he campaigned for the establishment of district and district offices for nature conservation and mapped natural monuments in Berlin and Brandenburg. Boulders and striking trees were placed under protection. Klose was also a lecturer for nature conservation at the adult education centers in Wilmersdorf and Greater Berlin . In 1922 Klose took part in the founding of the Volksbund Naturschutz e. V. , which he chaired until 1945. On January 1, 1923, the Province of Brandenburg appointed him as Wetekamp's successor as Commissioner for Natural Monument Preservation. With this honorary position, Klose began working in the nationwide German nature conservation movement. The manor owner Walter von Keudell from Hohenlübbichow was also a member of a committee that prepared this office . He owned an estate on the slopes of the Oder in Bellinchen , which had rare flora and fauna. Upon request, he was ready to have it placed under protection as a nature reserve . The first nature reserve in Brandenburg was designated in Bellinchen (Oder). Klose received 2,500 marks from the Prussian provincial parliament to allow the property to be explored in terms of nature conservation. In 1928 he managed to set up a "biological station" in Bellinchen.

Klose founded the Märkische Nature Conservation Days and the Berlin / Brandenburg Nature Conservation Ring. Since 1925 he was a member of the German Committee for Nature Conservation . When Hermann Göring appointed Keudell as general forest manager in 1934 , he hired Klose as head of division in the Reich Forestry Office the following year and commissioned him to draft the Reich Nature Conservation Act.

Working under National Socialism

In a publication in 1935, when the National Socialists came to power , Klose also welcomed the new worldview and hoped that nature conservation would have a stronger effect. In 1935 he was released from school duties in order to set up a central department for nature conservation (affiliated to the Reich Forestry Office). Using templates from the conservationist, cave explorer and former Jewish colleague Benno Wolf , Klose formulated the legal text within seven weeks, which Göring enacted on May 26, 1935. Up to the spring of 1937, the law was followed by implementing provisions and ordinances. a. to preserve the wall hedges and to protect wild plants and non-huntable animals. With the assistance of Ministerialrat Adolf Vollbach (born 1880), he wrote a commentary on the Reich Nature Conservation Act in 1936 with references to the blood and soil ideology of National Socialism and its authoritarian conception of the state.

In the preamble to the law, which Klose claims to have written, he puts it in the context of National Socialism: “The“ conservation of natural monuments ”that emerged around the turn of the century was only partially successful because essential political and ideological prerequisites were lacking; Only the transformation of German people created the prerequisites for effective nature conservation. ”After 1945 he denied having been responsible for the preamble.

In 1936 Klose introduced the Aryan paragraph in the Volksbund Naturschutz . Previously important supporting members such as Benno Wolf and Max Hilzheimer have since been unwanted there. Klose showed his closeness to National Socialism in his publication Ich dien from the 1940s. During this time, nature conservation officials under Klose were also involved in the expulsions in Poland.

In connection with the General Plan Ost he expressed in an article (1944) that appeared in the last issue of the magazine "Naturschutz", the achievements of German nature conservation in times of war and especially in the occupied territories:

"Now, in the context of landscape management, landscape design is also part of the area of ​​responsibility of the Reichsforstmeister as the highest nature conservation authority (Rd. Erl. Dated May 11, 1942: Agreement with the Reich Commissioner for the Consolidation of German Volkstum on landscape design; reprinted in the newsletter for Nature Conservation No. 7 / 8, p.18). From this it inevitably follows that many, almost all nature conservation authorities and agencies will have to do with it in the future! (...) Today we already know about quite a few landscapes that are in need of design, whereby we by no means alone have to think of barren large areas, as in the new eastern regions. "

After 1945

Before the end of the war, Klose relocated the central office to Egestorf near Lüneburg , which was recognized by the British occupying forces and later by the other Western powers. From 1945 to 1954 he headed the Central Agency for Nature Conservation and Landscape Management . From 1952 this was called the Federal Agency for Nature Conservation and Landscape Management , from which today's Federal Agency for Nature Conservation emerged . In 1950, Klose was actively involved in founding the Deutscher Naturschutzring , the umbrella organization for German nature conservation associations. From 1954 to 1958 he was again chairman of the Volksbund Naturschutz . He never dealt critically with his National Socialist past. He never considered B. Benno Wolfs necessary, nor did he consider honoring Max Hilzheimer, the first nature conservation commissioner in Berlin, with whom he had worked very closely in the founding years of the Volksbund Naturschutz.

Works

In addition to numerous lectures and excursions, Klose was responsible for 145 publications from 1904 to 1950. From 1929 to 1942 he edited the quarterly magazine Naturdenkmalpflege und Naturschutz in Berlin and Brandenburg .

Honors

literature

  • Life picture of Dr. Hans Klose. In: News sheet for nature conservation and landscape management. Volume 25, No. 6, 1954, p. 21 f.
  • Heinrich Diedler: A life dedicated to nature conservation: Dr. Hans Klose. Rudolstadt Corps student shaped awareness of the environment and the landscape. In: CORPS - Das Magazin. 110th year, issue 1, 2008, pp. 25-26.
  • Hainer Weißpflug: teacher, researcher and politician - the conservationist Hans Klose (1880–1963) . In: Berlin monthly magazine ( Luisenstädtischer Bildungsverein ) . Issue 7, 1998, ISSN  0944-5560 , p. 66-70 ( luise-berlin.de ).
  • Hermann Behrens: Hans Klose and National Socialism - Prussian civil servant? Followers? Accomplice? In: Institute for Environmental History and Regional Development eV at the University of Applied Sciences Neubrandenburg (ed.): STUDIENARCHIVUMWELTGESCHICHTE No. 10, 2005, pp. 19–44 PDF

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ https://archivdatenbank.bbf.dipf.de/actaproweb/image.xhtml?id=161dd7b7-91de-479b-8fea-31728d30e331
  2. ↑ Heinrich Diedler: A life for nature conservation: Dr. Hans Klose. In: CORPS - the magazine. 110th year, issue 1, 2008, p. 25 f.
  3. ^ Conwentz was working on a famous memorandum on the threat to natural monuments.
  4. ↑ Cf. HW Frohn: Nature protection makes the state. State makes nature protection. From the State Agency for the Preservation of Natural Monuments in Prussia to the Federal Agency for Nature Conservation 1906-2006. An institutional history. In: HW Frohn, F. Schmoll (arr.): Nature and State. State nature conservation in Germany 1906–2006 (= nature conservation and biological diversity. Issue 35). Bonn-Bad Godesberg 2006, ISBN 978-3-7843-3935-1 , p. 166. H. Klose: About tasks, facilities and activities of the Brandenburg Provincial Commission for the Preservation of Natural Monuments. In: Landesarchiv Berlin: A Rep. 09-01 No. 63. Tasks and activities of the Brandenburg Provincial Commission for the Preservation of Natural Monuments. P. 2/3.
  5. ↑ a b c Hans Hedicke. Spoken at the cremation of Hans Hedicke in the crematorium at Richtstr. On March 23, 1949. In: Zoological Museum Signature S III Personnel file Hedicke HS IX-XI
  6. ↑ Circular. Berlin August 13, 1935. In: Nature conservation (implementation of the Reich Nature Conservation Act, district office) Conservation of natural monuments (securing natural monuments in the district). Marburg State Archive, 180 District Office Hersfeld (180 Hersfeld), Archive No. 9445. S. 1. M. Klein: Nature conservation in the Third Reich. Mainz 1999, pp. 311-315.
  7. ↑ M. Klein: Nature protection in the Third Reich. Mainz 1999, p. 311.
  8. ↑ H. Eissing: No comment please! Comments on the Reich Nature Conservation Act. In: Nils Franke, Uwe Pfenning (ed.): Continuities in nature conservation. On the continuity of nature conservation power elites from 1945 to 1970. Baden-Baden 2014, ISBN 978-3-8487-0556-6 , p. 161. H. Klose: How the Reich Nature Conservation Act came to be! Report by Hans Klose. Hans Klose's minutes, unpublished. Federal Agency for Nature Conservation, Archive C 838. Quoted in: M. Klein: Nature Conservation in the Third Reich. Mainz 1999, p. 13.
  9. ↑ H. Eissing: No comment please! Comments on the Reich Nature Conservation Act. In: Nils Franke, Uwe Pfenning (ed.): Continuities in nature conservation. Baden-Baden 2014, ISBN 978-3-8487-0556-6 , p. 163.
  10. ↑ Quoted from M. Klein: Nature conservation in the Third Reich. Mainz 1999, p. 312.
  11. ↑ M. Klein: Nature protection in the Third Reich. Mainz 1999, p. 315.
  12. ↑ Behrens: Hans Klose and National Socialism - Prussian civil servant? Followers? Accomplice? 2005, p. 30th f .
  13. ↑ Bernd Schütze: (Erb) -Last für die Demokratie. The politics of remembrance of nature conservation since 1945. In: Gert Gröning, Joachim Wolschke-Buhlmahn (Ed.): Nature conservation and democracy? Munich 2006, ISBN 3-89975-077-2 , p. 84 f.
  14. ↑ Jens Ivo Engels : 'Hohe Zeit' and 'thick line': Interpretation and preservation of the past in West German nature conservation after the Second World War. In: Joachim Radkau, Frank Uekötter (Ed.): Nature conservation and National Socialism. Campus, Frankfurt am Main / New York, 2003, p. 379 ff.
  15. ↑ Ordenskanzlei des Bundespräsidialamt (2019)
personal data
SURNAME Klose, Hans
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Klose, Johannes Karl Wilhelm
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German high school teacher and nature conservation official
DATE OF BIRTH February 11, 1880
PLACE OF BIRTH Gelsenkirchen-Schalke
DATE OF DEATH February 28, 1963
Place of death West Berlin