Hansjochem Autrum

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Hansjochem Autrum

Hansjochem Otto Autrum (born February 6, 1907 in Bromberg ; † August 23, 2003 in Munich ) was a German zoologist specializing in sensory and nervous physiology .

Live and act

Autrum was the son of the post office clerk Otto Autrum , who was last president of the Reichspostdirektion Königsberg. From 1912 he lived in Berlin . In the winter semester of 1925/26 he enrolled at the Friedrich Wilhelms University for mathematics and physics, initially choosing biology only as a supplementary subject. In July 1931 he received his doctorate from the zoologist Richard Hesse , but after completing his doctorate there was no position for him at the Zoological Institute. In his autobiography, Autrum himself stated that his doctoral thesis was "never quoted again". In the following years he earned his living mainly by giving tutoring.

From May 1, 1933, Autrum belonged to the NSDAP and from July 10, 1933 to the SA . In the winter semester of 1933/34 he headed a working group on the subject of "Race and Ethnicity" in the biology department of the natural sciences faculty of the University of Berlin. The head of the student council, Martin Schultze, attested to him in a letter dated August 14, 1935: “He led several excursions and science camps ... whose scientific, ideological and political orientation was not only impeccable, but should also be seen as a development work in the best sense of the word. Ka. [Comrade] Autrum is qualified in every way to continue to play a leading role in the student body. ”In 1935, Autrum began his career as an assistant at the Zoological Institute, where he was given the position of a dismissed Jewish assistant. In 1939 he was able to complete his habilitation , changed to a lecturer in the chief department of the Aviation Medical Research Institute of the Reich Aviation Minister Göring , where he took over the management of the Air Force's medical services. During the Second World War he was obliged to work at the aeronautical medical research institute, which was relocated from Berlin to Welkersdorf in Lower Silesia in 1944 .

Before the approaching Eastern Front, Autrum fled with his employees and equipment to Göttingen , where he was still assistant to Professor Henke in 1945. In 1948 he became an adjunct professor at the University of Göttingen , in 1952 a full professor at the University of Würzburg , before he took over the chair from Karl von Frisch in 1958 and headed the Zoological Institute of the University of Munich until his retirement . From approx. 1965 Autrum was chairman of the university planning commission in Bavaria and in this function initiated u. a. the foundation of the universities in Regensburg and Bayreuth .

His diverse research areas included work on the physiology of color vision in insects and vertebrates, as well as work on socially determined stress in mammals. The scientific achievements of Hansjochem Autrum are considered undisputed and are also reflected in the many honors after the Second World War. In Munich, even after his retirement, he was the editor of the biological journal Naturwissenschaften .

Many of the large number of his students occupied the chairs in zoology that had become vacant or newly created at various German universities since the late 1960s. These include Helmut Altner in Regensburg and Dietrich von Holst in Bayreuth.

Autrum was married and had one daughter. He loved music and played the clarinet himself.

criticism

Autrum's entry into the NSDAP in 1933, his membership in the SA and his successful career from 1939 to 1945 in the aeronautical research institute of the Reich Aviation Ministry as an employee of the head of the medical services of the Luftwaffe Hubertus Strughold gave rise to critical comments, especially after his death, which in turn were violent from his supporters were rejected.

There are documents with information that Autrum has spoken out from the Luftwaffe in favor of stopping the pseudo-scientific human experiments carried out with concentration camp inmates by Sigmund Rascher under the responsibility of Heinrich Himmler on the survivability of fighter pilots who landed in the Arctic Ocean or who were exposed to severe pressure losses, as he, like Hubertus Strughold found animal experiments sufficient and more suitable.

Hansjochem Autrum was given the short-term opportunity to continue his research activities from the American occupying power, although according to the relevant sources it can also be assumed to have a high level of self-interest in the results.

Even in the post-war period, Autrum expressed itself in a questionable way. In his biography, published in 1996, he wrote that in today's society the “terror of irrationality” comes from below: “Forest death, seal death, animal welfare, test tube babies are just a few examples of such terror from below”. Concerning Autrum's personal attitude to questions with a national / international reference, the physician and biologist Svante Pääbo , whom Autrum counted as “international scrap”, gives an insight in his work The Neanderthals and Us: My Search for Primeval Genes .

Offices, awards and honors

literature

  • Hansjochem Autrum: My life. How happiness and merit are linked , 1995, ISBN 3-540-59236-9
  • Ernst Klee: The dictionary of persons on the Third Reich. Frankfurt 2003, ISBN 3-10-039309-0 , p. 21.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e Hansjochem Autrum at badw.de, accessed on May 27, 2019
  2. ^ Archive of the HU Berlin UK A 104 Autrum 0001
  3. ↑ a b Certified copy in the archive of the HU Berlin
  4. ↑ see web link Aeromedical history
  5. ↑ a b Svante Pääbo: The Neanderthals and us. My Search for the Primeval Genes (Chapter 4 Dinosaurs in the Laboratory)
  6. ↑ Order Pour le Mérite for Science and the Arts. Speeches and memorial speeches, thirty-second volume at orden-pourlemerite.de, accessed on May 28, 2019
  7. ^ Gerhard Neuweiler: Obituary Hansjochem Autrum In: Yearbook of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences 2003, p. 316.
  8. ↑ Viktor Harsch: Hubertus Strughold
  9. ^ Hans Jochen Autrum: Electrophysiology of the Eye . In: The Surgeon General, US Air Force (ed.): German Aviation Medicine: World War II , Vol. 2, Washington DC: US ​​Government Printing Office, 1950, pp. 966-971.
  10. ↑ Hansjochem Autrum: My life. How happiness and earnings are linked , Springer-Verlag 1996, p. 88.
personal data
SURNAME Autrum, Hansjochem
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Autrum, Hansjochem Otto (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German zoologist
DATE OF BIRTH February 6, 1907
PLACE OF BIRTH Bromberg
DATE OF DEATH August 23, 2003
Place of death Munich