Heinrich Borriss

Heinrich Borriss (born September 10, 1909 in Vandsburg , † September 4, 1985 in Greifswald ) was a German botanist and plant physiologist. He was one of the leading botanists in the German Democratic Republic and worked from 1949 to 1973 as professor and director at the Botanical Institute of the University of Greifswald and from 1957 to 1959 as rector of the university.

Life

Heinrich Borriss was born in 1909 as the son of the teacher Otto Borriss and his wife Meta (1880–1945) in Vandsburg , Kr. Flatow , West Prussia . From 1919 he attended the Humanist Gymnasium in Schwedt , where he graduated from high school in 1928 . He then completed a degree in natural sciences at the universities of Kiel , Munich , Vienna and Greifswald , which he completed in 1934 with a doctorate and the state examination for higher education . Until 1936 he worked as a research fellow at the Botanical Institute of the University of Greifswald . From 1936 to 1940 he was an assistant at the Botanical Institute of the University of Bonn worked, where he in 1939 with a thesis on the germination of seeds habilitation and was in 1940 a lecturer. In the same year he moved to the State Research Institute for Plant Physiology in Poznan . After joining the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP) in 1937 , he worked from 1942 as senior assistant and lecturer for botany and plant physiology at the Institute for General Botany at the University of Poznan, which had been founded a year earlier . He worked there until the university was dissolved in 1945.

After he had also done military service from 1942, he was in Soviet captivity from the end of the Second World War until 1948 . After returning to Germany, he joined the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED) in 1949 . In the same year he became professor with teaching assignment, in 1950 professor with full teaching assignment and in 1951 professor with chair at the Botanical Institute of the University of Greifswald. In addition, he was director of the institute from 1949 to 1968 and of the associated botanical garden until 1972 ; from 1952 to 1955 he also headed the University's Institute for Agrobiology, which he founded and which was incorporated into the Botanical Institute in 1963. From 1951 to 1954 he was Vice Rector and from 1957 to 1959 Rector of the University of Greifswald and from 1971 and 1972 Dean of the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences. In 1973 he retired . He died in Greifswald in 1985.

Scientific work

Heinrich Borriss' research focused on the cell biological and biochemical basis of the growth and development of plants . Even after his retirement he was allowed to continue using work rooms and material within the Botanical Institute. Because of this, he was able to devote himself to the research of germination physiology , the mycorrhiza of native orchids and the stimulation of the fruiting body development of isolated root fungi with the aim of their determination until his death, at times supported by a graduate student and a technical assistant . The focus was on studies Handsome orchids and orchids of the genus Epipactis . With regard to the orchid, indications have been found that its seeds only germinate under the action of auxins , which may be produced by the very specific root fungus in this case.

Awards

Heinrich Borriss, who was one of the most famous and influential botanists in the German Democratic Republic (GDR), received the GDR Patriotic Order of Merit in silver in 1956 and was accepted into the German Academy of Natural Scientists Leopoldina in 1969. The Biological Society of the GDR, of which he was a member of the executive committee from 1959 to 1967, made him an honorary member in 1980. A commemorative plaque was installed at the Greifswald Botanical Institute in 2000 in honor of its long-time director.

Works (selection)

• Plant biochemistry internship. German Science Publishing House, Berlin 1956 (as co-author)
• Plant ecology. Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 1965
• Plant physiology. Published in the series: Dictionaries in Biology. Gustav-Fischer-Verlag, Jena 1984 (as co-editor)

literature

• Investigative Committee of Freedom Jurists (Ed.): Former National Socialists in Pankow's service. Berlin-Zehlendorf, no year, p. 12
• Ekkehard Höxtermann:  Borriss, Heinrich . In: Who was who in the GDR? 5th edition. Volume 1. Ch. Links, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86153-561-4 .

Web links

• Literature by and about Heinrich Borriss in the catalog of the German National Library
• Literature about Heinrich Borriss in the state bibliography MV

predecessor	Office	successor
Gerhardt Katsch	Rector of the University of Greifswald 1957/59	Hans Wehrli