Henry Koehn

Henry Gustav Emil Koehn (born June 20, 1892 in Hamburg , † May 1, 1963 in Kiel ) was a German cultural researcher.

Live and act

Henry Koehn was a son of the social worker Johann Ernst Ludwig Emil Koehn and his wife Elisabeth Anne Ellen , née Smidt (born November 23, 1861 in London ; † August 21, 1913 in Hamburg). He attended a preparatory school in Hamburg and a secondary school in Bad Godesberg , which he left with the secondary school leaving examination. From 1909 to 1912 he completed practical agricultural training in Holstein , Mecklenburg and England. Until 1912 he took an agricultural degree at the TH Munich .

During the First World War , Koehn did military service and fought in the campaigns in France, Russia and Romania. By the end of the war he had reached the rank of lieutenant. From late 1919 to early 1922 he lived on Java Island . Here he dealt with the latex production of the rubber tree . From 1923 to 1927 he worked for the “Research Institute for Cultural Morphology” under the direction of Leo Frobenius and for the “Africa Archive” with offices in Munich and Frankfurt am Main .

From 1927 Koehn did his own research on cultural topics. For this he often traveled to Italy, Austria, Hungary and Scandinavian countries. From 1928 he was mostly interested in North Frisia. His main work "The North Frisian Islands" from 1939 developed into a standard work on the history of the country and culture of the region.

In 1940 Koehn married Eva Maria Oschatz (born June 11, 1906 in Auerbach ). In the same year he took up a position in the art protection department of the military commander in Belgium, where he stayed until 1944. After the end of the war he moved to Kampen on Sylt . From there he volunteered for the State Office for Prehistory and Early History and dealt with the cultural and historical monuments of Sylt. He also dealt with the restoration of prehistoric burial mounds.

Koehn was in constant contact with scientists who dealt with the region of North Friesland. He processed their new research findings in his own publications. From April 1, 1950 until the end of his life, he worked as a voluntary district commissioner for nature conservation on Sylt. He was very committed to the preservation of nature reserves, especially in the north of Sylt.

Kohen worked in a straightforward, altruistic and tenacious manner in his self-chosen tasks. He had learned this way of working from Leo Frobenius and Oswald Spengler during the 1920s . If he believed a goal was right, he pursued it even when it was unclear whether he could achieve it. In retrospect, he rarely achieved measurable results of preserving the island's peculiarities.

On February 27, 1962 Koehn was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit.

Publications

• Sylt: a guide through the island world , Berlin / New York: de Gruyter, 5th edition, 1971
• The North Frisian Islands: The development of their landscape and history of their people , Hamburg: Cram, de Gruyter & Co., 5th edition 1961
• Sylt: A hike through the natural and cultural world of the island , Hamburg: Cram, de Gruyter & Co., 1951
• Map of the North Frisian Islands , Hamburg: Friederichsen, de Gruyter & Co., 1950

literature

• Jürgen Newig: Koehn, Henry . in: Schleswig-Holstein Biographical Lexicon . Volume 4. Karl Wachholtz Verlag, Neumünster 1976, pp. 130-131

Web links

• Literature by and about Henry Koehn in the catalog of the German National Library