Hermann Klaatsch

Hermann Klaatsch

Hermann August Ludwig Klaatsch (born March 10, 1863 in Berlin , † January 5, 1916 in Eisenach ) was a German physician , comparative anatomist and anthropologist . He also emerged as a prehistoric researcher and ethnographic collector.

Life

Hermann Klaatsch came from a family of doctors that went back to the 17th century. The father, August Hermann Martin Klaatsch (1827–1885), had originally devoted himself to comparative anatomy as a student of the important natural scientist Johannes Peter Müller , from 1833 professor of anatomy, physiology and pathology in Berlin and founder of modern physiology, which he also wrote about Doctorate in 1850. However, external circumstances caused him to turn to a practical career. With his wife Julie Klaatsch, geb. Schwendler (1829–1895), he had three children: Clara Klaatsch, married von Gossler (1857–?), Hermann Klaatsch (1863–1916) and Julie Klaatsch, married von Hake (1867–1910).

Hermann Klaatsch went to the Royal Wilhelms-Gymnasium in Berlin and began studying medicine at the University of Heidelberg under Carl Gegenbaur at the age of eighteen , whose influence prompted him to devote himself to comparative anatomy in his first semesters. In 1885, Klaatsch passed the medical state examination and doctorate at the University of Heidelberg and then accepted Heinrich Wilhelm Waldeyer's request , the most important comparative anatomist at the time, to take on an assistant position at the Anatomical Institute in Berlin. Klaatsch held this position until 1888. He was then called back to Heidelberg by Karl Gegenbaur to take on an assistant position at the anatomical institute there. On July 26, 1890, Klaatsch completed his habilitation at Heidelberg University as a private lecturer in human anatomy. In 1895 he was appointed associate professor for human anatomy at Heidelberg University. In 1896, however, he left the institute association and devoted himself entirely to his private studies and lectures. In the following years he also made several trips to France, Belgium, Croatia and England, on which he also pursued anthropological and palaeolithic issues, as well as a cruise to Spitsbergen , which he used to study the pelagic fauna.

From 1904 to 1907, at the suggestion of his friend and professional colleague, the Heidelberg anthropologist and prehistoric historian Otto Schoetensack , Klaatsch undertook a three-year trip to Australia, which was primarily intended to address the issue of anthropogenesis on Australian soil. After the important paleoanthropological finds in Europe ( Neanderthals ), but also in Asia ( Java man ), Schoetensack had given more thought to which continent could be regarded as the country of origin of mankind as a whole. He came to believe that the Australian continent was the original home of the human race. Klaatsch never fully agreed with Schoetensack's final verdict on the origin of mankind in Australia, but seized the opportunity to use the example of the Australian Aborigines to investigate and possibly clarify questions about the process of human incarnation. Since Schoetensack was unable to make the long journey for health reasons, the two scientists agreed that Klaatsch should travel to the fifth continent and collect evidence of the origin of mankind there. Financially supported by the Frankfurt mining partner and main owner of the Lancelot tin mine in North Queensland , Franz Egon Clotten, Klaatsch left in February 1904.

In the first year Klaatsch toured Queensland ( Brisbane , Cairns , Cooktown and the Cape York Peninsula ) and made friends with the important doctor, ethnologist and protection officer of the Aborigines, Walter Edmund Roth . Then Klaatsch came to Sydney , where he stayed for five months. He then toured Melbourne , Warrnambool , Adelaide and traveled to Western Australia via Albany . Along the west coast he came to Broome , from where he made a trip to Bali and Java . Weakened by malaria , he returned to Broome, Australia, in May 1906. From there he traveled via Wyndham and Derby to Darwin in the Northern Territory and also spent two weeks on Melville Island . From Darwin he traveled to Tasmania via Sydney . He interrupted his stay on the island for a conference of scientists in Adelaide in January 1907. In February 1907 he left Australia and returned to Germany on April 3, 1907 by sea voyage across the Pacific , via Canada and the United States .

Since it was so difficult to find evidence of the origin of mankind in Australia and Klaatsch received requests from German ethnographic museums to collect ethnographical items for their holdings, Klaatsch switched more and more to collecting ethnographic objects during his trip. Through this he came into contact with Aborigines in remote regions of Australia. He made notes and drawings and collected a total of more than 2000 ethnographic objects of the Australian Aborigines, which he sent from Australia in several tranches to the museums in Germany.

After his return in April 1907, Klaatsch was appointed to an extraordinary professorship for anthropology and ethnology at the University of Breslau . As an independent associate professor, Klaatsch was assigned to the anatomical institute and thus the medical faculty in Breslau. His comparative anatomical studies of primates and his work on tribal and racial history are well known . He also made a significant contribution to first description of a Homo heidelbergensis named mandible of masonry .

In 1902 the treatise Origin and Development of the Human Kind in Kraemer's Universe and Humanity was published . Klaatsch was one of the scientists who took the view early on that humans could not have originated from apes . The “detour” via the tree and climbing animal would have required a corresponding adaptation, which must have left its mark on the human anatomy . In 1903 he was elected a member of the Leopoldina .

literature

• Gaston Mayer:  Klaatsch, Hermann. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 11, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1977, ISBN 3-428-00192-3 , p. 697 f. ( Digitized version ).
• Walter Jankowsky: Hermann Klaatsch and the development of modern anthropology . In: Walter Jankowsky (Ed.): Treatises from the field of anthropology . Darmstadt 1962, pp. 25-31.
• Corinna Erckenbrecht: From research goal to collecting practice. The trip to Australia and the Hermann Klaatsch ethnographic collection in the light of new sources . In: Cologne Museum Bulletin. Reports and research from the museums of the city of Cologne 3, 2006, pp. 25–36.
• Corinna Erckenbrecht: In search of the origins: The anthropologist and collector Hermann Klaatsch's trip to Australia 1904–1907 . In: Ethnologica NF 27, 2010. Cologne, Wienand-Verlag.
• Meyer's Encyclopedic Lexicon . Bibliographisches Institut, Lexikonverlag, Mannheim / Vienna / Zurich 1975, Volume 13, p. 735.
• Hans Kraemer (editor): Universe and humanity . Bong, Berlin and Leipzig 1902.

Web links

• Literature by and about Hermann Klaatsch in the catalog of the German National Library
• Original bipedal theory