Kurt Kretschmann

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Erna and Kurt Kretschmann 1998

Kurt Kretschmann (March 2, 1914 in Berlin – January 20, 2007 in Bad Freienwalde (Oder) ) was a German conservationist .

He is considered the “ doyen of nature conservation in the GDR ” and in 1950 designed the logo of a black long- eared owl , which has been legally valid there since 1954 . In the form that is known to this day, the owl stands on a yellow, pentagonal shield that ends in a sharp angle at the top. This version with a graphically revised owl became legal in the GDR on June 1, 1971.

Life

Kurt Kretschmann with group of children (1979)

Kretschmann attended elementary school in Berlin and, after completing an apprenticeship as a tailor, worked as a cutter in a Berlin company. When they switched their production to uniforms in 1933, the convinced pacifist resigned and moved with a friend into a garden house in Rüdnitz near Bernau .

Through intensive fasting, he managed to avoid being called up for military service in 1935. He was then drafted in 1936, but released after five months because he was considered "dangerous to the spirit of the troops". He then embarked on a journey of more than 12,000 kilometers through Germany, Switzerland and northern Italy .

In 1941 he was drafted into forced labor and, after interrogation by the Gestapo , sent to the front in the Soviet Union as a paramedic in the Wehrmacht in 1942 .

In 1944 he was sentenced to death. A wound prevented the execution of the sentence and during a home leave in 1945 he deserted. For several months he hid in a gazebo in which a hole in the ground was hidden.

The GDR shield decreed until 1971 with Kretschmann's older owl symbol
Above the heavily faded GDR version of the nature protection shield that became legal in 1971 and below the new version on the inland dune Waltersberge

In 1946 he joined the German Communist Party and remained a member of the successor parties SED in the GDR and the PDS after reunification until his death .

His experiences in the arbor in Rüdnitz and on the hike had awakened his interest in nature conservation. From 1946 he worked as a hiking guide in Oberbarnim for over 40 years . As early as 1949 he became district commissioner for nature conservation in the district of Oberbarnim and in 1951 state commissioner for nature conservation in the state of Brandenburg . From 1952 to 1954 he was a consultant for nature conservation at the GDR Academy of Agricultural Sciences in Berlin. From 1954 to 1960 he was the founder and director of the "Müritzhof" teaching center for nature conservation.

The owl symbol developed in Lower Saxony in 1996 in the green triangular shield that has been in force in West Germany since 1954.

The long-eared owl, a symbol of nature conservation, was officially introduced with the first nature conservation law of the German Democratic Republic on August 4, 1954 and its installation methods were regulated by law. Unofficially, Kretschmann had put up around 5,000 signs with his owl symbol by this time, starting in 1950. Kretschmann had chosen the owl to counteract the superstitious term widespread at the time as a "bird of the dead". In addition, the symbol should indicate the animal's special need for protection. Despite the legal requirements in the GDR, which only allowed Kretschmann's symbol, there were also different depictions of owls in designated nature conservation areas. As part of the reunification , the decision of the 42nd Conference of Environment Ministers on 18/19 May 1994 to continue using the owl symbol on the territory of the former GDR. It was also suggested that the long-eared owl symbol be used throughout Germany. This suggestion was taken up by some western German federal states, although it remained a matter for the federal states how a future owl logo should be designed. In West Germany, the white- tailed eagle in a green triangular shield has been a symbol since 1954 . The white-tailed eagle was adopted as the symbol of the German heraldic bird . Since the development of a corresponding logo is a matter for the state, different variations of the symbol were used.

Kretschmann initiated the "Working Group for the Protection of Endangered Animal Species". In 1976 he founded the “ White Stork ” working group. In Rathsdorf , he saved a 200-year-old kiln , the Altgaul stork tower, on the top of which pairs of storks have nested for as long as anyone can remember, and set up a white stork exhibition here in 1978.

The house of nature care 1987

Already in 1942 he had married Erna Scherff (* November 12, 1912 in Bollinken near Stettin ; † January 6, 2001 in Bad Freienwalde). In the same year a son was born who died in 1945. Erna was later an inspiration and "good spirit in the background". From 1960 she was the breadwinner of the family and wrote and edited all his publications. In 1945/46, Kretschmann built a block house for the family in the garden area in Bad Freienwalde, where he once hid as a deserter for 75 days, supported by his wife. He had planned a basement room under the house, which he kept secret. This room was constructed in such a way that access via floorboards was only possible from the terrace. From 1960 he expanded this house into the “House of Nature Conservation”, which was open to anyone interested in nature conservation, natural gardening and a vegetarian lifestyle . In 1984 it was handed over to the public sector and is still available today as a museum and hay hotel .

The fact that Kurt Kretschmann was a pacifist, opponent of military service and deserter who was granted an anarchist attitude was not particularly credited to him in GDR times. Today, through the Peace Library/Anti-War Museum in Berlin-Prenzlauer Berg, there is an exhibition on the life and work of Erna and Kurt Kretschmann, which on the one hand shows the nature conservation work and on the other hand expressly addresses his anti-war commitment, the war years and the desertion in 1945. There is also a greater interest in this side of his personality at the Peace Initiative/Anti- War Museum in Anklam .

Kretschmann has been Honorary President of the German Nature Conservation Union since 1991 . In 1993 he and his wife received the European Environment Prize . On March 2, 1999, his 85th birthday, he and his wife became honorary citizens of Bad Freienwalde. He lived there until his death, took part in public life, maintained many contacts and also wrote poems.

Since March 2, 2009, the high school in Bad Freienwalde has been called the Erna and Kurt Kretschmann School .

factories

  • Gamengrund -Seenrinne landscape protection area . VEB Bibliographic Institute, 1957
  • advertising lense . VEB Bibliographic Institute, 1960
  • with Kurt Steinbring: The Scharmutzelsee and Bad Saarow -Pieskow . VEB Brockhaus, 1964
  • Lies and Truth - War Experiences of a German Soldier . VWF, 1993, ISBN 3-89700-400-3
  • And are they still alive? Berlin, Peace Library/Anti-War Museum, 1999
  • with Helene Walter: Creation of the teaching center for nature conservation "Müritzhof" . Verlag Lenover, Neustrelitz 1995, ISBN 3-930164-11-6
  • with Rudolf Behm: Mulch total . OLV organic farming publishing house, 2001, ISBN 3-922201-18-0
  • with David Stile and Jeanie Stiles: Arbors and Cottages . Eco Book, 2002, ISBN 3-922964-84-2

literature

  • Diethart Kerbs: Life Lines. Twentieth-Century German Biographies . With an afterword by Arno Klönne. Klartext Verlag, Essen 2007, ISBN 978-3-89861-799-4 .
  • Marion Schulz: A life in harmony. Kurt and Erna Kretschmann - for the protection and preservation of nature . Findling, book and magazine publisher, Neuenhagen 1999, ISBN 3-933603-02-1 .
  • Michael Succow: Kurt Kretschmann - conservationist, nature gardener, pacifist . In: National Park . No. 121 , 2003, p. 33-35 .
  • Short biography of:  Kretschmann, Kurt . In: Who was who in the GDR? 5th edition. Volume 1. Ch. Links, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86153-561-4 .
  • Gebhard Schultz: Conflicts and Compromises . On the occasion of Kurt Kretschmann's 100th birthday. Klemm + Oelschläger, Ulm 2014, ISBN 978-3-86281-072-7 .

web links

Commons : Kurt Kretschmann  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

itemizations

  1. ↑ The Chairman of the Council for Agricultural Production and Food Goods Management of the German Democratic Republic: Order on the marking of nature conservation objects in the German Democratic Republic of April 8, 1971 . In: Law Gazette of the German Democratic Republic , Part II, No. 52, date of issue: June 23, 1971, pp. 446-447.
  2. ↑ a b c d e House of Nature Care eV: House of Nature Care - Erna and Kurt Kretschmann . In: haus-der-naturpflege.de .
  3. ↑ a b Redesign of the nature protection signs . In: Negotiations of the German Bundestag Volume 521, Bonn 1995, p. 145.
  4. ↑ — ( Memento des Originals from October 30, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@2Template:Webarchiv/IABot/www.ardmediathek.de
  5. ↑ a b c — ( Memento des Originals of October 30, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@2Template:Webarchiv/IABot/mediathek.rbb-online.de
  6. ↑ Women's places Brandenburg - Erna Kretschmann . In: www.frauenorte-brandenburg.de .
  7. ↑ Astrid Mignon Kirchhof: "The free man does not demand freedom, he simply lives." The doyens of GDR nature conservation and the emergence of a reform-driven alternative world. In: Astrid Mignon Kirchhof and Nina Leonhard (eds.): Counterworlds. history and society. Journal of Historical Social Science . 41st year, no. 1 , 2015, p. 71–106, here p. 90 .
  8. ↑ Peace Library/Anti-War Museum
  9. ↑ Peace Library Anti-War Museum. Retrieved March 12, 2021 .
  10. ↑ Märkische Oderzeitung : High school honors conservationists from March 2, 2009
personal data
SURNAME Kretschman, Kurt
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German conservationist
BIRTH DATE March 2, 1914
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH January 20, 2007
PLACE OF DEATH Bad Freienwalde (Oder)