Kurt von Rümker

Kurt Heinrich Theodor Rümker , since 1895 von Rümker (born July 23, 1859 in Heiligenbrunn near Danzig , † February 4, 1940 in Berlin ) was a German agricultural scientist. He is considered to be the founder of scientific plant breeding in Germany.

Life path

As the son of the manor owner Heinrich von Rümker, who was ennobled in 1895, he worked in agricultural practice for several years after graduating from high school and then studied agricultural science at the agricultural academies in Bonn and Hohenheim . In 1888 he received his doctorate with Julius Kühn at the University of Halle with the dissertation " The refinement of the four most important types of grain of the colder climate ". Just one year later he received the Venia legendi for the entire field of agriculture at the University of Göttingen . His habilitation thesis " Instructions for grain breeding on a scientific and practical basis ", published as a book in 1889, is considered the first German-language textbook on plant breeding.

From 1889 to 1892 Rümker worked as a private lecturer at the Agricultural Institute of the University of Göttingen. From the beginning his teaching and research interests were in plant breeding. As early as the summer semester of 1889, he gave a one-hour lecture on "Breeding of Agricultural Crops". It was the first lecture on plant breeding ever given at a university.

From the winter semester 1892/93 Rümker worked as a lecturer at the University of Halle. From 1894 he worked as a "scientific assistant" in the Prussian Ministry of Agriculture, Domains and Forests in Berlin. In 1895 he accepted an appointment as associate professor at the University of Breslau . Within a few years, he divided the Agricultural University Institute there into subject-specific individual institutes. Since 1898 he was full professor at the Institute for Plant Production Studies. The focus of his research was still in the field of plant breeding. In 1911 he added a plant breeding department to his institute.

In 1912 Rümker accepted an appointment at the Agricultural University in Berlin , where he was appointed professor for arable and crop production. Inadequate funds and a lack of trial areas, however, hampered his research. Disappointed and discouraged by ongoing disputes with state authorities, he submitted his resignation in 1919 and took early retirement. He leased the Emersleben manor near Halberstadt from the Rimpau family from Langenstein and worked as a practical plant breeder. From 1931 he lived in Berlin again. He found his final resting place in the Salvator Cemetery in Gdansk .

Research services

Due to his habilitation thesis and his teaching activities as a private lecturer at the University of Göttingen, von Kurt von Rümker is considered to be the founder of scientific plant breeding in Germany. For the first time he presented in detail the content and methodology of this newly developing subject in the article “ Breeding of agricultural crops as a research area and teaching subject ”. This groundbreaking publication was published in 1895 in the festschrift for the 70th birthday of his teacher Julius Kühn.

Rümker's work in the field of plant breeding during his time in Wroclaw and Berlin primarily pursued scientific goals. Through many years of breeding experiments, especially with rapeseed, rye, wheat and fodder beet, he gained fundamental knowledge, especially in the field of breeding methodology. In addition, he decisively promoted the entire variety testing system in Germany. In 1905, his suggestions led to the establishment of the “Hochzuchtregister” of the German Agricultural Society .

Rümker has repeatedly studied plant breeding in other countries on long trips and published numerous articles on it. In 1909 he undertook his most important journey through North America together with Erich von Tschermak-Seysenegg , one of the rediscoverers of Mendel's laws. The published travelogue entitled “ Agricultural Studies in North America with Special Consideration of Plant Breeding ” contains a multitude of suggestions for both plant breeders and farmers in Germany.

Rümker was one of the agronomists who tried to reduce the prevalence of agricultural chemical thinking and acting in agriculture and instead to take greater account of physical and biological aspects. This aim was also served by his mainly practice-oriented articles on “ Issues of the day in modern agriculture ”. They first appeared as individual issues, later as a book under the same title in a multiple edition.

Agricultural science reformer

Like no other agricultural scientist in Germany, Kurt von Rümker has thought about the content, methods, structures and goals of the agricultural disciplines and has published numerous contributions with reform proposals to improve research and teaching. Rümker's memorandum , which he submitted to the Prussian Ministry of Culture in 1897 and which he published under the title “ Modern Agricultural Science and its Representation at Universities ” in the “Journal for Agriculture”, was groundbreaking for the development of agricultural agriculture . In this memorandum, Rümker called for agricultural science, which had hitherto been largely encyclopedically oriented, to be broken down into its main branches, i.e. the agricultural university institutes, which encompass all fields of knowledge, to be dissolved and independent specialist institutes to be established instead. The corresponding chairs should then be filled with specialist lecturers. Rümker was able to implement these radical reform proposals at the University of Breslau . After the First World War, almost all agricultural university institutes in Germany followed this " Breslauer Regulativ " and also set up independent institutes for the most important subject areas.

In his publications, Rümker used numerous examples from history to justify these far-reaching reform proposals. For him it was a matter of course that understanding the present and shaping the future of a science requires knowledge of its history. According to his core thesis, derived from the history of science , science can only be promoted through specialization. If this no longer happens, the sources from which the practice must constantly draw would soon run out.

Publication activity

Kurt von Rümkers' list of publications includes over 300 individual titles. Much of his basic research on plant breeding appeared in the communications of the Agricultural Institutes of the Royal University of Wroclaw . Rümker founded this magazine and published a total of seven volumes with extensive individual issues from 1899 to 1916. Rümker was also involved in the publication of the magazine for plant breeding from 1913 to 1941 .

Rümker has also published articles on agricultural policy and economic issues, including the 1912 publication “ The nutrition of our people from our own production ”. Many of his lectures are available in printed form, e.g. B. his speech given in 1913 on the occasion of a celebration of the 25th anniversary of the reign of Kaiser Wilhelm I on " The development of agriculture in the last 25 years ".

A valuable document for the history of science are Rümker's memoirs, published in 1937, entitled “ My Life ”, which are only available in typewritten form.

honors and awards

Kurt von Rümker was a member of several scientific academies. He held honorary positions at the German Agricultural Society and the Chambers of Agriculture for the provinces of Silesia and Saxony. In 1912 he was appointed a secret councilor. He received honorable appointments from the Universities of Königsberg, Leipzig, Jena and Bonn, all of which he rejected. In 1920 the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences in Vienna awarded him an honorary doctorate.

In 1929, on the occasion of his 70th birthday, he received an honorary doctorate from the Agricultural University in Berlin . The German Agricultural Society awarded him the silver-gilt Max Eyth commemorative coin . In addition, colleagues, friends and students presented him with an extensive commemorative publication entitled “ Research in the field of plant cultivation and plant breeding ”.

In 1985, the German plant breeders donated the Kurt von Rümker Prize . Since 1992 it has been awarded by the Society for Plant Breeding on the occasion of its annual meeting for the best lecture by a young scientist.

Fonts (selection)

• The refinement of the four main types of grain of the colder climate . Diss. Phil. Univ. Halle-Wittenberg 1888.
• Grain breeding instructions on a scientific and practical basis . Paul Parey publishing house, Berlin 1889.
• Breeding of agricultural crops as a research area and teaching subject . In: Festschrift for the seventieth birthday of Julius Kühn. Publishing house Paul Parey Berlin 1885, pp. 51–77.
• Modern agricultural science and its representation in universities . In: Journal für Landwirtschaft Vol. 45, 1897, pp. 335–392.
• Agriculture and science. An open word to clarify the situation . Paul Parey Publishing House, Berlin 1905.
• Daily questions from modern agriculture . Publishing house Paul Parey Berlin 1909, 2nd edition 1914, 3rd edition 1922.
• Methods of plant breeding in experimental testing . Paul Parey publishing house in Berlin 1909.
• On the organization of plant breeding . Paul Parey Publishing Bookstore 1909
• Agricultural studies in North America with a special focus on plant breeding. A travel report in words and pictures (with Erich von Tschermak-Seysenegg). Publishing bookstore Paul Parey Berlin 1910.
• The systematics and methodology of agricultural plant production theory . In: Fühlings Landwirtschaftliche Zeitung vol. 60, 1911, pp. 409-421.
• Agricultural tasks after the war and the foundation of the Prussian Research Society for Agriculture . Paul Parey publishing house in Berlin 1918.
• The performance of domestic and foreign grain breeders in the light of the variety tests from 1905-1923 . Paul Parey Publishing Bookstore 1924
• My life . Private printing - typescript, 3 volumes, Berlin 1937.

literature

• L. Kühle and E. Claus: Go. Councilor Professor Dr. phil. Dr. hc Kurt von Rümker. His life and work . In: Contributions to Plant Breeding Volume 10, 1929, pp. 4–30 (with picture and extensive bibliography).
• L. Kiessling : K. von Rümker and German plant breeding . In: Research in the field of plant cultivation and plant breeding. Festschrift for the seventieth birthday of Kurt von Rümker. Verlagbuchhandlung Paul Parey Berlin 1929, pp. 1–9 (with picture and selected bibliography).
• K. Opitz: Kurt von Rümker 80 years . In: Der Forschungsdienst Vol. 8, 1939, pp. 1–4 (with picture).
• Eduard von Boguslawski : On the 100th birthday of Kurt von Rümker . In: Mitteilungen der Deutschen Landwirtschafts-Gesellschaft Vol. 74, 1959, pp. 942–943 (with picture).
• Wolfgang Böhm : Kurt von Rümker as a private lecturer at the University of Göttingen. The beginning of scientific plant breeding in Germany . In: Göttinger Jahrbuch Vol. 32, 1984, pp. 235–242 (with picture).
• Wolfgang Böhm: Structures, methods and goals in agricultural science. In memory of the 50th anniversary of Kurt von Rümker's death. In: Reports on Agriculture, Vol. 68, 1990, pp. 101-113 (with selected bibliography).
• Hans Geidel :  Rümker, Kurt Heinrich Theodor von. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 22, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-428-11203-2 , p. 225 f. ( Digitized version ).

Web links

• Literature by and about Kurt von Rümker in the catalog of the German National Library
• Short biography and digitized sources in the Virtual Laboratory of the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science (English)
• Entry on Kurt von Rümker in the Catalogus Professorum Halensis