Otto Leege

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Otto Karl Georg Leege (born February 21, 1862 in Uelsen / Grafschaft Bentheim , † December 17, 1951 in Norden ) was a German educator, scientist and is considered the "father" of the East Frisian bird protection island of Memmert .

biography

Goldfish pond on the East Frisian North Sea island of Juist, created by Otto Leege

Otto Leege was born in Uelsen in 1862. Leege's father was a customs officer, his mother a plant expert who aroused her son's interest in the flora and fauna at an early age. In 1876 his parents sent him to the preparatory institute and three years later to the seminar in Aurich , where he completed his training as a teacher. A class trip to the island of Norderney in 1877 made him want to become a teacher on one of the East Frisian islands.

After training as a teacher, he took on a teaching position on the island of Juist in 1882 . Since he did not earn enough with the teaching position alone, he also maintained the post and telegraph office on the island and worked as an organist in the island church in Juist . The flora and fauna of the East Frisian islands quickly captivated him.

In 1888 he set foot on the uninhabited neighboring island of Memmert for the first time, which was to occupy him until his death. Leege studied the flora and fauna of the island for years. He found that the birds were ruthlessly decimated by hunters and egg collectors during the breeding season . In 1906, after a hunt, Leege was practically unable to find any uninjured birds on Memmert. Many carcasses of adult birds and starving young birds lay between cartridge cases and shot birds ran around in the dunes. Leege then campaigns intensively for the protection of the bird world during the breeding season.

Otto Leege had seven sons and one daughter. His first wife Martha died of consumption in 1895 and left him with four sons. In 1897 the widower married the 21-year-old Engeline Theesfeld. From this marriage there were three more sons and in 1899 the daughter Eleonore, called Nora.

In 1905, Leege's first book was published, which made him a well-known ornithologist in Germany : "The birds of the East Frisian Islands with a comparative overview of the species occurring in the southern North Sea area". In 1906 and 1907 two supplements followed in the Ornithological Monthly.

Leege's efforts to protect bird life on Memmert began to bear fruit in 1906. “Entering the Memmert from May 1st to August 15th of each year” was “strictly prohibited” by the Royal Waterways Inspectorate North.

On July 31, 1907, Memmert was declared a bird colony in Berlin by a decree of the Prussian Minister for Agriculture, Domains and Forests . The initiative came from the "German Association for the Protection of the Bird World". Otto Leege was appointed authorized representative by the association.

In 1908 Otto Leege began intensive dune protection work by planting dunes. During the school holidays, the Leege family mostly lived on Memmert. In 1920, unknown rabbits released rabbits on Memmert in order to be able to hunt them afterwards; Otto Leege also hunted rabbits, but with the intention of quickly exterminating them, since they ate all the plants and thus endangered the dune population.

In 1921 Otto Leege's son Otto junior was appointed the first “island bailiff”. He was the first person to permanently move to Memmert. In 1924 Memmert was declared an island and a state nature reserve with another ministerial decree . In 1926 Otto Leege was appointed nature conservation commissioner in the then administrative district of Aurich, an activity that he carried out until 1934.

The Leege couple were not spared from severe blows of fate . In 1918 the two 14 and 18 year old sons Willi and Hans had an accident in a sailing accident off Norderney. Otto Leege junior, who had succeeded his father in the post of island bailiff on Memmert since 1921, died in 1946 at the age of 48 after an operation. Shaken by the death of his son, Otto Leege saw his life's work threatened, but Theresa, his son's widow, continued to look after the island until 1956. Their daughter married the next Vogelwart ten years later.

The last years of Otto Leege and his wife Engeline were marked by illness. Both died in 1951.

Honors

Main entrance to the total work of art Otto-Leege-Path , Flugplatzstraße, Juist, with the entrance board

Because of his numerous publications on botany and plant sociology , zoology and ornithology , history and geology he received from the University of Göttingen , the honorary doctorate of philosophy. The Natural Research Society in Emden made him an honorary member in 1932, as did the Society for Fine Arts and Patriotic Antiquities in Emden . In 1942 he was awarded the Goethe Medal for Art and Science . His home town of Uelsen in the county of Bentheim made him an honorary citizen .

Since 2009 there has been the Otto-Leege-Tor on Juist and a refuge by the goldfish ponds, in which the life and work of Leege are clearly presented. In 2010 both were integrated into the Otto Leege Path , an ecological and artistic educational trail that is also dedicated to Otto Leege.

Some East Frisian towns have now named streets after him. There are Otto-Leege streets on Juist, in Aurich , Norden and Emden . There, the council of the city of Emden decided on April 16, 2009 to name Planstraße A in the D 144 construction area as Otto-Leege-Straße.

The Otto Leege Institute is located on Juist .

Works

  • The birds of the Frisian Islands . Fauna-Verlag 2007, reprint from 1905.

literature

  • Jan van Dieken: Otto Leege 1862-1951 . In: Otto Heinrich May (ed.): Niedersächsische Lebensbilder, Vol. 3, Hildesheim: Lax 1957, pp. 151–156
  • Nitzschke, Hans [editor]: Otto Leege. The father of Memmert, explorer of East Friesland and its islands . Contributions by Jan van Dieken and others, published on behalf of the Ostfriesische Landschaftskollegium, Ostfriesische Landschaft, Aurich Verlag 1971

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Memories of the Memmert father ( Memento of the original from November 19, 2012 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. , accessed July 30, 2011 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / juist-urlaub.de
  2. ↑ Ostfriesischer Kurier from January 22, 2011 - Wanted: Joint solution for Otto-Leege-path ( Memento of the original from January 24, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed July 30, 2011 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.juist-urlaub.de
  3. ↑ Street names in the construction area D 144, districts Wolthusen and Tholenswehr , accessed on January 25, 2012
personal data
SURNAME Leege, Otto
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Leege, Otto Karl Georg (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German educator and scientist
DATE OF BIRTH February 21, 1862
PLACE OF BIRTH Uelsen
DATE OF DEATH 17th December 1951
Place of death North (East Frisia)