Ludwig Armbruster

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Ludwig Armbruster, 1956

Ludwig A. Armbruster (born September 7, 1886 in Markdorf , † June 4, 1973 in Lindau (Bodensee) ) was a German zoologist . He is considered one of the outstanding beekeepers of the 20th century, whose work is still recognized today.

Ludwig Armbruster was dismissed from Berlin University in 1934 as a “Jew friend” and was not rehabilitated until 2007.

Life

Ludwig Armbruster with his mother Luise around 1925 in Überlingen

Ludwig Armbruster was born as the son of the post office clerk Adolf Jacob Armbruster and the teacher Luise, née Kaiser. He attended the Fürstenberg-Gymnasium in Donaueschingen and the later Berthold-Gymnasium in Freiburg up to the Abitur, which he passed with very good results. From 1904 to 1907 he studied Catholic theology at the University of Freiburg , then until 1909 natural sciences at the University of Munich . After ordination in 1909, he was vicar in the parish of Sankt Urban in Freiburg. In 1910 he was made prefect at the Gymnasialkonvikt in Freiburg, and in 1911 he was given leave of absence for further studies.

He continued his studies in natural sciences in Freiburg and completed it in February 1913 with a doctorate at the Zoological Institute on the subject of chromosome relationships in the spermatogenesis of solitary apids . He then passed the state examination for teaching at Baden's secondary schools and in 1914 became a teacher at the Achern grammar school .

After research projects on apology at the Zoological Institute in Freiburg and in 1917 with Erwin Baur in Berlin, he came to Berlin in 1918 as a scientific assistant and "Scientific Member" of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Biology. Between 1919 and 1923 he was head of the research center for apiculture at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Biology in Berlin-Dahlem. Armbruster completed his habilitation in the field of zoology in 1919 and in 1923 took over as professor and director of the Institute for Apiculture at the Agricultural University in Berlin-Dahlem, in 1929 he was appointed full professor. At the beginning of 1934, the newly appointed Rector Friedrich Schucht, who had a National Socialist attitude, ordered Armbruster to be dismissed, as he was “not acceptable as a teacher at a university from the National Socialist point of view” and “extremely Jewish-friendly”, since he had “signed the Jewish appeal to the world's conscience , a circumstance that alone should make Armbruster's further activity as a university professor impossible. ”Armbruster had also protested in 1933 against disruptive appearances by SA students in brown shirts and with swastika flags at the Berlin University and signed on March 2, 1933 with justification denied the declaration of consent for the Hitler government.

His contacts with Jewish beekeepers in Palestine , his cooperation with Jewish bee researchers in scientific work and, in particular, his membership in the “ German Committee for Palestine ” ultimately cost him his chair. Armbruster had numerous Jewish students whom he treated and supported humanely. For example, he saved the lives of 100 Jews with a skilled workers' certificate that was required to travel to Palestine. As a result, he came into the focus of the National Socialists even before 1933. On March 23, 1934, he was banned from working; Werner Ulrich had been proposed as his successor a month earlier, who, according to his own admission, had “the great pleasure” of “seeing him fly off in a high arc”. Ulrich repeatedly denounced Armbruster, among other things. at the Reich Ministry of Education because of his Jewish cooperation and because of a relationship with his secretary in court, threatened to report further, and spoke of "incredible crimes" with which he had come into contact in the institute formerly headed by Armbruster. Ulrich not only kept his position after 1945, but also became the founding dean of the natural science faculty of the Free University in West Berlin, although he had worked in the SS research facility Ahnenerbe , which was founded in 1935 . Armbruster was reinstated neither in Freiburg nor in Berlin.

Armbruster's position was illegally converted into an ordinariate for arable farming and agricultural policy in 1934 and occupied by the NSDAP and SS member Konrad Meyer . Although he was sentenced to 2 years and 10 months imprisonment for his leadership in the General Plan Ost in a war criminal follow-up trial, Meyer was again full professor in Hanover in 1956.

On September 19, 1945, Armbruster was recognized by the French military government as an opponent of the Nazi regime ( Adversaire du Regime Nazi ) and then appointed General Inspector for Agriculture in the French zone of occupation .

His social rehabilitation took place on August 28, 1957, when, at the suggestion of the Bavarian Prime Minister Wilhelm Hoegner, he was awarded the Cross of Merit First Class of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany .

It was not until 2007 that the Nazi victim was "politically" fully rehabilitated with extensive documentation by Steffen Rückl from the Humboldt University in Berlin and the foreword by the President of the Humboldt University Christoph Markschies .

plant

Ludwig Armbruster's book on beekeeping , published in 1919, reprinted in 2003

At the beginning of the 20th century Armbruster conducted research in the “Platte” noble breeding area of ​​the Sankt Peter beekeeping association . He published the results of his research in his first standard work on beekeeping, which is still recognized today .

Through the Black Forest watch dealers traveling to England, a copy of his writing came to the monk Brother Adam , actually Karl Kehrle, who came from Swabia , in the English monastery of Buckfast . Brother Adam was particularly interested in Armbruster's work because the tracheal mite , which was rampant in England at the time , had carried away up to 90 percent of the bees, according to official reports. The English beehives could only survive after crossing them with other, foreign bees. Brother Adam began breeding beekeeping according to Armbruster's apiculture .

Brother Adam's Buckfast bee is now spread all over the world and is very popular with commercial and professional beekeepers. Brother Adam also dedicated his main work, Breeding the Honeybee, to his inspirer Ludwig Armbruster. To this day, according to Armbruster's beekeeping science and his later additions in the archive for apiculture, bee breeds are made more resistant and continued to be bred around the world.

Armbruster was editor of the archive [es] for apiculture between 1919 and 1966 . Journal for bee knowledge and bee management in a total of 41 volumes. There he described and commented on the world literature on bee science for almost 50 years, including, for example, the professional beekeeping of Brother Adam in Buckfast Monastery as a trend-setting for economic beekeeping in Europe. The International Bee Research Association is continuing this life's work today.

For hobby beekeepers in German-speaking countries, he had developed light, warm and space-saving magazine boxes with 9 honeycombs each 20 × 40 cm (Langstroth, Zander), entrance hole and ventilation in the bottom board, as well as a feeding device as a patent. This magazine mode was further improved by beekeeper Karl Pfefferle from Münstertal and widely spread throughout the German-speaking area.

Ludwig Armbruster (right) and Yoshinobu Tokuda on the premises of the Institute for Apiculture in Berlin-Dahlem around 1930

Armbruster set up the first honey testing facility in Berlin in 1929 after creating the biological-microscopic honey testing, one of his outstanding scientific achievements. The international "Apis Conference" in Berlin in 1929 with almost 300 participants was the highlight in the history of the Berlin Bee Institute and made Armbruster known abroad. Research trips took him to many European countries, including the USA, Egypt and Palestine. His bee collection named after him on the Berlin Dahlem estate is one of the largest and most important in Germany. Another focus was further training and courses at our own university, in the Gaisberg bee farm and at the Berlin-Zehlendorf beekeeping association.

Armbruster's great appreciation was still evident on February 21, 1934 at his last lecture, when, despite the presence of the Rector, Armbruster was celebrated enthusiastically in the overcrowded large lecture hall of Berlin University, with many Jewish listeners risking their lives. This was also an important demonstration for freedom of research and teaching.

On the 80th birthday of Ludwig Armbruster, in 1966 the beekeeping magazine Südwestdeutsche Imker published “Congratulations from all over the world” with homage from numerous institute directors from Eastern and Western Europe, South and North America. From Sweden, it was a great pleasure for the director of the institute, Ake Hansson , director of the bee research station in Lund, to have Dr. To Ludwig Armbruster, the nestor of the world's bee researchers, to pay my respectful homage to which all Swedish beekeepers agree. ”Lund called Armbruster's scientific publications a“ Monumentum aere perennius ”. In 1969 Armbruster was the first and only German bee scientist to be appointed an honorary member on the proposal of the Executive Council of the World Organization for Bee Science APIMONDIA . Although such highest honors are very important for a Nazi victim to be rehabilitated, Karl Dreher , former Nazi activist, did not name the three highest national and international honors in his two-page obituary in 1973 for Ludwig Armbruster. He went on to write: "When he was supposed to get a professorship in Freiburg in 1946 [...] Professor Zander's report was so negative that the matter was broken up and Armbruster continued to be banned and avoided." Freiburg University Rector Wolfgang Jäger 2008:

"A report by Professor Enoch Zander , as Karl Dreher's obituary for Ludwig Armbruster calls it, is not on record at Freiburg University and, according to the files, played no role in filling the Freiburg apprenticeship positions."

- Wolfgang Jäger : Letter from the University of Freiburg, The Rector, January 22, 2008

Karl Dreher also objected to Ludwig Armbruster's “fanatical love of truth”.

Ludwig Armbruster regularly attended Freiburg University for study purposes in the 1950s and 1960s, as the training of practical beekeepers was important to him. He took the train from Lindau to Freiburg, where he visited his brother Karl Armbruster and supported the Freiburg Beekeeping Association with practical lectures.

The Armbruster biographer Irmgard Jung-Hoffmann from the Free University of Berlin did her doctorate with Werner Ulrich and described the compulsory removal of Armbruster in the international journal Apidologie in 1982 as a usual replacement by the assistant with the words: "On April 1, 1934 Armbruster became early retirement. […] Werner Ulrich, who was previously an assistant at the institute, took over the management. ”She did not mention the three highest honors in the 25-page Armbruster biography in the Berlin Yearbook, in other publications or in the lecture“ Ludwig Armbruster “1998 in Kassel.

Under the honorary writing of Karl Dreher, the beekeeping magazines Allgemeine Deutsche Imkerzeitung , Imkerfreund and Die Biene were not allowed to commemorate Ludwig Armbruster and his life's work on his 100th birthday. This life's work, which is particularly important for professional beekeepers, was largely withheld from practical beekeepers. These beekeeping magazines published a book review of Armbruster's book Beekeeping Studies in 2010 . The author comes to the following conclusion:

“He (Ludwig Armbruster) has succeeded in demonstrating the mechanisms of inheritance and the possibilities and requirements for breeding selection in a clear and understandable way for the layperson using numerous examples. Even if today's knowledge is a little more advanced, Armbruster deserves great praise for this work. May it still serve many beekeepers today to expand their knowledge! "

The German Beekeeping Association named him honorary beekeeper in 1969, the highest possible award.

Appreciation

Appreciation of Ludwig Armbruster's life's work by APIMONDIA President Jörgensen (5th from left) in Bronnbach 2007. Johannes Wagner from Mundau (10th from left) shows a honeycomb (Dadant-Adam (modified)).

On April 30, 2006, the Dutch bee researcher Job van Praagh in Sankt Peter, Black Forest, paid tribute to Armbruster's contributions to modern honey bee breeding. The rector of the Freiburg University, Wolfgang Jäger, also paid tribute to Ludwig Armbruster in his celebratory speech and declared that in 1934 a “great apiarist was withdrawn from the research base. The political and academic rehabilitation could only be initiated by the Humboldt University in Berlin, where he was dismissed as a “Jew friend” ”.

In 2007 the extensive documentation on his life and work by Steffen Rückl was published. With this documentation and the foreword by President Christoph Markschies , Armbruster is politically completely rehabilitated. The academic rehabilitation by the Berlin University with a presentation of his extensive life's work and presentation of the important "crossbow collection" is still pending.

The currently great importance of Armbruster's life's work is shown by the fact that the beekeeping representatives honor Armbruster. This was done through speeches at large beekeeping events, such as by Ekkehard Hülsmann, President of the Baden Beekeepers' Association in the German Beekeeping Association and Manfred Hederer, President of the German Professional and Commercial Beekeeping Association in Sankt Peter in 2006 and Charles Huck, member of the executive committee of the French beekeeping association Union Nationale de l'Apiculture Francaise 2012 in Châtenois . On the occasion of his 125th birthday, his life's work was honored with several lectures at the largest beekeeping day in Central Europe in Donaueschingen on October 22nd and 23rd, 2011.

The Bavarian Beekeeping Association and the Association of Bavarian Beekeepers award the jointly designed Golden Armbruster Medal.

On November 17, 2013, the “Prof. Ludwig Armbruster Beekeeping School ”was founded. The Prof. Ludwig Armbruster Beekeeping School awards the certificate "Honorary Schoolmaster" as an award for special achievements for beekeeping. The first person to be awarded the "Honorary Schoolmaster" is Ekkehard Hülsmann.

In 2015, Rüdiger vom Bruch from the Humboldt University in Berlin confirmed that Nazi victims in academia were pushed aside by Nazi colleagues even in the post-war period. He reports on the networks of Nazi-polluted scientists and that the grandchildren did not want to let dust fall on their teachers and tutors. After the war, the majority of the resistance members achieved academic effectiveness to a surprisingly small extent, and others had to experience how their former colleagues tried to use tricks and very strange methods to keep them away from their old universities and research institutes.

Steffen Rückl states that the heads of the most important bee institutes were former NSDAP members until the 1960s, for example Karl Dreher (NSDAP membership number 2401444), Gottfried Götze (No. 4329567), Friedrich Ruttner (No. 6360728), Wolfgang Steche ( No. 7109058). Neither the German Beekeeping Association (DIB) nor most of the bee institutes dealt with their history adequately during the Nazi era.

After Armbruster received the highest international honors in 1969, Karl Dreher was appointed honorary editor of the beekeeping magazines Die Biene , Imkerfreund and Allgemeine Deutsche Imkerzeitung to make Armbruster "insignificant" by not being allowed to publish any important articles by Armbruster until 2004. Not even the 100th birthday was reported. Despite these tricks and strange methods, Ludwig Armbruster is still world-famous in scientific circles through his publications in the post-war period. After Armbruster's death in 1973, the German national anthem was played for him at the APIMONDIA World Congress in Argentina. The Ludwig Armbruster Fellowship Program was launched in 2016. The aim is the cooperation of the Free University of Berlin and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in cooperation with the Berlin Zoological Garden to promote exchange and cooperation in the fields of veterinary medicine, biology, ethics and history.

Fonts (selection)

The complete bibliography of the 419 publications by Ludwig Armbruster can be found in Archiv für Bienenkunde 33, 1956, pp. 47–53.

  • The chromosome relationships in the spermatogenesis of solitary apids . In: Archiv für Zellforschung 11, 1913, pp. 242–328 (dissertation).
  • Improves the Bee , In: Journal of Applied Entomology 5, 1917.
  • with Hans Nachtsheim, Theodor Roemer: The Hymenoptera as a study object of azygous inheritance . In: Zeitschrift für Induktiverbungslehre 17, 1917, pp. 273–355.
  • Archive for apiculture. Journal for bee knowledge and bee management (AfB) 1919 to 1966, a total of 41 volumes.
  • The apiary as an ethnological monument. At the same time, contributions to a historical apiculture management theory. Neumünster in Holstein 1926 (= Apiculture Library , 8).
  • Beekeeping . Theodor Fischer, Berlin 1919 (reprinted by Ertl & Ertl, Vienna 2003).
  • Beekeeping if and how . Berlin 1932, 58 pages (2nd edition Lindau 1952).
  • Pollen forms and pollen - determination of origin . Berlin 1935, 122 pp.
  • Forms of beekeeping . Berlin 1936, 256 pp.
  • Beekeeping Management of Production . 1937, 124 pages (2nd edition 1952).
  • The Zeideln and the Baiwaren . In: Archiv für Bienenkunde 19, 1938, pp. 256–304.
  • The Bejen and the Franks . In: Archiv für Bienenkunde 20 (1939), pp. 49-106.
  • Breed Limits? In: Archive for Apiculture 27, 1950.
  • Breeding issues . Lindau 1952, 36 pp.
  • Breeding for performance . Lindau 1953, 64 pp.
  • Review . In: Archive for Apiculture 1958.

literature

  • Wolfgang Müller : Ludwig Armbruster . In: Freiburger Diözesan-Archiv 97, 1977, pp. 459-460.
  • Norbert Graf: Festschrift and chronicle of the St. Peter's Beekeeping Association from 1903–1978 , 1978.
  • Erich Schwärzel: Through them we became: Biography of the grandmasters and supporters of beekeeping in German-speaking countries. Publishing house Die Biene, Giessen 1985.
  • Irmgard Jung-Hoffmann: Ludwig Armbruster and the Institute for Apiculture in Dahlem . In: Yearbook 1996 Stadtmuseum Berlin , ed. by Reiner Güntzer for the Stiftung Stadtmuseum Berlin, Gebr. Mann Verlag, Berlin 1998, ISBN 3-7861-2255-5 , Vol. 2, pp. 132–157.
  • Steffen Rückl: Ludwig Armbruster - by the National Socialists in 1934 forcibly retired apologist from the Berlin University. A documentation. (= Humboldt University of Berlin. Institute for Economic and Social Sciences in Agriculture: Working paper No. 78). Humboldt University, Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3-86004-207-6 ; 2nd edited edition 2015, ISBN 978-3-86004-305-9 .

Web links

Commons : Ludwig Armbruster  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Steffen Rückl: Ludwig Armbruster - apologist at Berlin University who was forced to retire by the National Socialists in 1934. A documentation . (= Humboldt University of Berlin. Economics and Social Sciences in Agriculture. Working paper No. 78). Humboldt University, Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3-86004-207-6 ; 2nd edited edition 2015, ISBN 978-3-86004-305-9 , p. 32.
  2. ↑ Schwärzel, p. 10, judges: He is probably rightly the greatest scientist in apiculture.
  3. ↑ Back, pp. 15-16.
  4. ↑ Ludwig Armbruster: Beekeeping Studies. Theodor Fischer, Leipzig / Berlin 1919, reprint Ertl & Ertl, Vienna 2003.
  5. ↑ SWR television film The silent spring. 2009.
  6. ↑ Brother Adam: Breeding the honey bee. A contribution to the beekeeping science of the honeybee. Delta-Verlag, Sankt Augustin 1982, ISBN 3-922898-02-5 .
    Brother Adam: Looking for the best beehives. Travel report and race evaluation results. 2nd edition, C. Koch Verlag, Oppenau 1983, ISBN 3-9800797-0-8 .
  7. ↑ Back, p. 34.
  8. ↑ Southwest German beekeeper. 1962, p. 262.
  9. ↑ Karl Pfefferle: Our beekeeper with the magazine. 1982, p. 15.
  10. ↑ back , p. 12.
  11. ↑ Jung – Hoffmann, pp. 132–157.
  12. ↑ Back, p. 16.
  13. ↑ Southwest German beekeeper. 1966, pp. 260-264.
  14. ↑ The bee. 8/1973, pp. 228-229.
  15. ^ Albert Rombach, Stegen: Lecture in Sankt Peter, 2015.
  16. ↑ Irmgard Jung-Hoffmann, in: Apidology. 13, 1, 1982, pp. 68-69.
  17. ↑ The Buckfast beekeeper. 3/1998, pp. 15-18.
  18. ↑ General German beekeeping newspaper , Beekeeper friend , Die Biene , 7, 8, 9 and 10/1986.
  19. ↑ State show SWR-Fernsehen, May 4, 2006.
  20. ↑ Christoph Markschies: Foreword by the President of the Humboldt University Berlin. In: Steffen Rückl: Persecuted University Lecturers of the FWU 1933 to 1945. Economics and social science departments of the Agricultural and Horticultural Faculty of the Humboldt University in Berlin, Berlin 2007, p. 6.
  21. ^ Statutes of the Bavarian Beekeeping Association V.
  22. ^ Jürgen Binder: Founding of the Prof. Ludwig Armbruster beekeeping school in Weimar. Online at Armbruster-Imkerschule.de, accessed on January 10, 2017.
  23. ↑ There was no zero hour. Interview on January 3, 2015. In: Badische Zeitung.
  24. ↑ Steffen Rückl, Documentation 2nd edition 2015, p. 52
  25. ^ Die Biene , Beekeeper Friend , Allgemeine Deutsche Beekeeperzeitung (ADIZ) , 1969 to 2004.
  26. ↑ APIMONDIA World Congress 1974.
  27. ^ Ludwig Armbruster Fellowship Program
  28. ^ Message from the Presidential Office of the FUB v. March 7, 2018
personal data
SURNAME Armbruster, Ludwig
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Armbruster, Ludwig A.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German zoologist
BIRTH DATE September 7, 1886
PLACE OF BIRTH Markdorf
DATE OF DEATH 4th June 1973
PLACE OF DEATH Lindau (Lake Constance)