Lutz Heck

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1984 bust erected in the Berlin Zoological Garden

Ludwig Georg Heinrich Heck , called Lutz Heck (born April 23, 1892 in Berlin , † April 6, 1983 in Wiesbaden ) was a German zoologist , animal researcher and animal book author. Between 1932 and 1945, Heck was director of the Berlin Zoological Garden .

Life

Early years

Lutz Heck was born on April 23, 1892 as the third child of zoo director Privy Councilor Ludwig Heck and his wife Margarete, née Nauwerk, in the Berlin Zoological Garden . After studying at the universities of Berlin , where he was awarded a Dr. phil. received his doctorate, Freiburg im Breisgau and Königsberg i. Pr. He became assistant and finally deputy director of the zoo in Halle (Saale) . In 1924 he took over the position of assistant and in 1927 the deputy management of the Berlin Zoological Garden. In 1932 he succeeded his father as scientific director and held this position until the zoological garden was destroyed in 1945.

Zoo director in the time of National Socialism

Memorial plaque in the Berlin Zoological Garden

The zoo was extensively modernized under his leadership. For the first time, there were outdoor facilities without a partition. As early as 1925 he had the first animal zoo built. Heck, who had been a supporting member of the SS from June 1, 1933 , also joined the NSDAP on May 1, 1937 .

Together with his brother Heinz Heck , the director of the Hellabrunn Zoo in Munich , Heck attempted to breed a cattle similar to the aurochs from what they considered to be the original breeds of cattle . This breeding method is known today as image breeding . Although the success in scientific literature was described as inadequate early on, the Hecks presented their cattle to the public as "backbred aurochs", a misnomer that is still often found in animal parks today. Today's Heck cattle go back to the attempts of his brother Heinz Heck in Munich, as the Berlin line was lost at the end of the Second World War. As early as 1934 he campaigned for the successful reintroduction of the Alpine ibex near Berchtesgaden .

Heck was in close friendly contact with Hermann Göring , with whom he shared a passion for big game hunting. He personally sponsored Heck's attempts to breed images of the aurochs and in 1935 arranged a generous donation of the site from the Prussian state property to the Berlin Zoo. This made it possible for Heck to set up an independent "German Zoo" adjacent to the existing facilities.

In 1938 the zoologist with a doctorate was made an honorary professor on the occasion of the “Führer birthday”. In the same year he became head of the department or department (from 1941) nature conservation in the Reich Forestry Office .

During the occupation of Eastern Europe, the SS sponsor Heck played a key role in the systematic deportation of elephants, camels, hippos and zebras to the German Reich. At the turn of the year 1939/40, a large part of the existing animal population in the Warsaw Zoo was shot by Heck and other SS members invited to join them (including Hermann Göring ). Forced laborers were exploited during his service at the Berlin Zoo. Przewalski horses were sent to German zoos from the Askania-Nova zoo in southern Ukraine.

The chairman of the Westphalian Heimatbund, Karl-Friedrich Kolbow , saw Lutz Heck as an opponent. According to Kolbow, he had thwarted plans to anchor a folk-style landscape design in the structure of the Nazi state and disparagingly counted him among the “Berlin asphalt people”. Heck's advocacy of a unified Reich Nature Conservation Union was sharply criticized from this point of view. Heck stood for a priority of forest management over nature conservation in order to preserve the resources necessary for warfare.

After the end of the war

At the end of the war , Heck was put out to be wanted by the Soviet authorities for his crimes in occupied Poland. He escaped arrest by fleeing to the western occupation zones.

Katharina Heinroth , the first woman to hold this post, was the direct successor to the Berlin Zoo in 1945 .

His son Lutz Heck jun. (* 1924) later worked as the successor to his uncle Heinz Heck between 1969 and 1972 as director of the Hellabrunn Zoo in Munich.

Lutz Heck died on April 6, 1983 at the age of 90 in Wiesbaden.

Factory selection

Books

  • with M. Proshauer (Ed.): From the wilderness to the zoo. On animal trapping in East Africa , 1930
  • Scream of the steppe , 1933 (first sound recordings of African animals in connection with a book)
  • with F. Peltzer: The Picture Zoo , 1934
  • The forest resounds , 1934
  • On wild game in Canada. Reports, observations and thoughts from a happy journey , 1935
  • The German red deer , 1935
  • Signpost through the Berlin Zoological Garden , 1940
  • Searching for animals in the wide world , Parey, 1941
  • Wild boar. Life picture of the wild boar , 1950
  • Animals, my adventure. Wilderness and Zoo Experiences , 1952
  • Big game in Etoschaland. Experiences with animals in South West Africa , 1955
  • The red deer. A picture of life , 1956 (new edition by Der Deutschen Edelhirsch )
  • Drive to the white rhino. Through South Africa in a car , 1957
  • Animals in Africa , 1957
  • with Eva Heck: Wildes Beautiful Africa , 1960
  • Waidwerk with a colorful route. Hunting in local areas , 1968
  • Wild animals among themselves. Observations of their behavior in Africa , 1970
  • The double monkey. The Hellabrunn orangutan twins , 1972
  • with G. Raschke: The wild sows. Natural history, ecology, conservation and hunting , 1980, presumably new edition 1985

Movies

  • with Oscar Neumann: On animal trapping in Abyssinia , 1926
  • In the kingdom of the lion
  • With rifle and lasso in Africa
  • Urwild in Canada

Awards

As a special honor he received the silver Leibniz Medal from the Prussian Academy of Sciences in 1940 and in 1984 a bronze bust of the artist Heinz Spilker was erected in his honor in the Berlin Zoo.

literature

  • Who is who? 16th edition of Degeners Who's it? Edited by Walter Habel. Arani, Berlin 1969/70, ISBN 3-7605-2007-3 .
  • Heinz-Georg Klös: In memoriam Professor Dr. Lutz Heck. In: Bongo. Contributions to the zoo and annual reports from the Berlin Zoo. Volume 8, 1984, pp. 105-110, ISSN  0174-4038 .
  • Max Alfred Zoll : Prof. Dr. Lutz Heck 75 years. In: The Zoological Garden (NF). Volume 35, 1968, pp. 179-180.

Web links

Commons : Lutz Heck  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Klös (1984), p. 106
  2. ^ Andreas Gautschi : The Reichsjägermeister. 4th, revised edition. Nimrod, Melsungen 2006, page 66, ISBN 978-3-7888-1038-2 .
  3. ↑ Cis van Vuure: Retracing the aurochs - History, Morphology and Ecology of an Extinct Wild Ox. 2005, ISBN 954-642-235-5 .
  4. ↑ Berlin Zoo: Urmacher undesirable . In: Der Spiegel . No. 26 , 1954 ( online - June 23, 1954 ).
  5. ↑ Frank Nicolai : No honor for Nazi zoo director. (Newspaper article) Letter to the Berlin Zoo Director, the Governing Mayor of Berlin and the parliamentary groups / petition started. In: Humanistic press service. September 10, 2015, accessed September 10, 2015 .
  6. ↑ Katja Iken: Forgotten Judenretter: The hiding place in the zoo . In: Spiegel Online . September 13, 2017 ( spiegel.de [accessed September 15, 2017]).
  7. ^ Photo: Memorial plaque with information about war crimes in which Lutz Heck was involved (forced labor). Wikimedia Commons, accessed September 15, 2017 .
  8. ↑ Berlin Zoo: Urmacher undesirable . In: Spiegel Online . June 23, 1954 ( spiegel.de [accessed April 14, 2020]).
  9. ^ Willi Oberkrome : German home. National conception and regional practice of nature conservation, landscape design and cultural policy in Westphalia-Lippe and Thuringia (1900–1960) (research on regional history 47), Schöningh, Paderborn a. a. 2004, ISBN 3-506-71693-X , pp. 254 f.
  10. ^ Willi Oberkrome: Deutsche Heimat , p. 273.
  11. ↑ DNB
  12. ↑ Klös (1984), p. 109.
personal data
SURNAME Heck, Lutz
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Heck, Ludwig Georg Heinrich (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German biologist and zoo director
DATE OF BIRTH April 23, 1892
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH April 6, 1983
Place of death Wiesbaden