Richard Heydorn

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Richard Huesmann Wilhelm Heydorn (born February 25, 1910 in Hamburg ; † May 3, 1943 in Brest-Litowsk ) was a German Africanist .

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Richard Heydorn was the eldest son of the theologian Wilhelm Heydorn , who initially taught his son himself. He became interested in foreign cultures and countries early on and from 1925 attended the lower secondary school of the Realreformgymnasium in Blankenese , which he left before taking the Abitur. As he was considered an extremely talented pianist, he studied music at the Vogt Conservatory in Hamburg and accompanied his father's church services on the organ as a teenager. Heydorn planned to take the high school diploma later and therefore attended the Jessen educational institution. There he made the acquaintance of Fatima Massaqoui , the daughter of the Liberian consul Momolu Massaquoi . Both lived together unmarried for some time. Since this friendship had awakened an interest in Africa, he passed the Abitur examination at the Schleswig Provincial School in autumn 1931. He then studied African languages ​​from the winter semester 1931/32 to the summer semester 1933 at the University of Hamburg . Carl Meinhof was one of his teachers .

Since he absolutely wanted to bypass the Reich Labor Service , Heydorn continued his studies in Paris in 1933 and moved to Liberia a year later . He stayed here for five years and worked on his dissertation. In Pendembu, near Sierra Leone , he taught for the "USA Holy Cross Mission" for three years and advised on languages. During his holidays he traveled through the hinterland of Africa for a long time and collected material on languages ​​and dialects that were almost or completely unexplored at the time. These included Bandi , Loma and Kisi , whom Heydorn first described lexically and grammatically. He also archived sources on ethnology.

Heydorn had a musical talent that he used to learn and describe African languages. Graham Greene , who was on safari through West Africa, traveled with Heydorn for some time and described the way he worked in his book Journey without maps. Since the Liberian population rejected the German Reich and its colonial aspirations, they expelled all German citizens in 1938. So Heydorn also had to leave the country. He lived for some time in the Holy Cross Monastery in the border area of ​​Liberia, Sierra Leone and French Guinea and moved back to Hamburg in January 1939.

At the University of Hamburg Heydorn then studied African studies with August Klingenhaben , ethnology with Franz Termer and phonetics with Giulio Panconcelli-Calzia . In 1939 he submitted a dissertation on "The language of the Bandi in northwestern Liberia, grammar and texts", which was published in 1940/41. Further linguistic publications about Vai , Bandi and Manya appeared in essay form, partly after his death and previous editing by other authors.

Heydorn then worked for a short time in the library of the German Colonial Society in Berlin . From September 1, 1940, he had to do military service in the interpreter teaching department. On June 25, 1942, he married Waltraut Meier. In February 1943 he was assigned to the Eastern Front as a tank grenadier, where he was seriously injured in an assault on May 30 of the same year. He died in a hospital four days later.

Richard Heydorn never met his son Horst-Richard, who was born in September 1943.

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personal data
SURNAME Heydorn, Richard
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Heydorn, Richard Huesmann Wilhelm
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German Africanist
DATE OF BIRTH February 25, 1910
PLACE OF BIRTH Hamburg
DATE OF DEATH May 3, 1943
Place of death Brest-Litovsk