Senckenberg Natural History Collections Dresden

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Building of the Natural History Collections Dresden
GDR postage stamp from 1978 with a knight butterfly from the Museum für Tierkunde Dresden , issued on the occasion of the 250th anniversary of the collections

Senckenberg Natural History Collections Dresden ( SNSD for short , until December 31, 2008 State Natural History Collections Dresden ) is the name of a museum association in Dresden . The natural history collections consist of the Museum für Tierkunde Dresden , the Museum für Mineralogie und Geologie Dresden and the Naturhistorisches Zentralbibliothek . There are currently no permanent exhibition spaces of adequate size available to you. Since 2009 they have been part of the Senckenberg Society for Nature Research , which as a member of the Leibniz Association is jointly financed by the federal and state governments.

Re-established in 2000, the natural history collections refer to a long tradition, the beginning of which is seen as the beginning of spatial independence in 1728. Initially united as a common natural history museum, they split up in 1857 into a mineralogical-geological and a zoological-botanical museum. As early as 1874, a prehistoric department was formed at the first museum, which became independent in 1938 as the State Museum for Prehistory Dresden . The botany department of the other museum was transferred to the collections of the TU Dresden in 1875, and an anthropological-ethnographic department was added, which became the Museum für Völkerkunde Dresden after the Second World War . In addition to the two that are now part of the Natural History Collections, two other Dresden museums and parts of other collections emerged from the formerly unified Natural History Museum.

facts and figures

Johann Heinrich von Heucher , the first director of the collections
This approximately 8.5 tonne, three meter wide and 2.1 billion year old iron ore block from North America belongs to the Museum of Mineralogy and Geology and is located in the Dresden Botanical Garden .

Together, the two museums have more than 6.5 million collection objects. The natural history collections are among the five largest natural history museums in Germany. The central library comprises more than 110,000 monographs and journal series from the fields of zoology , geology and mineralogy and is therefore one of the most important specialist libraries of its kind in Germany.

The Natural History Collections currently (as of 2008) have 46 permanent employees, including 14 scientists. There are also around 30 to 40 doctoral students, trainees, ABM workers, etc. who work in the collections. One focus of the institution's activities is research.

To this day there is a lack of exhibition space, as many of the city's museum buildings fell victim to the air raids on Dresden in 1945 . Since 1999, the Natural History Collections have had an administration and depot building in the northern Dresden district of Klotzsche .

history

The natural history collections, like the state art collections, originally go back to the electoral art chamber , in which naturalia were collected as early as the 16th century in the Dresden Residenzschloss . In 1728 the collections moved to the Zwinger and the natural history collection objects were spatially separated from the art. This is considered the actual beginning of independence. The museum director at this time was Johann Heinrich von Heucher .

The 19th century was shaped by the director Heinrich Gottlieb Ludwig Reichenbach , who continued to attach great importance to the unity of all natural history collections. In his time, these included botanical exhibits in addition to mineralogical and zoological exhibits. After the kennel burned down in the turmoil of the Dresden May uprising of 1849, Reichenbach used his good contacts with King Friedrich August II to achieve a quick re-establishment.

In 1857 the museum was finally reopened with many new acquisitions. However, the geoscientific collections became independent under Hanns Bruno Geinitz as the Royal Mineralogical-Geological Museum .

Reichenbach's successor as director of the Royal Natural History Museum was Adolf Bernhard Meyer in 1874 . One year later he founded the ethnological collections as a new part of the museum, which was then renamed the Royal Zoological and Anthropological-Ethnographic Museum . However, the botanical objects were also in 1875 to the Royal Polytechnic Dresden , where she now considered part of the Herbarium Dresdense to collections and art owned by the Technical University of Dresden belong. The botanical specialist library was incorporated into the Royal Library . This ended at the latest the unity of the natural history collections that had grown over several centuries and was replaced by independent specialist institutes.

In the mid-1930s, the individual museums in the Zwinger suffered from an enormous shortage of space and some had to be relocated. While the ethnological department of the now so-called State Museum for Animal and Ethnology found a new home in the orangery in the Duchess Garden opposite the Zwinger, the zoological department moved into the neighboring house of the lodge to the three swords and Astraa to the green diamond on the Ostra-Allee in the Wilsdruffer suburb . The Museum of Mineralogy and Geology, on the other hand, remained in the Zwinger, although the State Museum of Prehistory Dresden emerged from it in 1938 . As a result of the air raids on Dresden , all three exhibition buildings and with them many exhibits were irretrievably destroyed, provided they had not previously been stored elsewhere.

After the Second World War , the various natural history collections also faced a new beginning. The ethnological department founded by Meyer in 1875 was separated and became the Museum für Völkerkunde Dresden . The museums for animal science and for mineralogy and geology were housed in the Ständehaus on Brühl's terrace until 1999 . Only then did they move into their new depot and administration building in Klotzsche , the Adolf-Bernhard-Meyer-Bau , together with the museums of prehistory and ethnology, which originally also originated from the natural history collections .

After the end of the GDR, the natural history collections belonged to the state museums in Dresden and were subordinate to the Saxon Ministry of Science and Art . On June 5, 2000, a statute was signed that, after 143 years of separation, reunited the Dresden Museum of Animal Science with the Dresden Museum of Mineralogy and Geology in the Museum Association of the State Natural History Collections with effect from July 1, 2000 . Although both remain independent in the areas of research and collections, they were given a uniform administration and their libraries merged into the Natural History Central Library in Dresden .

A year later, the State Natural History Collections were included in the Blue Book , a list of nationally important cultural institutions in East Germany, the list of cultural lighthouses .

On January 1, 2009, the State Natural History Collections became the responsibility of the Senckenberg Society for Natural Research in Frankfurt am Main and as a result were renamed "Senckenberg Natural History Collections Dresden" . Thanks to the Senckenberg Society's membership in the Leibniz Association, this enabled joint funding by the federal and state governments.

Web links

Commons : Senckenberg Natural History Collections Dresden  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 51 ° 7 ′ 44 ″  N , 13 ° 47 ′ 24 ″  E