Volkmar Denckmann

Volkmar Ulrich Heinz Denckmann (born July 20, 1905 in Siegen ; † November 11, 1979 in Berlin ) was a German botanist who taught at the Berlin University of Education .

Life

Denckmann was born in Siegen in Westphalia, from where his father, Professor Dr. August Denckmann , undertook research work in the geological field during the summer. The father and his family returned to Berlin every year at the beginning of the cold season. In Berlin-Steglitz, Denckmann attended the Paulsen Realgymnasium from 1912 to 1924. In 1920 he was entrusted with the school garden there, which he planned and furnished independently, so that its floor plan was included in Martin Herberg's book “The School Garden” in 1928. After graduating from high school in 1924, he expanded his botanical knowledge in the nursery of Karl Foerster in Bornim near Potsdam. In the winter semester of 1924/25 he began studying in Berlin; there he counted the professors Richard Kolkwitz and Ludwig Diels (botany), Hesse (zoology) and Krebs (geology) among his teachers. In the summer semester of 1926 he went to Marburg for four semesters. When he lost both parents, an aunt helped him to continue his studies in Berlin. In 1930 he passed the state examination for teaching at secondary schools in biology, geography and geology. During his traineeship and assessor's time, he also procured demonstration plants from the surrounding area for Kolkwitz's lectures. He worked in the Botanical Museum, put on moss collections and has since been valued as a “moss connoisseur”.

During the war Denckmann was deployed as a state rifleman and military geologist. In 1941 he received news of his appointment as a teacher. He was then transferred to the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Crop Plant Research in Vienna as a research assistant, which was relocated to Stecklenberg am Harz in the winter of 1944. Months later he learned that his home botanical collections and the beginning of his dissertation at the Botanical Museum had been bombed. From autumn 1945 he taught at the Lilienthal High School in Lichterfelde, held courses for new teachers and, as in 1936, conducted educational hikes at the Steglitz Adult Education Center. In autumn 1947 he was appointed to the Berlin University of Education . In 1953 he was given the title of professor, ao Prof. 1963, and o. Prof. 1970. In 1973 Denckmann retired.

Act

He represented botany alone for 25 years. He built up a four-semester cycle in botany, the scope of which corresponded to the minor subject at the university. Considerable restrictions later became necessary in relation to the overall scope of the changed study requirements in the framework conditions. In response to the increased number of students, Denckmann offered parallel events. He still wanted to arouse enthusiasm and love for the cause. He responded to suggestions from the student body: For example, he changed the lecture title of his introduction from the beginning of the 1970 summer semester to "Plants around us" because of student protests against the word "Heimat". He included the ecological adaptations of flowering plants into the vegetation and the plant geography in his lectures. In addition to the systematic internships, he paid attention to the botanical-microscopic exercises.

Almost every weekend you could take part in guided tours or excursions at Denckmann. Every semester he offered botanical teaching hikes and observations in the school garden or botanical garden. Already during the first major post-war excursions, during which he also organized the catering for the group, he taught the diverse scientific and cultural-historical “to see connections with open eyes, as only rarely can university excursions achieve.” On the official PH excursions and trips to Central Europe, which was often carried out together with geographers, resulted in extensive botanical collecting activities.

Denckmann has also offered interdisciplinary courses with other biology lecturers, for example with the mathematics professor Meschkowski and others on the subject of "The world and human image of modern science". He also developed additional teaching activities in other institutions: for students of land surveying, he regularly lectured on cultural-technical botany at the Technical University of Berlin; he examined there in the intermediate diploma. He kept the lectures and educational hikes in the adult education center in Steglitz, in the Volksbund Naturschutz , in the Schutzgemeinschaft Deutscher Wald and in the Botanical Association of the Province of Brandenburg, which he has chaired since 1956. For many years he worked as an expert for the Berlin nature conservation commissioner and was in charge of the reports of the German Botanical Society as secretary .

His private life and work had many contacts: Traditionally, a large group of friends and academics met at his place three times a year. As a token of their gratitude, 17 lecturers from the biology department dedicated a commemorative publication to him on his 70th birthday. After his retirement he continued to teach. Seriously ill, he passed on the observations in the botanical garden in the week before last. He brought some impressions of his life for research and teaching into the form of poetic lines, which he read at the meeting of the biology college.

Publications (selection)

• Mosses, too little attention paid to plants of the homeland , in: Berl. Naturschutzblätter 12 (1960), pp. 234-238.
• Poems , in: Berl. Nature protection bl. 11, 1960, pp. 189-210.
• (with Wolfram Schultze-Motel): Contributions to the knowledge of the moss flora of the Harz I. Orthodonium lineare (= O. germanicum) - new for the Harz . in: Verh. Bot. Ver. Prov. Brandenburg 101, 1964, pp. 85f
• School garden problems , in: Berl. Nature protection bl. 25, 1965, pp. 541-544.

literature

• Pedagogical University Berlin (ed.): Festschrift for Volkmar Denckmann as a special volume of the negotiations of the Botanical Association of the Province of Brandenburg in 1976
• Gerd Heinrich : Contributions to the history of the Berlin University of Education , Colloquium Verlag Berlin 1980, chapter: Volkmar Denckmann (1905–1979) by Dietrich Müller-Doblies, pp. 77–80 and the biographical data there, p. 173

Individual evidence

1. ↑ In a compact report by the pharmacist couple Adolf and Annemarie Schröppel from Pfronten on moss-related hikes in the Ostallgäu, other bryologists are named besides Denckmann: z. B. Prof. Hieronymus, Prof. J. Poelt, Prof. H. Paul, L. Loeske and K. Koppe; see: Adolf Schröppel, Annemarie Schröppel: Contribution to the history of bryological research in southern Ostallgäu. In: Natural history contributions from the Allgäu (= communications of the natural science working group Kempten (Allgäu) of the Kempten Adult Education Center). 11_1, 1967, pp. 27–33 ( PDF on ZOBODAT ), with http://www.jstor.org/stable/3995077?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents , and Renate Lübenau-Nestle: About Grimmia occurrences in the Allgäu or what one does not know, one does not find. In: Natural history contributions from the Allgäu (= communications of the natural science working group Kempten (Allgäu) of the Kempten Adult Education Center). 34_2, 1996, 53-66 ( PDF on ZOBODAT ).
2. ^ Articles ... 1980, p. 78
3. ↑ ^{a b c} Festschrift ... 1976, p. 12
4. ↑ so Prof. Müller-Doblies in Articles ... , p. 79
5. ↑ Festschrift ... , p. 15
6. ↑ The volume published in 1957 contains a preface by Denckmann; see: http://www.botanischer-verein-brandenburg.de/literatur/publikationen/verhandlungen-1957-1980.html#c180 , accessed on August 6, 2015
7. ↑ This dedication was also intended for three other biology lecturers from the development phase of the elective: Prof. Dr. Gerhard Wichler, Dr. Herbert Hahn and Prof. Dr. Auguste Hoffmann ; see introduction to the Festschrift , p. 2