Walther Arndt

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Walther Arndt (born January 8, 1891 in Landeshut , Silesia , † June 26, 1944 in Brandenburg ; spelling also Walter ) was a German zoologist and physician.

Life

Memorial plaque on the house, Invalidenstrasse 43, in Berlin-Mitte

His father was Fedor Arndt, the veterinary councilor , who was very interested in zoology and botany . Walther Arndt attended elementary school and high school in his hometown. The mother's death on Arndt's birthday in 1905 leads to an even closer bond with his father and his sister, who is five years younger than him. From 1909 he studied medicine and natural sciences at the University of Breslau . During his studies he was invited by various societies to take part in a wide variety of expeditions. In this way Arndt explored the Hohe Tauern , Corsica and Norway .

On August 18, 1914, he passed the medical examination, shortly afterwards received his license to practice medicine and went to the Eastern Front as a volunteer and field medical officer . Not even two months later he was captured by the Russians in East Prussia and taken to Siberia . There he learned the Russian language, studied the country and people as well as the hunting conditions and took over the medical care of German prisoners of war during the construction of the Achinsk - Minussinsk railway. He later came to Spasskoye and Khabarovsk and was exchanged as a doctor in 1917. At the beginning of May 1918 he went back to Russia as a member of the POW Welfare Service. As he expected to be arrested again, he stocked up on scientific literature and zoological collecting equipment as a precaution. He actually got into Russian captivity again and did not return to Germany until August 1919. His trip home, which was also extremely interesting from a scientific point of view, took him to Vladivostok , Japan , the Philippines , San Francisco , New York and Sweden .

In 1919 Arndt was promoted to Dr. med. and in the following year Dr. phil. PhD. In 1920 he was appointed a year-long volunteer at the Zoological Institute and Museum at the University of Wroclaw. There he published his first research results. In 1921 he followed his teacher Willy Kükenthal as an assistant at the Zoological Museum of the Friedrich Wilhelms University in Berlin . In 1923 he was significantly involved in large-scale hydrochemical studies on the North Sea . In Berlin he advanced to custodian in 1925 and titular professor in 1931. From 1926 Arndt acted as editor of Fauna Arctica . In 1938 he was appointed to the International Zoological Nomenclature Commission .

He was always closely connected to his sister and father, who moved to Berlin in 1928. During his student days, the sister looked after his formicarium and his approximately 120 living vertebrates, taking measurements according to his instructions. From 1928 until his death in Berlin, his father helped him with the time-consuming preparation for some publications.

Arndt was denounced in 1943 because of critical statements about National Socialism : on the one hand by the couple Siegfried and Hanneliese Mehlhausen (a childhood friend and close friend of Arndt's sister) and on the other hand by his colleague Wolfgang Stichel (zoologist, specialist in bedbugs ). Despite several requests for clemency from colleagues, including Hanns von Lengerken , Ferdinand Sauerbruch , Oskar Heinroth , Katharina Heinroth , Franz Ruttner and Hans Hass , Arndt was convicted by the People's Court on May 11, 1944 and executed in the Brandenburg-Görden prison on June 26 .

Walther Arndt died at the age of 53. His urn was buried on the edge of the Berlin-Marzahn cemetery and recovered at the end of the war. She was first buried in Berlin-Wilhelmshagen and later transferred to Bonn by his sister, Ilse Habernoll, and buried in the Südfriedhof.

The Moabit jury court sentenced the Mehlhausen and Stichel couple to 15, 12 and 8 years in prison on September 22, 1949. In 1950 the German Zoological Society accepted Walther Arndt as a permanent member for all time and determined that his name should be listed first on all member lists.

The Walther Arndt Prize is named after him.

Scientific achievements

Walther Arndt was particularly known for his research on sponges and on hydrobiology . His work as a museologist and editor is also remarkable. One of Arndt's main interests was the determination as precisely as possible of the number of species in the orders, classes, etc. of animals.

Scientific publications

  • The spongilid fauna of Europe . Arch. F. Hydrobiol. 17 (1926) pp. 337-365.
  • Porifera (sponges), sponges . In: Friedrich Dahl (Hrsgb.): The animal world of Germany. Jena 1928.
  • The biological relationships between sponges and crabs . Mitt. Zool. Mus. Berlin 19 (1933) pp. 221-305.
  • The raw materials of the animal kingdom (Ed. F. Pax & W. Arndt). Berlin 1928–1940.

literature

Web links

Commons : Walther Arndt  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

supporting documents

  1. ↑ http://www.diegeschichteberlins.de/geschichteberlins/persoenitäten/persoenlichkeiteag/434-arndt.html
  2. ^ Geus, Armin & Querner, Hans: German Zoological Society 1890-1990. Documentation and history . Gustav Fischer Stuttgart 1990. ( ISBN 3-437-30648-0 )
  3. ^ Eisentraut, Martin (1986): From the life and death of the zoologist Walther Arndt - a contemporary document from Germany's blackest days . In: Meeting reports of the Society of Friends of Natural Sciences in Berlin (NF). Volume 26, pp. 161-187.
  4. ^ Pax, Ferdinand (1952): Walther Arndt - a life for science . Hydrobiologia 4 (3) 302-315.
  5. ↑ Botor, Stefan: The Berlin atonement process - the last phase of denazification . Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main 2006. ISBN 3-631-54574-6
personal data
SURNAME Arndt, Walther
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Arndt, Walter
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German zoologist and medic
DATE OF BIRTH January 8, 1891
PLACE OF BIRTH State hat , Silesia
DATE OF DEATH June 26, 1944
Place of death Brandenburg