Walther Schoenichen

Walther Schoenichen (born July 18, 1876 in Cologne , † November 22, 1956 in Göppingen ) was a biologist and one of the early German conservationists , combining the idea of ​​nature conservation with the ideology of National Socialism .

Live and act

In 1922, Schoenichen took over from Hugo Conwentz the management of the State Agency for Natural Monument Preservation in Prussia, which was founded in 1906, and was thus the “top conservationist” of the German Reich until 1935 . From 1912 onwards he worked in the state office on a voluntary basis, from 1915 onwards he worked full-time as legal advisor Benno Wolf , who in 1933 anticipated his dismissal because of his Jewish parents with his resignation.

When his work “ Nature Conservation” appeared as a national and international cultural task. An overview of the general, geological, botanical, zoological and anthropological problems of domestic and world nature conservation in 1942, he was "Director of the Reich Agency for Nature Conservation iR" and also honorary professor at the University of Berlin .

Schoenichen joined the NSDAP out of conviction as early as 1932 and later became cultural warden of the local group Rüdesheimer Platz in Berlin. As early as 1926 in his "Methodology and Technique of Natural History Teaching" he wrote that there was no doubt "that our people are threatened with a decline in racial hygiene". Even billboards in the countryside, according to Schoenichen an “advertising sickness”, he attributed to an “infection with Jewish toxins”. Despite his membership in the NSDAP, the management of the new Reich Agency for Nature Conservation was not entrusted to him, but to Hans Klose . This office was called after the Second World War, then Central Office for Nature Conservation and Landscape Management , since 1993, now Federal Agency for Nature Conservation .

After the war, were in the Soviet occupation zone Schoenichens writings conservation in the Third Reich (Bermühler, Berlin 1934) and historical monuments and natural monument questions of our day (Neumann, Berlin 1934) on the list of auszusondernden literature set. In the German Democratic Republic , this list was followed by his life-science (biological) teaching in higher schools (Neumann, Berlin 1934).

Schoenichen lived in Goslar from 1948 to 1956 . In 1949 he became a lecturer at the Technical University of Braunschweig . In 1952 he wrote the book Under the Trees in the old imperial city of Goslar. Tree book of the city of Goslar . Rehabilitation of the victims in nature conservation, e.g. B. Benno Wolf or Max Hilzheimer , he did not pursue, never developed an awareness of injustice - just like Klose, Hans Schwenkel , Heinrich Wiepking-Jürgensmann , Alwin Seifert or the other state conservationists.

Honors

• 1952: Cross of Merit (Steckkreuz) of the Federal Republic of Germany

Fonts (selection)

Standalone fonts

• The theory of parentage in school lessons , collection of scientific-pedagogical treatises (Volume 1, Issue 3), Leipzig and Berlin 1903
• Animal giants of the past , Velhagen & Klasings Folk Books No. 50, Bielefeld and Leipzig (1912?)
• The German Forest , Velhagen & Klasings Folk Books No. 87, Bielefeld and Leipzig 1913
• together with Max Popp : Our people's nutrition based on our agriculture , Leipzig 1917
• Internship in entomology according to biological-ecological aspects , Jena 1918 (3rd, extended edition 1930)
• From weapons and tools of animals and plants , Leipzig 1918
• The biological lessons in the new education , Leipzig 1919
• Introduction to Biology. An auxiliary book for higher education institutions and for self-teaching , Leipzig 1920
• Microscopic internship in flower biology. For students, teachers and friends of the flower world , Leipzig 1922
• together with other authors: The biological educational excursion. A handbook for students and teachers of all school types , Jena 1922
• Microscopic studies on the biology of seeds and fruits , Freiburg im Breisgau 1923
• Flowering Plant Biology. An introduction to microscopic exercises , Biological Study Books (Volume 2), Freiburg im Breisgau 1924
• Animals of prehistoric times , Paths to Knowledge 4, Berlin 1924
• Note book for natural monument maintenance. State agency for the preservation of natural monuments in Prussia , Berlin 1925
• New Butterfly Book , Nature Conservation Library (Volume 1), Berlin-Lichterfelde 1925
• together with other authors: From the green cathedral. A German forest book , Munich 1926
• together with Philipp Depdolla: Methodology and technology of natural history teaching , manual of natural science and mathematical teaching (Volume 5), Leipzig 1926 [Ed. 1925]
• Nature conservation and work school , nature conservation library (Volume 8), Berlin-Lichterfelde 1928
• Consecrated sites of the cosmopolitan city. Tombs of Berlin and what they tell us , Langensalza 1928 (2nd edition Berlin / Leipzig 1929)
• German Studies in Natural History Classes , Handbook of German Studies (Volume 7), Frankfurt am Main 1928
• Dealing with mother green. A book of sins and morals for everyone , Naturschutz-Bücherei (Volume 11), Berlin-Lichterfelde 1929 (3rd edition 1951)
• ABC Nature Conservation Guide, Handweiser of the State Agency for the Preservation of Natural Monuments in Prussia (Volume 1), Neudamm 1931
• “The German people must be purified”. And the German landscape? In: Naturschutz (14th year, issue 11), Neudamm and Berlin 1933
• German forest trees and forest types , Jena 1933
• Jungle wilderness in Germany. Pictures of the struggle of the German man with the primeval landscape , Neudamm 1934
• Nature conservation in the Third Reich. Introduction to the nature and principles of contemporary nature conservation work , Nature Conservation Library (Volume 12), Berlin 1934
• The magic of the wilderness in Germany. Documents on the work of the forces of nature in the image of the German landscape , Neudamm 1935
• Ur-Germany. Germany's nature reserves in words and pictures , 2 volumes, 1935 and 1937
• together with Werner Weber : The Reich Nature Conservation Act of June 26, 1935 (RGBl. I p. 821) and the ordinance for the implementation of the Reich Nature Conservation Act of October 31, 1935 (RGBl. I p. 1275) , Berlin 1936
• Hunting and nature conservation , Neudamm and Berlin 1937
• together with Erich Schröder (drawings): The plants protected in Germany according to the Nature Conservation Ordinance of March 18, 1936. Reich Agency for Nature Conservation , Berlin-Lichterfelde 1938 (2nd, expanded and improved edition 1941)
• together with Erich Schröder (drawings) et al .: Pocket book of animals protected in Germany. According to the nature conservation ordinance of March 18, 1936 , Berlin-Lichterfelde 1938
• Biology of the landscape , landscape protection and landscape management (volume 3), Neudamm and Berlin 1939
• Biology of the protected plants in Germany. An introduction to the life-science observation of native plants , Jena 1940
• Conservation as a national and international cultural task. An overview of the general, geological, botanical, zoological and anthropological problems of domestic and world nature conservation , Jena 1942
• The table was ordered from the woods and fields , Berlin-Halensee and Bielefeld 1947
• The giraffes from Nyassa , Berlin-Halensee 1947
• Great explorers, daring explorers. Volume 1 , Berlin-Halensee 1949
• From German trees , Berlin 1950
• Nature as a national good and a good for humanity. An introduction to the nature and tasks of nature conservation , Stuttgart / Ludwigsburg 1950
• Flowers invite guests , Berlin 1951
• Biology in brief , 2 booklets, Kiel 1951 and 1954
• Under the trees of the old imperial city of Goslar , Hanover 1952
• Nature conservation - homeland protection. Their justification by Ernst Rudorff , Hugo Conwentz and their predecessors , Große Naturforscher (Volume 16), Stuttgart 1954

As editor

• Paths to nature conservation. State agency for the preservation of natural monuments in Prussia , Breslau 1926
• Local museums. Essence and design , Berlin-Lichterfelde 1928
• Marie Jaedicke et al .: Consecrated sites of the cosmopolitan city. Berlin's grave monuments and what they tell us , Langensalza 1929
• Author collective: Finland. From Helsinkifjord to Eismeer , Berlin-Lichterfelde and Leipzig in 1929 - translations of this book into Finnish and English were published in parallel

As editor and co-author, Schoenichen also oversaw the series of publications Die Natur - A collection of scientific monographs , biological study books , nature conservation library , landscape protection and landscape conservation, and in the 1930s the pamphlets of the State Agency for the Preservation of Natural Monuments in Prussia .

literature

• Manfred Klein: Nature Conservation in the Third Reich . Dissertation. [University of Mainz], Mainz 1999/2000, 399 pp.
• Collective of authors: Walther Schoenichen in memory . Natural Science Association, Goslar 1957, 24 pp.
• Author collective: Festschrift for the 60th birthday of Professor Dr. Walther Schoenichen, dedicated by his friends and colleagues and by the J. Neumann publishing house in Neudamm. In: Naturschutz , 17th volume, issue 7 (text supplement). Neumann, Neudamm 1936, 15 pp.
• Bernd Schütze: Jews in the history of nature conservation? Questions from a reading conservationist. In: Against the Current. Gert Gröning on his 60th birthday , series of publications by the Department of Landscape Architecture and Environmental Development at the University of Hanover, Institute for Green Planning and Garden Architecture No. 76, Hanover 2004, pp. 267–293
• Walter Lorch (previously RSHA , Research Group Orient): The system of landscape management with regard to the international decimal classification. Attached work: Walther Schoenichen and the development of nature conservation and landscape management in Germany. (State) Academy for Spatial Research and Regional Planning (of the State of Lower Saxony), Hanover 1956
• John Alexander Williams: Turning to Nature in Germany: Hiking, Nudism, and Conservation, 1900-1940 . Stanford, Stanford University Press, 2007.

Web links

• Literature by and about Walther Schoenichen in the catalog of the German National Library
• To the biography
• Article: Ecology in National Socialism ( Memento from September 27, 2007 in the Internet Archive )

Individual evidence

1. ^ ^{A b} Ernst Klee : The cultural lexicon for the Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945. S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2007, ISBN 978-3-10-039326-5 , p. 542.
2. ↑ http://www.polunbi.de/bibliothek/1946-nslit-s.html
3. ↑ http://www.polunbi.de/bibliothek/1948-nslit-s.html
4. ↑ http://www.polunbi.de/bibliothek/1953-nslit-s.html
5. ↑ an uncritical piece of work, from the network of Heinrich Hunke and Kurt Brüning coming