West Prussian Provincial Museum Gdansk

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Green Gate in Gdansk at the end of the 19th century. The main hall of the West Prussian Provincial Museum was located here

The West Prussian Provincial Museum in Danzig existed from 1880 to 1945 (under a different name from 1923). Some of his natural history collections were among the most important of their kind.

Prehistory and foundation

The museum emerged from a natural history, a prehistoric and an ethnographic collection of the Natural Research Society in Gdansk . The company, founded in 1742, systematically put on these collections from around 1865, with the first beginnings going back to the middle of the 18th century. The society presented its first public exhibition with exhibits from the natural history and ethnographic collections on September 14, 1869, the 100th birthday of its honorary member Alexander von Humboldt .

The establishment of the independent West Prussian Provincial Museum by the Provincial Association of the Province of West Prussia is closely related to the independence of the Province of West Prussia , which was regained on April 1, 1878 . It is thanks in particular to the then mayor of Gdansk, Leopold von Winter , that the II Provincial Parliament made the decision to found this museum as early as 1879. The opening took place on September 18, 1880 in the main hall of the new museum in the Green Gate (Langenmarkt 24), a city gate from the 16th century.

The development up to the outbreak of the Second World War

The museum started with three thematic collections:

  • a collection of bird skins (by ornithologist and preacher Karl Leopold Boeck );
  • an amber collection (of the high school teacher and naturalist Franz Anton Menge );
  • Collections of the West Prussian Botanical-Zoological Association in Danzig. The licensing agreement states: "These collections mainly include the material of remarkable plants and animals brought together by his messengers. Furthermore [...] a number of Brischke's preparations in glass cases.

The first two collections mentioned were given to the museum by the Natural Research Society in Danzig, which, like the Botanical-Zoological Society, had initially reserved the property rights to the collections (permanent loan in accordance with the contract of November 1, 1880).

The museum's collection, which was initially quite patchy, was expanded over the years, with the first director, Hugo Conwentz, attaching importance to their “provincial character” . In the first twelve years of its existence, the museum's holdings increased by around 20,000 items, some of which consisted of several individual items (e.g. herbaria ). The museum had an annual budget for purchases of 1,700 to 2,000 marks and was therefore dependent on the benevolent support of the population and the authorities, which it was constantly granted due to its active directors. Individual items, which were often made available to the museum by private previous owners or finders for a small fee, supplemented the museum's collections, as did the provision of entire private and institutional collections from the region. These included the 10,000 specimen butterfly collection owned by the businessman Robert Grentzenberg and a 5,000 species collection of beetles owned by the City Councilor Dr. Otto Helm . The holdings of the archaeological and ethnological department also grew significantly thanks to donations. Only 25,000 marks were spent on this considerable expansion of the collections in the first 25 years of the museum's existence. In 1905 the museum's collections consisted of 30,500 "numbers":

piece Objects
1,350 mineralogical-petrographic
12,500 geological-paleontological
1,400 botanical
3,200 zoological
10,400 prehistoric
1,650 ethnographic

Of outstanding importance was the museum's amber collection, which was the second largest scientific amber collection after the one in Königsberg. After the foundation had been laid by the collection of Franz Anton Menge, the collection, consisting of more than 5,000 pieces from the estate of Otto Helm, was also transferred to the museum. Furthermore, the collections of Hugo Conwentz and Paul Dahms enlarged the amber collection. With further donations, the museum was able to build a considerable collection of raw amber and amber artefacts. The museum has also repeatedly purchased smaller and larger suites of Baltic amber with organic inclusions, including a. that of Heinrich Göppert . From the few surviving documents about the development of the stock, it can be deduced that at least around 13,000 pieces of amber were given to the museum. However, the actual number should have been significantly higher. On the basis of this collection, a number of scientific works were published, some of which are still counted among the classic works on amber inclusions.

The collections exhibited in the two halls of the main building, Langenmarkt 24, were open to the public from the start.

The West Prussian Provincial Museum changed its name on April 1, 1923 to "State Museum for Nature and Prehistory" (SMNV).

In the 65 years of its existence, the museum has been headed by four directors:

Fate of the collections in World War II and the post-war period

At the beginning of the Second World War, the collection began to be relocated. Some collections remained in other buildings in Gdansk, e.g. B. in the Golden House (Langenmarkt 41), which at the time was the Natural History District Museum, others were taken to rural areas around Gdansk. Despite all efforts to save the old and valuable collections, almost the entire holdings of the collections of the Natural History Museum were lost or destroyed in the Second World War. The museum archive evacuated to Zugdam (today Suchy Dąb ) was lost in the artillery fire of the Red Army.

The preserved parts of the prehistoric collection are now in the former house of the Natural Research Society in Gdansk ( Frauentor ), which now houses the Archaeological Museum in Gdansk. In September 1977, a permanent exhibition based on the tradition of the large amber collection was opened there.

literature

  • Prehistoric wall panels for West Prussia, I - VI, ed. v. West Prussian Provincial Museum , 3rd edition Berlin 1899
  • Official reports on the administration of the natural history, prehistoric and folklore collections of the West Prussian Provincial Museum for the years 1880–1915, Danzig 1881–1916 (36 annual reports)
  • Hugo Conwentz: The West Prussian Provincial Museum in Danzig. 1880-1905. Danzig 1905.
  • WL Baume: Prehistory of West Prussia , Danzig 1920
  • Wolfgang La Baume : 50 years of the Museum of Natural History and Prehistory (West Prussian Provincial Museum) in Danzig 1880–1930 , Danzig 1930
  • Gothiskandza, sheets for Danziger (later: for West Prussian) prehistory, NF of sheets for prehistory, edited. by Kurt Langenheim , Leipzig 1939–1943
  • Gerhard Lippky: The West Prussian Provincial Museum in Danzig and its four directors . In: West Prussia - Jahrbuch 30, Münster 1980, pp. 105–116, with illus.
  • Hans Joachim Bodenbach: Life and work of the archaeologist, museum director, lecturer and archivist Dr. phil. Kurt Langenheim (1903–1990) . In: Werner Budenheim / Horst Keiling (ed.): To Archeology in Northern Germany, contributions to science and culture 7 (Free Lauenburgische Academy of Science and Culture), self-published, Wentorf 2006, pp 121-175, 11 Fig. [ 1]
  • Günter and Brigitte Krumbiegel: The history of the former West Prussian Provincial Museum in Gdańsk. In: Amber - Views - Opinions. Pp. 188–191, Warsaw - Danzig, 2006. (First publication of the article: 1998).
  • Günter Krumbiegel and Brigitte Krumbiegel (Halle / S.): History of the former Zachodniopruskiego Provincial Museum [s] in Danzig . In: Gdansky twocy, warsztaty i gospodarka bursztynem XX wieku, 2008 [2]
  • Hans Joachim Bodenbach: Dr. phil. Kurt Langenheim as museum director in Danzig (1938–1945) and other biographical supplements . In: Werner Budesheim (ed.): Festschrift 20 years of the Free Lauenburg Academy - with 11 articles from their departments - (Articles for Science and Culture 10), Free Lauenburg Academy for Science and Culture, self-published, Wentorf near Hamburg 2011, p. 226 –266, 6 fig.
  • Archeology in Gdansk until 1945 (on the Internet) :. In: [3] . 2012

Individual evidence

  1. ^ H. Conwentz: The West Prussian Provincial Museum in Danzig. 1880-1905. Danzig 1905. p. 29
  2. ^ H. Conwentz: The West Prussian Provincial Museum in Danzig. 1880-1905. Danzig 1905. p. 40
  3. ^ K. Hinrichs: Bernstein, the Prussian gold in art and natural history chambers and museums of the 16th - 20th centuries. Dissertation, Humboldt University Berlin 2007
  4. ↑ B. Kosmowska-Ceranowicz: The history and present possibilities of Establishing of amber collection in Gdańsk. In: Amber - Views - Opinions. Pp. 184–188, Warsaw - Danzig, 2006. First publication of the article in 1998.