Wilhelm Schäfer (paleontologist)

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Armin Friedrich Wilhelm Schäfer (born March 18, 1912 in Crumstadt , † July 27, 1981 in Frankfurt am Main ) was a German zoologist and paleontologist .

Life

Schäfer was the son of a pastor and grew up in Oppenheim am Rhein and attended the secondary school in Mainz from 1927 to 1931. Schäfer studied zoology, botany, geography and drawing in Giessen with the aim of becoming a teacher. During his studies in 1931 he became a member of the Germania Gießen fraternity . In 1937 he received his doctorate in zoology under WJ Schmidt in Gießen (construction, development and color formation in the tinsel cells of Sepia officinalis). Another teacher was the zoologist Wulf Emmo Ankel , who placed him as an intern at the Senckenberg Museum . When the previous head of Senckenberg am Meer, founded by Rudolf Richter in 1928 in Wilhelmshaven, Walter Häntzschel moved to Dresden, Richter entrusted him with the management in 1938, which he held until 1960. There paleontological research was carried out on recent habitats (Aktuo-paleontology). During the Second World War he was a soldier, was wounded several times on the Eastern Front and ended the war as an American prisoner of war. From 1947 he started to rebuild Senckenberg am Meer with Lieutenant Konrad Lüders. He initially had to raise the funds himself, but he did not receive regular funds from the Senckenberg Foundation until 1954 and an assistant ( Hans-Erich Reineck ). In 1954 he completed his habilitation in Frankfurt with a topic from functional morphology (form and function of the brachyur scissors) and from 1955 to 1961 he was an adjunct professor at the Zoological Institute in Frankfurt. From 1961 to 1978 Schäfer was director of the Senckenberg Museum. During his time as director, he redesigned the Senckenberg Museum with a more contemporary presentation, including artistic elements, such as the architectural reconstruction of the atrium and the concentration on a few exhibits. He devoted himself to ecology and expanded the worldwide activity of the Senckenberg Society. In 1978 he resigned from management for health reasons.

In 1979 he became an honorary member of the Paleontological Society . In 1967 he received the Goethe badge of the city of Frankfurt am Main , the Cretzschmar Medal and in 1977 the Great Federal Cross of Merit .

He had been married to Elisabeth Götze, who holds a doctorate in zoology and with whom he had four children, since 1939.

literature

  • Obituary by Siegfried Rietschel, Carolinea (Landessammlungen für Naturkunde Karlsruhe), Volume 40, 1982, p. 125
  • Wolfgang Klötzer (Hrsg.): Frankfurter Biographie . Personal history lexicon . Second volume. M – Z (=  publications of the Frankfurt Historical Commission . Volume XIX , no. 2 ). Waldemar Kramer, Frankfurt am Main 1996, ISBN 3-7829-0459-1 .
  • Obituary by Emil Kuhn-Schnyder in Paläontologische Zeitschrift, Volume 56, 1982, pp. 1-4
  • B. Flemming, FW Gutmann: Armin Friedrich Wilhelm Schäfer (1912-1981) , in 175 years of the Senckenberg Natural Research Society , anniversary volume , Senckenberg book , volume 67, 1992

Fonts

  • Aktuo-palaeontology after studies in the North Sea , W. Kramer, Frankfurt am Main 1962 (English translation: Ecology and palaeoecology of marine environments, Oliver and Boyd 1972)
  • Fossils. Images and thoughts on paleontological science. Waldemar and Kramer publishing house, Frankfurt 1980.
  • History of the Senckenberg Museum in plan , W. Kramer, Frankfurt am Main 1967

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Paul Wentzcke : Fraternity lists. Second volume: Hans Schneider and Georg Lehnert: Gießen - The Gießener Burschenschaft 1814 to 1936. Görlitz 1942, R. Germania. No. 889.
  2. ^ History of Senckenberg am Meer on the Senckenberg Museum website
personal data
SURNAME Shepherd, Wilhelm
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German paleontologist and zoologist
DATE OF BIRTH March 18, 1912
PLACE OF BIRTH Crumstadt
DATE OF DEATH July 27, 1981
Place of death Frankfurt am Main