Wilhelm Stahl (animal breeder)

Wilhelm Stahl (born October 23, 1900 in Hilbeck , † January 20, 1980 in Rostock ) was a German animal breeder , agricultural scientist and university professor.

Live and act

Wilhelm Stahl completed the elementary school in his home town and the grammar school in Werl , studied agriculture and economics at the University of Gießen from 1920 , became a member of the Frankonia Gießen fraternity and moved to the University of Göttingen . Here he graduated in 1923 with the state examination as a qualified farmer and received his doctorate in 1924 under Franz Lehmann with a thesis on nitrogen utilization in pig fattening. phil. This was followed by activities as an agricultural intern at Gut Evendorf near Hanover, as an administrator at Gut Höfer near Celle and finally as an animal breeding and control ring assistant at the East Prussian Pig Breeders Association based in Königsberg .

From January 1, 1928, he worked as a scientific assistant at the then experimental management for pig keeping, feeding and breeding (GmbH) in Ruhlsdorf , Kr. Teltow (Brandenburg) with Karl Müller and became the successor as director in 1930 after his death. In these first years Stahl still attended lectures with Carl Kronacher in Berlin and passed the Prussian exam as a state-approved animal breeding director. In 1935 the experimental economy was nationalized, in 1937 Stahl was appointed professor (without teaching assignment) and thus taken over into the Prussian administrative service. In 1940 the facility was recognized as a testing and research facility for pig farming . By 1945 230 publications on the areas of feeding, husbandry, breeding, animal health, marketing as well as training and further education had been produced here. In the last years of the war, Stahl also had to take over the management of the Reich Committee for Slaughter Cattle, the Reich Association of German Pig Breeders, as well as the editorial management of the magazine for pig breeding, pig fattening and pig husbandry, and join the Volkssturm. As a result, he became a Soviet prisoner of war in 1945, was interned in several camps and finally brought to Siberia , where he worked as a hospital paramedic for the nursing of prisoners and guards in his camp.

At the end of 1949 Stahl was allowed to return to Ruhlsdorf. He ruled out a move to West Germany. From 1950 he became a specialist editor at Deutsches Bauernverlag Berlin and editor-in-chief for the specialist magazine Tierzucht . From April 1950 (until 1956) he took over the teaching position for animal breeding at the veterinary medicine faculty of the Humboldt University Berlin (HUB), from December 1950 the teaching position at the agricultural-horticultural faculty and in 1951 he became professor with chair for animal breeding and director of the Institute for Animal Breeding and Pet Genetics as well as director of the Institute for Animal Breeding at the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine - both at the HUB - since the two predecessors remained in West Berlin ( without proper deregistration ). Because the previous stables in Berlin-Dahlem and the Koppehof near Velten were no longer available, he relocated the research work to the research farms in Berge near Nauen (now part of the agricultural and gardening faculty) and Groß Kreutz (veterinary medicine faculty). From September 1952 as a full member of the German Academy of Agricultural Sciences in Berlin (DAL), Stahl soon became head of the Animal Breeding, Animal Nutrition and Inland Fisheries section .

In 1952 Fritz Haring accepted the appointment at the University of Göttingen. His two previous posts were transferred to Stahl. In 1953, in addition to his Berlin duties, the latter took on the (initially part-time) management of the Institute for Animal Breeding Research in Dummerstorf near Rostock of the German Academy of Agricultural Sciences in Berlin (DAL), a teaching position for animal breeding and the provisional management of the Institute for Animal Breeding at the Faculty of Agriculture of the University of Rostock . With the scheduled termination of his activities at the HU-Universität Berlin in 1957, he was employed by the DAL as head of the institute in Dummerstorf, and has now received a professorship with a chair for animal breeding at the University of Rostock and full management competence for the corresponding institute.

With the final isolation of the GDR in August 1961, various people and committees also put increased pressure on scientists who were not loyal to the line. Steel sat e.g. B. disagreed with Lyssenko's unscientific heredity theory, disagreed with the exaggerated open stable building program and advocated for politically disgraced employees. For this he received violent attacks from the superior authorities. Because of this constant criticism of him and his work, he was unable to continue to manage the institute in Dummerstorf and the section. The DAL headquarters withdrew both functions from him on December 1, 1961. Then the employment relationship for steel changed to the University of Rostock: he became a full-time professor with a chair for general and special animal breeding and director of the associated institute and remained so until 1966. After that, he read for two years on special pet genetics and supervised doctorates in Rostock until 1975. He died on January 20, 1980 in Rostock and was buried here.

Honorary positions

• 1944–1945 Managing Director of the Reich Committee for Slaughter Cattle Supply
• 1944–1945 Managing Director of the Reich Association of German Pig Breeders - affiliated to the Reichsnährstand
• 1944–1945 Editor of the "Magazine for Pig Breeding, Pig Fattening and Pig Keeping"
• 1950–1965 editor of the specialist magazine Tierzucht
• 1952 full member of the DAL in Berlin
• 1953–1961 Head of the Animal Breeding, Animal Nutrition and Inland Fisheries Section of the DAL
• 1957–1972 founder and editor of the specialist journal Archiv für Tierzucht
• Member of the Advisory Board for Agricultural Production Cooperatives (LPG) at the Council of Ministers of the GDR
• Member of the scientific advisory board at the State Secretariat for higher education and technical schools in the GDR
• Member of the editorial board of the specialist journal Züchtungskunde of the German Society for Zuchtungskunde (DGfZ)
• Employee of the journal Zuchthygiene, reproductive disorders and insemination of domestic animals
• from 1952 several times chairman for pigs and for the entire animal show at the agricultural exhibitions in Leipzig-Markkleeberg

Appreciation

During his time in Ruhlsdorf, Stahl dealt mainly with questions of feeding, keeping and breeding pigs according to the principle from practice for practice . As a result of his teaching activities, from 1950 onwards it extended to all domestic animal species, including small animals, and ultimately also included genetic connections. In doing so, he classified animal production in terms of the plant-animal-soil-plant cycle in agricultural production and in the entire economy. Through his work at four institutes, he has supervised over 70 doctorates and over 10 habilitation theses in 25 years. This enabled many graduates to pursue a scientifically sound job and secured the next generation of university lecturers for animal breeding in the Rostock area to Berlin. His annual excursions with the practitioners' evening evaluations were legendary. Stahl always kept a full overview of the state of the technical literature and was even able to give his students the subject and source. In the beginning he had conservative standpoints on some fundamental questions (e.g. crossbreeding), but assigned topics to investigate also such controversial problems for him. He did not buckle in the years he was courted and overcame personal setbacks without breaking.

Awards & honors

• 1954 National Prize 2nd class of the GDR for science and technology
• 1959 Patriotic Order of Merit in Silver of the GDR
• 1959 honorary doctorate to Dr. agr. hc by the agricultural faculty of the University of Leipzig
• In 1970 an honorary doctorate from the University of Rostock on the occasion of his 70th birthday was prevented by the Rostock SED district leadership
• Naming of a street in Dummerstorf in Wilhelm-Stahl-Allee
• Since 1994 the Wilhelm Stahl Symposia have been held by the Leibniz Institute for Farm Animal Biology in Dummerstorf

Fonts (selection)

• The biological value of the digestible nitrogen balance in Argentine meat meal, dry yeast and fish meal. Math.-natural science Diss. In Göttingen, 1925, Pirna a. E., 1924, 60 pp.
• The doctrine of the feeding and fattening of the pig. By Franz Lehmann, ed. with Heinrich Lüthge, Berlin: Pfennigsdorff, 1944, 147 pp.
• Handbook for animal breeders, Neumann-Verlag, 1959, 811 p .; Collaboration on five chapters
• Lesson letters for distance learning. General animal breeding (1), Berlin 1956, Leipzig 1959
• Poultry farming issues. New scientific knowledge. Berlin 1956 (Vol. 6 conference reports of the extended meeting of the section animal breeding and animal nutrition of the German Academy of Agricultural Sciences in Berlin).
• Together with Johannes Dobberstein: Problems of increasing animal production. Lectures and discussions at the Scientific Conference from October 10 to 12, 1956 in Berlin. Berlin 1957.
• (Editor-in-Chief): Youth nutrition in cattle. Berlin 1961.
• (Editor-in-Chief): Problems of keeping cattle in the open. Berlin 1961.
• (Editor-in-Chief): Problems with increasing milk yield and milk ingredients. Berlin 1961.
• Population genetics for animal breeders. Berlin 1969. Czechoslovak edition Prague 1970, Soviet edition Moscow 1973, Romanian edition Bucharest 1974.

literature

• Theophil Gerber: personalities from agriculture, forestry, horticulture and veterinary medicine. Vol. 2, 4th edition, Berlin 2014, pp. 756–757.
• Symposium in honor of Prof. Dr. Dr. hc Wilhelm Stahl on the occasion of his 100th birthday. Encounters with Wilhelm Stahl. Berlin: Humboldt-Univ., 2001, 60 p. UB of the HUB in Berlin: BV025364133
• Georg Schönmuth : Laudation to Wilhelm Stahl. In: Symposium in honor of Prof. Dr. Dr. hc Wilhelm Stahl on the occasion of his 100th birthday. Humboldt University Berlin, agricultural gardening. Faculty, 2000, pp. 3-15
• Lecture directories of the University of Rostock 1953 to 1968: Rostock: http://web10.ub.uni-rostock.de/wiki/Projekte:Digitalisierung_Vorlesungsverzeichnis
• Course catalogs of the Humboldt University Berlin 1950 to 1957 (www.edoc.de)
• Ottfried Weiher: Life and work of Wilhelm Stahl. In: Archiv für Tierzucht , 37, 1994, special issue Environmentally compatible and quality-conscious production of animal products. Pp. 17-22.

Web links

• Literature by and about Wilhelm Stahl in the catalog of the German National Library
• Entry on Wilhelm Stahl in the Catalogus Professorum Rostochiensium

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Dieter Berger, Gernot Schäfer: The Giessen fraternity Frankonia. 1872-1972. Giessen 1972, p. 210.