Wilhelm Windecker

Wilhelm Andreas Windecker (born September 18, 1908 in Frankfurt-Sachsenhausen , † March 2, 1979 in Cologne ) was a German biologist and zoo director.

Life

In 1937 Windecker worked as an intern at the Frankfurt Zoo . From the end of 1938 to 1939 he took part as a whaling biologist on board the Skytern in the last pre-war expedition of the Hamburg whaling office in the Antarctic waters south of Australia and Africa. Before being drafted into military service in France and Russia, Windecker was Lutz Heck's research assistant in the Berlin Zoological Garden . During the war he became a British prisoner of war, from which he returned in 1948. He then worked briefly at the Institute for Applied Zoology at the Federal Biological Institute in Celle . From 1950 he worked as an animal catcher and dealer in Brazil.

On May 1, 1952, he took over the post of director of the Cologne zoo, which was almost completely destroyed by the war, from Werner Zahn . Under his leadership, the zoo was expanded by 8 hectares in 1954. The polar bear enclosure followed in 1957, the zoo restaurant in 1958, the pheasantry in 1961, the new zoo administration building in 1962, which was housed in the director's villa after the war, the farmyard in 1963, the zoo school in June 1964 (which is considered the first such facility in Europe), 1966 the giraffe house, 1969 the bear enclosure, 1971 the aquarium and 1973 the lemur house.

In 1958, Windecker founded Germany's first zoo magazine after the war under the title Friends of the Cologne Zoo , which has been called the Cologne Zoo magazine since 1971 . From 1965 to 1966 Windecker was President of the Association of German Zoo Directors and from 1968 to 1970 President of the International Zoo Association WAZA .

In 1975 he had to resign from his position as director for health reasons. His successor was the arachnologist Ernst Kullmann .

controversy

In the early 1960s, Windecker was criticized by Bernhard Grzimek because Theo Burauen , Cologne mayor from 1956 to 1973, who was also chairman of the board of directors of the Cologne Zoo, brought two wild mountain gorillas from Rwanda and Grzimek refused to let Windecker take the animals himself .

literature

• Ludwig Emmel: In memoriam Dr. Wilhelm Windecker In Luscinia, Vol. 44, 1979, pp. 124-125 ( online )
• Biography in the journal of the Cologne Zoo No. 1, 2009, 52nd volume, pp. 41–42 ( online )

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Claudia Sewig: The man who loved animals: Bernhard Grzimek. Lübbe, 2009, ISBN 3-7857-2367-9 , p. 289.