| Bernhard Grzimek | |
|---|---|
| Born | Bernhard Klemens Maria Hoffbauer Pius Grzimek 24 April 1909 Neisse, Upper Silesia, German Empire (today Poland) |
| Died | 13 March 1987 (aged 77) Frankfurt, West-Germany |
| Occupation | television host, filmmaker, author, zoo director, veterinarian, businessman |
| Years active | 1954–1987 |
| Spouse | Hildegard Prüfer (1930–1973; divorced) * Rochus (born 1931) * Michael (1934-1959) * Thomas (1950-1980) (suicide) Erika Grzimek (1978–1987; his death) * Stephan Michael (born 1956, adopted) * Christian Bernhard (born 1959, adopted) Illegitimate children: * Monika Karpel (born 1940) * Cornelius Grzimek (born 1945) |
Bernhard Klemens Maria Grzimek (German pronunciation: [ˈɡʒɪmɛk]; April 24, 1909 - March 13, 1987) was a renowned Silesian-German zoo director, zoologist, book author, editor, and animal conservationist in postwar West-Germany.
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Grzimek was born in Neisse (Nysa), Upper Silesia. His father Paul Franz Constantin Grzimek was a lawyer and civil law notary and his mother was Margarete Margot (nee Wanke).
After studying veterinary medicine in 1928, first at Leipzig and later in Berlin, he received a doctorate in 1933.
He married Hildegard Prüfer May 17, 1930 and had 3 sons: Rochus, Michael, and an adopted son, Thomas.
During World War II he was a veterinarian in the Wehrmacht and worked for the Reichsernährungsministerium (Food Ministry of the 3rd Empire) in Berlin. In early 1945, the Gestapo raided Grzimek's Berlin apartment, because he repeatedly had supplied food to hidden Jews. Grzimek then fled from Berlin to Frankfurt, which was occupied by the U.S. Army. In April 1945 he was appointed police chief of Frankfurt by U.S. authorities, but he refused the job.
After World War II he became director of the Frankfurt Zoological Garden on 1 May 1945. The zoo then in ruins and all animals killed, except 20, he prevented the permanent closure of the Frankfurt Zoo and the relocation of the "Center Zoo" to the suburbs, which he made into one of the largest zoological gardens in Germany. On 1 July 1945 the Zoo reopened after all bomb craters were filled and buildings temporarily restored. With festivals, dances and actors, Grzimek lured the Frankfurt population into the zoo and received the assent of the Provisional Government and the U.S. military to continue the Frankfurt Zoo.
In late 1947, Grzimek was accused of membership of the NSDAP by the U.S. military government, which he denied. He was then removed from office in the Zoo, fined, and sent for denazification where, on 23 March 1948, it turned out he was innocent (Category 5; Exonerated) and had participated in the Resistance War. He was then reinstated as Zoo Director by the U.S. government but his reputation was besmirched. The Zoo Director of Munich, Heinz Heck, led a private smear and lawsuit campaign against him. Grzimek was acquitted of any wrongdoing in 1949. He led the zoo for 29 years until his retirement on 30 April 1974.
At the same time he served as president of the Frankfurt zoological society for over forty years. The society - organized on similar principles as its London and New York counterparts - runs a number of wildlife conservation projects both in Germany and overseas; most well-known is its ongoing work in the Serengeti ecosystem in Tanzania, East Africa.
In 1954 he founded the image agency Okapia, specialized in animals and nature. Today, the agency specializes in science and gives 650 photographers a job. The firm is led by Christian Bernhard Grzimek, the son of his son who died in the Serengeti.
In 1975 he co-founded the League for the environment and nature conservation (BUND) and bought ten acres of forest areas and wetlands in the Steiger forest near Michelau im Steigerwald which he left to itself.
Grzimek is most famous for the work he undertook for the conservation of the Serengeti. He spent several years studying the wildlife there along with his son Michael, especially on areal observation and counts of large scale annual migrations. In 1959 Michael was killed in an air crash while flying the Dornier Do 27 due to a collision with a Griffon Vulture. He wrote a best-selling book called Serengeti shall not die, which appealed enormously to the public and was key in driving the creation of the Serengeti National Park.
He prophesied in his book
Large cities continue to proliferate. In the coming decades and centuries, men will not travel to view marvels of engineering, but they will leave the dusty towns in order to behold the last places on earth where God’s creatures are peacefully living. Countries which have preserved such places will be envied by other nations and visited by streams of tourists. There is a difference between wild animals living a natural life and famous buildings. Palaces can be rebuilt if they are destroyed in wartime, but once the wild animals of the Serengeti are exterminated no power on earth can bring them back.
The documentary based on the film won the Academy Award for Documentary Feature in 1959.
He was the editor-in-chief of (and author of a number of articles in) a massive and monumental encyclopedia of animal life. After publication in Germany in 1968, Grzimek's Animal Life Encyclopedia was translated into English and published in 1975 in 13 volumes (covering lower life forms, insects and other invertebrates, fish, amphibia, reptiles, birds and mammals) plus three additional volumes on Ecology, Ethology and Evolution. The 1975 work was issued in both hardback and less expensive paperback editions and became a standard reference work. After Grzimek's death, the volumes on mammals were revised, and republished in both German and then in English. In 2004, the entire encyclopedia was revised and published in a new and expanded edition. All the versions of the encyclopedia are marked by clear and forceful prose, extensive use of illustrations (both drawings and color plates), and a deep love and concern for animal conservation.
Of national importance were his work as co-editor (together with Austrian Nobel-prize winner Konrad Lorenz) of the then largest popular magazine on animals and wildlife in German language, Das Tier (German language, i.e. "The Animal") and of a very popular television series on wildlife. He also authored a large number of popular books based on his countless experiences with animals which he raised since his student days, managed as zoo director, and encountered in the wild during many research trips.
He died in Frankfurt am Main in 1987, falling asleep while watching a circus performance with a group of children. His ashes were later transferred to Tanzania and buried next to his son Michael at the Ngorongoro Crater.