Otto Jacob Max Hilzheimer (15 November 1877, Kehnert - 10 January 1946,

Berlin-Charlottenburg Charlottenburg () is a Boroughs and localities of Berlin, locality of Berlin within the borough of Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf. Established as a German town law, town in 1705 and named after Sophia Charlotte of Hanover, Queen consort of Kingdom ...

) was a German zoologist who specialized in the mammals and was a pioneer of conservation in Berlin. He was also an expert on domestic animals in antiquity. Max was born to Alfred and Johanna née Pringsheim (Max's uncle Nathaniel Pringsheim was a botanist). Max studied zoology at Strasbourg and Munich and worked under

Richard Hertwig Richard Wilhelm Karl Theodor Ritter von Hertwig (23 September 1850 in Friedberg, Hesse – 3 October 1937 in Schlederloh, Bavaria), also Richard Hertwig or Richard von Hertwig, was a German zoologist and professor of 50 years, notable as the fir ...

with a doctoral thesis on the Hypopharynx of Hymenoptera. In 1904 he was in southern France at the Laboratoire Russe de Zoologie von Villefranche-sur-Mer. He worked at the Strasbourg Museum and habilitated from the Technical University, Stuttgart in 1907. Hilzheimer was a co-founder of the German Society for Mammalogy in 1926 along with Hermann Pohle and Kurt Ohnesorge. He was also a pioneer conservationist who established a nature conservation unit in Berlin in March, 1927. This would later become the Berlin Commission for Natural Heritage Management with him as the first commissioner. He was also a director at the

Märkisches Museum The Märkisches Museum ( Marcher Museum; originally Märkisches Provinzial-Museum, i.e. Museum of the Province of the March f Brandenburg is a museum in Mitte, Berlin. Founded in 1874 as the museum of the city of Berlin and its political regi ...

until January 1936. In 1935, his German citizenship was withdrawn due to his Jewish background and he was removed from all positions in 1936. His position was taken by Johannes Karl Wilhelm Klose (1880-1963). He married Walburga Münzhuber, from a Catholic family, in 1907, and it was through her efforts that he survived the Nazi period. He lived in seclusion and died in 1946. Hilzheimer was an expert on the antiquity of the breeds of dog, sheep and horse.

References

External links

Beitrag zur Kenntnis der nordafrikanischen Schakale nebst Bemerkungen über deren verhältnis zu den haushunden, insbesondere nordafranischen und altägyptischen (1908)

Handbuch der Biologie der Wirbeltiere (1913)
{{authority control 20th-century German zoologists 1877 births 1946 deaths Scientists from Saxony-Anhalt