Oskar Kuhn (7 March 1908,

Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the States of Germany, German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the List of cities in Germany by popu ...

– 1990) was a German

palaeontologist Paleontology (), also spelled palaeontology or palæontology, is the scientific study of life that existed prior to, and sometimes including, the start of the Holocene epoch (roughly 11,700 years before present). It includes the study of fossi ...

Life and career

Kuhn was educated in

Dinkelsbühl Dinkelsbühl () is a historic town in Central Franconia, a region of Germany that is now part of the state of Bavaria, in southern Germany. Dinkelsbühl is a former free imperial city of the Holy Roman Empire. In local government terms, Dinkelsb� ...

and Bamberg and then studied natural science, specialising in geology and paleontology, at the

University of Munich The Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (simply University of Munich or LMU; german: Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München) is a public research university in Munich, Germany. It is Germany's List of universities in Germany, sixth-oldest u ...

, from which he received his D. Phil. in 1932. He worked in the University of Munich Geological Institute, among other things on the ''Fossilium Catalogus'' (Catalogue of Fossils), and then in 1938 on a stipend from the

Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft The German Research Foundation (german: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft ; DFG ) is a German research funding organization, which functions as a self-governing institution for the promotion of science and research in the Federal Republic of Germ ...

, moved to the

University of Halle Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg (german: Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg), also referred to as MLU, is a public, research-oriented university in the cities of Halle and Wittenberg and the largest and oldest university in ...

, where he worked on the

Geiseltal The Geisel valley (german: Geiseltal) is a valley in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany, situated west of Merseburg, Saalekreis district. It is named after the River Geisel (river), Geisel which rises in Mücheln (Geiseltal), Mücheln and is a tributary of the ...

fossils. In 1939 he achieved his

Habilitation Habilitation is the highest university degree, or the procedure by which it is achieved, in many European countries. The candidate fulfills a university's set criteria of excellence in research, teaching and further education, usually including a ...

with a thesis on the Halberstadt

Keuper The Keuper is a lithostratigraphic unit (a sequence of rock strata) in the subsurface of large parts of west and central Europe. The Keuper consists of dolomite, shales or claystones and evaporites that were deposited during the Middle and Late T ...

fauna, and in 1940 was named

Privatdozent ''Privatdozent'' (for men) or ''Privatdozentin'' (for women), abbreviated PD, P.D. or Priv.-Doz., is an academic title conferred at some European universities, especially in German-speaking countries, to someone who holds certain formal qualific ...

in geology and paleontology. Informed by his

Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

religion, Kuhn was an exponent of idealistic morphology: he viewed evolution as operating only within predetermined morphological classes. In 1943 he declared, "The theory of descent has collapsed." After a political conflict with his mentor, Johannes Weigelt, over evolution, Kuhn's teaching certification was withdrawn (in an act known as "remotion") in November 1941.Hermann-Josef Rupieper, ''Beiträge zur Geschichte der Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg 1502-2002'', Halle (Saale): Mitteldeutscher Verlag, 2002,
pp. 478-80
the section on "Der ,Fall' Kuhn" states that Weigelt had brought Kuhn to Halle after he had been refused Habilitation at Munich. He had to leave Halle and was immediately called up for wartime service in the

Wehrmacht The ''Wehrmacht'' (, ) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the ''Heer'' (army), the ''Kriegsmarine'' (navy) and the ''Luftwaffe'' (air force). The designation "''Wehrmacht''" replaced the previous ...

. In February 1942 he was released because of lung disease. (He had been a member of the SA from 1933 to 1936 but left for health reasons.) In 1947 he became professor ''extraordinarius'' at the

University of Bamberg The University of Bamberg (german: Otto-Friedrich-Universität Bamberg) in Bamberg, Germany, specializes in the humanities, cultural studies, social sciences, economics, and applied computer science. Campus The university is mainly housed in ...

, but left after a short time.

Selected works

* ''Paläozoologie in Tabellen''. (1940) * ''Lehrbuch der Paläozoologie''. (Textbook of Paleontology) (1949) * ''Die Deszendenztheorie: Grundlegung der Ganzheitsbiologie''. (1951) * ''Lebensbilder und Evolution fossiler Saurier, Amphibien und Reptilien''. (1961) (with Hartmut Haubold) * ''Die Vorzeitlichen Wirbellosen. System und Evolution''. (1966) * ''Handbuch der Paläoherpetologie'' - ''Encyclopedia of Paleoherpetology''. Stuttgart, New York: G. Fischer, 1978- .
OCLC

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kuhn, Oskar German paleontologists 1908 births 1990 deaths Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich alumni Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich faculty University of Halle faculty University of Bamberg faculty