1. Introduction

Hans Kummerlöwe (5 September 1903, Leipzig - 11 August 1995, Münich), also spelt as Kumerloeve from around 1947 was a German ornithologist who served as an SS Officer during the Second World War.

2. Life and Work

Kummerlöwe studied at the University of Leipzig where he was a friend of Günther Niethammer. He joined the DOG (Deutsche Ornithologischen Gessellschaft - the German Ornithological Society) in 1923. He worked on a doctoral thesis under Johannes Meisenheimer on the gonads of female birds.^[1]

By 1925 Kummerlöwe joined the Nazi party and in November he founded the first student union under the Nazis in Leipzig, the Leipziger Gruppe of the NS-Studentenbundes. In June 1926 he took part in the party day of the NSDAP and joined the Nazi Teaching Association.

 

Pages removed from the 1939 volume of Abhandlungen und Berichte aus den Staatlichen Museen für Tierkunde und Völkerkunde in Dresden titled Geschichte und Aufgaben des Staatlichen Museums für Tierkunde in Dresden. https://handwiki.org/wiki/index.php?curid=1135876

Along with Niethammer he made ornithological trips on a small motorcycle in northern and western Turkey in 1933. On 11 December 1935 he took over the management of the Staatliche Museen für Tier- und Völkerkunde Dresden and from 1937 he headed the zoology department at the University of Dresden. In 1939 he worked on Anthropological Surveys on Polish War Prisoners. He published his politically motivated research in Der Biologe which was taken over by the SS-Ahnenerbe. After the war, Kummerlöwe changed his name to Kumerloeve, possibly to hide his wartime activities. His publications in the journal "Papers and Reports from the State Museums for Animal Science and Ethnology in Dresden" have been removed from copies in many libraries across Europe. It is thought that in these papers in 1939 and 1940, he expressed his political ideas and it is believed that, after the war, Kummerlöwe personally visited libraries and purged them of his writings. Even libraries in Moscow and Leningrad have been found to have the pages missing.^[2]

After the war Kummerlöwe moved to Osnabrück and around 1948 at Amrum. In 1964 he lived at Gräfelfing. In 1970, he was given an honorary position at the Museum Koenig in Bonn. He died in August 1995 from an illness.^[1] The supspecies of Eremophila alpestris kumerloevei is named after him.

3. Writings

Pre-war writings under his original spelling include:

• Zimmermann, R., & Kummerlöwe, H. (1944). Beiträge zur Kenntnis der Vogelwelt des Neusiedler Seegebiets. Selbstverlag der Wissenschaftlichen Staatsmuseen.
• Kummerlöwe, H. (1931). Vergleichende Untersuchungen über das Gonadensystem weiblicher Vögel.
• Kummerlöwe, H., & Niethammer, G. (1934). Beiträge zur Kenntnis der Avifauna Kleinasiens (Paphlagonien-Galatien). Journal of Ornithology, 82(4):505-552.
• Kummerlöwe, H., & Froböse, H. (1930). Ein linksseitiges Oviduktrudiment (Müllerscher Gang) bei einem erwachsenen Starmännchen (Sturnus vulgaris L.). Zeitschr. f. mikr.-anat. Forsch, 22:414-26.
• Kummerlöwe, H. (1939). Zur Neugestaltung der Wiener wissenschaftlichen Staatsmuseen. Annalen des Naturhistorischen Museums in Wien, XXIV-XXXIX.

Some of his post-war writings include:

• Kumerloeve, H. (1984). The Waldrapp, Geronticus eremita (Linnaeus, 1758): historical review, taxonomic history, and present status. Biological Conservation, 30(4):363-373.
• Kumerloeve, H. (1984). Domenico Sestini (1750-1832): Aus der Frühzeit zoologischer Forschung im Bosporus-Raum (Türkei). Annalen des Naturhistorischen Museums in Wien. Serie B für Botanik und Zoologie, 345-350.
• Kumerloeve, H. (1976). Leoparden, Panthera pardus tulliana (Valenciennes, 1856). Zentralanatolien//Säugetierkundliche Mitteilungen. Bd, 24:46-48.
• Kumerloeve, H. (1975). Zur Verbreitung der Steinschmätzer (Oenanthe)-Arten in der Türkei. SA Bonn. zool. Beitr, 26:183-198.
• Kumerloeve, H. (1975). Die Säugetiere (Mammalia) der Türkei; Die Säugetiere (Mammalia) Syriens und des Libanon. Zoolog. Staatssammlung.
• Kumerloeve, H. (1969). Van Gölü-Hakkari Bölgesi (Doğu/Güneydoğu Küçük Asya) Kuşları. Fen Fakültesi Basımevi.
• Kumerloeve, H. (1962). Notes on the Birds of the Lebanese Republic: Part 1. 2. University of Baghdad, Iraq Natural History Museum.