Alexander Koenig
Alexander Koenig (born 8 Februarjul / 20 February 1858greg in Saint Petersburg, .. † July 16, 1940 in Good Blücherhof, Klocksin, Mecklenburg ) was a German zoologist and founder of today's Museum Koenig in Bonn.
Life
Alexander Koenig was the son of Leopold Koenig, in St. Petersburg, Russia, lived in the 19th century, worked in the sugar industry and there successfully conducted trade with sugar. In addition, the ethnic German family owned large tracts of land in what is now Ukraine.
At the age of nine years, Alexander Koenig came to Bonn, where his father had acquired a large villa on the Rhine (now Villa Hammerschmidt ). There he attended with his brother Carl Koenig, the father of Hertha Koenig, the Royal Grammar School until 1874. Easter 1874 he moved to the high school Arnoldinum to Burg Steinfurt. Here he began as Obertertianer with the collection of bird eggs and animal specimens. In his memoirs of an old Burgsteinfurter student (Bonn 1933) Koenig describes these years as the formative in his future career. In 1880, he fell on Arnoldinum through High School, which he at March 18, 1882 was at the grammar school in the Pomeranian Demmin two years later.
He studied zoology at the universities of Greifswald and Marburg, where he in 1884 with a thesis on taxonomic problems Mallophaga ( bird lice ) doctorate and the academic title Dr. rer. nat. obtained.
After numerous research trips he put 1912 in Bonn, the foundation stone for the construction of a natural history museum, which was named after Koenig Koenig Museum. The shell was in 1914, but the completion of the building was delayed by the war and occupation in which the building was used as barracks. In addition, Koenig lost by inflation of its assets. In 1929, he founded the German Empire the museum. In 1934 was opened. After that he lived until his death in Bonn and at his estate in Mecklenburg.
His started in the youth collection, especially of mammals and birds is partly still be seen today in the Museum Koenig, including two giraffes, he returned from a visit from the Kordofan region, present-day Sudan, brought with him. Expeditions have taken him to the Arctic region around Spitsbergen and the northern and north-eastern Africa.
Alexander Koenig died on July 16, 1940 at his country estate " Blücherhof " in Mecklenburg. He was buried in the South Cemetery Bonner.