Beyond National Concerns: A Limnologist and World Peace

Authors

Arthur D. Hasler

Keywords

limnologist, Arthur Davis Hasler, Zoologisches Institut, international code of science

Abstract

I have just returned from a four month tour of duty in Germany where I had opportunity to talk with a fair cross section of Germans and to visit some biological laboratories. In Munich I visited the Zoologisches Institut built by Rockefeller for Professor K. van Frisch. It was here van Frisch and his students investigated the problems of sensory physiology: hearing, color vision, smell, taste, "Schreckstoff" in fish; here also was produced a classic work in animal behavior, "Die 'Sprache' der Bienen," an experimental analysis of the methods of communication among bees. This Institut is badly bombed; only the first floor and basement remain intact. Professor v. Frisch's splendid library on sensory physiology and animal behavior was destroyed when his home in Munich was blasted--he had moved all his books and effects from the Institut to his residence because he believed that the residential area would not be bombed. These consequences forced him to remove his research projects and some of his assistants to his summer cottage near Salzburg, which he converted into a laboratory. Here he suffered additional losses of personal property from looting. All this was heaped upon a man who had been oppressed all those years by the Nazis because his grandmother was not "Aryan."

Recommended Citation

Hasler, Arthur D. (1987) "Beyond National Concerns: A Limnologist and World Peace," Swiss American Historical Society Newsletter: Vol. 23: Iss. 3, Article 5.
Available at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/sahs_newsletter/vol23/iss3/5