Bernhard Grzimek

Vocation

Silesian-German zoo director, zoologist, book author, editor, and animal conservationist in postwar West-Germany. After studying veterinary medicine in 1928, first at Leipzig and later in Berlin, Grzimek received his doctorate in 1933. He married Hildegard Prüfer on May 17, 1930 and had three sons: Rochus, Michael, and an adopted son, Thomas. Grzimek was director of the Frankfurt Zoological Garden for 29 years, 1 May 1945 - 30 April 1974. In 1954 he founded the image agency Okapia, specialized in animals and nature. Grzimek is most famous for the work he undertook for the conservation of the Serengeti. He spent several years studying the wildlife there along with his son Michael, especially on areal observation and counts of large scale annual migrations. In 1959 Michael was killed in an air crash. Bernhard Grzimek's best-selling book called Serengeti Shall Not Die appealed enormously to the public and was key in driving the creation of the Serengeti National Park. Grzimek was the editor-in-chief of (and author of a number of articles in) a massive and monumental encyclopedia of animal life. After publication in Germany in 1968, Grzimek's Animal Life Encyclopedia was translated into English and published in 1975 in 13 volumes (covering lower life forms, insects and other invertebrates, fish, amphibia, reptiles, birds and mammals) plus three additional volumes on Ecology, Ethology and Evolution. Grzimek died in Frankfurt am Main on March 13, 1987, falling asleep while watching a circus performance with a group of children. Link to Wikipedia biography