Karl Ludwig Pfeiffer

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Karl Ludwig Pfeiffer
University of Berlin
AwardsIron Senckenberg Medal (1927)
Scientific career
Fields
Author abbrev. (zoology)K. L. Pfeiffer.

Karl Ludwig Pfeiffer (September 5, 1874–June 14, 1952) was a

German malacologist
, banker, and patron of the arts.

Early life

Karl Ludwig Pfeiffer was born in

Louis Pfeiffer and his great-grandfather Carl Jonas Pfeiffer.[3] Learning of this strong familial connection, Karl himself later asserted that it must have been his very nature that brought him to study the natural sciences.[2] Sadly, this dream of a career in science was not to be. By 1894, when Karl was only 19, his father and grandfather had both died, and the family's banking interests were being run by a single, aging uncle, who only agreed to continue in his role if Karl also joined the firm to assist him. As a result, Karl formally joined the family firm on 15 March 1893, before his 20th birthday.[4]

Banking career and later life

After joining the family firm, Karl was sent to the

chairman of the Art Association (Kunstverein) of Kassel, and under his leadership, the Avant-garde movement was first introduced to that city.[7] His fellow board members included Johannes Boehlau, Otto Ehrenberg, and Franz Thorbecke.[8]

After the death of his uncle Louis Pfeiffer (not the malacologist) in 1912, Karl became the director and sole proprietor of Bankhaus L. Pfeiffer.[4] In this position, he guided the bank through some turbulent times in Germany's history. Under Karl's leadership, the bank managed to survive the First World War and the subsequent Weimar Hyperinflation, but with the coming of the Great Depression, the small bank simply lacked the capital to survive as an independent entity.[9] It was one of the last holdouts in Kassel, but by 1930, the firm had been acquired by Deutsche Bank, of whose Cassel bureau Karl Pfeiffer would be president of until 1934.[10]

Karl was appointed to the Kassel

Nazi government as an "undesirable (unerwünschte) person."[14]
> After World War II, he was reappointed as chamber president by the occupying power in April 1945. Due to his age, however, he resigned again as early as July 1945 and Gustav Römer became his successor.

Return to malacology

Despite his early interest and initial forays into publishing on scientific subjects, the unfortunate tragedies that led to Karl's swift jump into banking meant that his scientific interests had to take a back seat to his primary career of banking.

Theodor Johannes Krüper, Robert Jetschin, and Caesar Rudolf Boettger, his friend Oskar Boettger's nephew. He also continued to travel extensively, to Italy, Spain, Egypt, Algeria, Tunisia, the Balkans and the Dodecanese and Canary Islands.[15] This renewed interest in the natural sciences, paired with his loss of position due to the rise of the Nazi Party, meant that Karl had more time than he knew what to do with, so in 1937 he embarked on a months-long collection trip to East Africa, out of which the majority of his taxonomic work would come, and in 1939 a second collection trip to Java and the East Indies.[16] In his own words, Karl Pfeiffer's single greatest regret in life is that he had not acquired the formal scientific background and training necessary for someone to truly pursue a career in scientific inquiry, which he no doubt would have done, had the circumstances of his early life been different.[17] In 1927, Pfeiffer was given an honorary Doctorate by the Philosophy faculty of the University of Marburg for his contribution to the arts and sciences.[18] In the same year, he was further recognized and honored for his contribution by the Senckenberg Nature Research Society, which presented him with an Iron Senckenberg Medal.[19] By the end of his career, Karl Pfeiffer had identified and named dozens of species and genera of mollusks, and over thirty of those names stand today. [20]

Mollusks described by Pfeiffer

  • Albinaria brevicollis kosensis K.L. Pfeiffer, 1955.
  • Bloyetia simulans meruensis K.L. Pfeiffer, 1952.
  • Chilostoma cingulatum alzonai K.L. Pfeiffer, 1951.
  • Chilostoma cingulatum boccavallense K.L. Pfeiffer, 1951.
  • Euonyma connollyana K.L. Pfeiffer, 1952.
  • Gonaxis cylindrica K.L. Pfeiffer, 1952.
  • Gulella (Gulella) conicodentata K.L. Pfeiffer, 1952.
  • Gulella globosa K.L. Pfeiffer, 1952.
  • Gulella gouldi globosa K.L. Pfeiffer, 1952.
  • Gulella (Molarella) gwendolinae porrecta K.L. Pfeiffer, 1952.
  • Gulella (Paucidentina) micrans K.L. Pfeiffer, 1952.
  • Gulella (Paucidentina) percivali kilimae K.L. Pfeiffer, 1952.
  • Gulella (Gulella) translucida K.L. Pfeiffer, 1952.
  • Gulella (Paucidentina) unidentata K.L. Pfeiffer, 1952.
  • Gulella (Paucidentina) usambarica K.L. Pfeiffer, 1952.
  • Gulella ludwigi K.L. Pfeiffer, 1952.
  • Homorus usambaricus K.L. Pfeiffer, 1952.
  • Homorus usagaricus monticulus K.L. Pfeiffer, 1952.
  • Hypolysia connollyana K.L. Pfeiffer, 1952.
  • Levantina spiriplana kanaanensis K.L. Pfeiffer, 1949.
  • Maizania pyramidalis K.L. Pfeiffer, 1952.
  • Maizania volkensi (von Mts.) K.L. Pfeiffer, 1952.
  • Subulina usambarica K.L. Pfeiffer, 1952.
  • Subulina usagarica monticula K.L. Pfeiffer, 1952.
  • Pseudoglessula (Kempioconcha) monticula K.L. Pfeiffer, 1952.
  • Pupisoma renschi K.L. Pfeiffer, 1952.
  • Edentulina (Marconia) cylindrica K.L. Pfeiffer, 1952.
  • Tandonia nigra K.L. Pfeiffer, 1894.
  • Tayloria angustistriata K.L. Pfeiffer, 1952.
  • Trachycystis lamellosa K.L. Pfeiffer, 1952.
  • Trochonanina (Montanobloyetia) simulans meruensis K.L. Pfeiffer, 1952.

References

Citations

  1. ^ Pfeiffer 1886, p. 130.
  2. ^ a b c Zilch 1952, p. 175.
  3. ^ Verdcourt 1995, p. 490.
  4. ^ a b c Zilch 1952, p. 176.
  5. ^ Pfeiffer 1894, p. 68.
  6. ^ Verdcourt 1995, p. 491.
  7. ^ Marx & Georgsdorf 1985, p. 92.
  8. ^ Warlich 1909, p. 339.
  9. ^ Verdcourt 1995, p. 493.
  10. ^ "Ein blick zurück: Familienunternehmen dur Generationen". Hessische/Niedersächsische Allgemeine. Kassel. 7 January 1966.
  11. ^ a b Zilch 1952, p. 177.
  12. ^ a b Brandt 1963, p. 100.
  13. ^ Brandt 1960, p. 71.
  14. ^ Schröder 2022, p. 147.
  15. ^ Verdcourt 1995, p. 494.
  16. ^ Pfeiffer 1952, p. 100.
  17. ^ Zilch 1972, p. 326.
  18. ^ Chronik der Königlich Preussischen Universität Marburg. Vol. XXXIII. Marburg: R. Friedrich's Universitäts Buchdruckerei. 1927. p. 8.
  19. ^ Zilch 1952, p. 178.
  20. ^ Verdcourt 1953, p. 39.

Sources

  • Brandt, Harm-Hinrich (1960). Von der fürstlich-hessischen Commercien-Cammer zur Industrie- und Handelskammer Kassel, 1710–1960: Wirtschaftspolitik und gewerbliche Mitbeteiligung im nordhessischen Raum. Kassel: Industrie- und Handelskammer Kassel.
  • Brandt, Harm-Hinrich (1963). Die Industrie- und Handelskammer Kassel und ihre Vorläufer 1763–1963. Kassel: Industrie- und Handelskammer Kassel. pp. 99–101.
  • Chronik der Königlich Preussischen Universität Marburg. Vol. XXXIII. Marburg: R. Friedrich's Universitäts Buchdruckerei. 1927. p. 8.
  • "Ein blick zurück: Familienunternehmen dur Generationen". Hessische/Niedersächsische Allgemeine. Kassel. 7 January 1966.
  • Marx, Manfred; Georgsdorf, Heiner (1985). 150 Jahre Kunstverein-Kasseler Kunstverein-eine Chronik. Kassel: Kasseler Kunstverein. p. 92.
  • Pfeiffer, August Ludwig (1886). Die Familie Pfeiffer: Eine Sammlung von Lebensbildern und Stammbäumen. Kassel: Druck von Friedr. Scheel.
  • Pfeiffer, Karl Ludwig (1894). "Kleine Reiseergebnisse". Nachrichtsblatt der Deutschen Malakozoologischen Gesellschaft. 26: 68–71.
  • Pfeiffer, Karl Ludwig (1952). "Neue Landschnecken aus Ostafrika". Arch. Molluskenkd. 81: 89–102.
  • Schröder, Joachim (2022). Casseler Kunstausstellung 1922: Öffnung zur Moderne. Kassel: kassel university press. p. 147.
  • Verdcourt, Bernard (1953). "Notes on the snails of North-East Tanganyika Territory. Five new species and varieties of Gulella from the Usabaras". Proc. Malac. Soc. 30: 36–39.
  • Verdcourt, Bernard (1995). "Karl Ludwig Pfeiffer - 1874-1952 - Collectors in East Africa". The Conchologists' Newsletter. 23 (133): 490–494.
  • Warlich, Hermann (1909). "Kasseler Kunstfrühling". Die Kunst: Monatshefte für Freie und Angewandte Kunst. Vol. 20. Munich: F. Bruckmann, A.G. pp. 338–341.
  • Zilch, Adolf [in German] (1952). "Karl Ludwig Pfeiffer (*5.9.1874, †14.6.1952)". Arch. Molluskenkd. 81: 175–178.
  • Zilch, Adolf (1972). "Zur Geschichte der deutschen Malakozoologie, IX. Zur Konchylien-Sammlung von K.L. Pfeiffer". Mitt. Dtsch. Malak. Ges. 2 (22): 324–326.


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