Walter Behrmann
1882 - 1955

Walter Emmerich Behrmann was born in Oldenburg (in Oldenburg) in May 1882, the son of Adolf Behrmann (1838-1936), who later became a government and building councillor and worked for the Grand Ducal Oldenburg Railways, and Marie Behrmann, née Russ. Behrmann's father first worked as a railroad inspector (documented in the 1874 Court and State Handbook of the Grand Duchy of Oldenburg). In 1900, his sisters Emma and Ella lived in the family home at August street 62. Walter Behrmann attended grammar school in Oldenburg, where he graduated in 1901. He then studied geography, mathematics and physics in Göttingen, Berlin, Munich and again in Göttingen.

From October 1906 to September 1907, he completed his one-year military service with the Oldenburg Infantry Regiment 91. In August 1914, he began his military service as a lieutenant in the reserve and was last active in the German military administration in Romania. He was discharged from the Reichswehr in February 1919 with the rank of first lieutenant.

Walter Behrmann married Marie Mathilde Seifert, born in 1890, in September 1917. Both were Protestant. The marriage was childless.

Walter Emmerich Behrmann graduated from grammar school in Oldenburg at Easter 1901. He then studied geography, mathematics and physics at the universities of Göttingen, Berlin, Munich and Göttingen again. On May 17, 1905, he completed his studies with a doctorate at the University of Göttingen. His doctoral supervisor was the colonial specialist and geography professor Hermann Wagner (1840-1929). The dissertation deals with Low German sea books of the 15th and 16th centuries. On June 29, 1906, Walter Behrmann also passed the state examination for the teaching profession at secondary schools.

He began his academic career as an assistant to geography professor Hermann Wagner at the University of Göttingen. Behrmann later moved to the geography professor Josef Franz Maria Partsch (1851-1925) at the University of Leipzig. Partsch was instrumental in establishing the Chair of Colonial Geography at the University of Leipzig, but was himself a specialist in questions of morphology, not colonial science. In 1909, Behrmann went to Berlin and conducted research as an assistant to Professor Albrecht Penck (1858-1945), who, as director of the Geographical Institute in Berlin, headed the newly founded Institute and Museum of Oceanography. Penck is considered the most important German geographer of the first half of the 20th century.

On March 5, 1914, Walter Behrmann habilitated at the University of Berlin with a morphological thesis on the surface structure of the Harz mountains in northern Germany. He had previously undertaken research trips through New Guinea and China. He specialized in cartography and morphology. After his military service, which he completed in German-occupied Romania, he was employed as a cartographer at the Institute of Oceanography in Berlin on December 1, 1918. In 1922 he became an adjunct professor of cartography at the University of Berlin. Finally, in 1923, he became a full professor of geography at the University of Frankfurt on the Main. He remained there until his apartment at Feldberg street 7 was destroyed by Allied firebombs in September 1944. He wrote about this event in his memoirs:

"Mein schönes Heim, geschmückt mit vielen unersetzlichen Erinnerungsstücken aus allen Zonen der Erde, mit Kunstwerken der Steinzeit und der verschiedensten Kulturen und einer erlesenen Bücherei, in dem meine Frau und ich liebe Gäste willkommen hießen, ist in Frankfurt am Main vernichtet. Auch unser Ausweichzimmer daselbst ist beschlagnahmt. Mein geographisches Institut, das ich mit Stolz als eines der schönsten und besten Institute Frankfurts zeigen konnte, ist in der gleichen Nacht dem Feuer zum Opfer gefallen" (Walter Behrmann: Der weiten Welt Wunder. Berlin 1956, p. 10). (My beautiful home, decorated with many irreplaceable memorabilia from all over the world, with works of art from the Stone Age and various cultures and an exquisite library, where my wife and I welcomed dear guests, has been destroyed in Frankfurt on the Main. Our spare room there has also been confiscated. My geographical institute, which I was proud to present as one of the most beautiful and best institutes in Frankfurt, fell victim to the fire that same night.)

He moved to Berlin in 1944. From 1948 to 1954, Walter Behrmann was Professor of Geography at the Free University of Berlin (West). He died in Berlin in May 1955 at the age of almost 73.

According to Nachrichten-Blatt No. 3 from May 1933, geography professor Dr. Walter Behrmann, who lived at Feldberg street 7 at the time, became a member of the Frankfurt section by transferring from the Berlin section of the German and Austrian Alpine Club. He had previously belonged to the Berlin section since 1921. But even before his change of section, he had already become active in the expansion of the Frankfurt on the Main section. He initiated the founding of the "Student Section" in 1930 and, together with Professor Emeritus Dr. Matthias Friedwagner, took over the patronage of this new section.

On the 60th anniversary of the founding of the section, Walter Behrmann pointed out the close connection between geography and the efforts of the Alpine Club (see Nachrichten-Blatt of the Frankfurt on the Main seczion, No. 11 of November 1929, p. 142):

"Den Glückwünschen "Seiner Magnifizenz" [des Rektors der Universität Frankfurt] schloß sich an als Vertreter des Physikalischen Vereins, der Gesellschaft für Geographie und Statistik, sowie einiger anderer Korporationen, nicht zuletzt aber auch als Gratulant für die große Sektion Berlin, der er angehört, der Dekan der Naturwissenschaftlichen Fakultät, Prof. Dr. Behrmann. Auch er wies auf die gleichgerichteten Bestrebungen des Gesamtvereins und der naturwissenschaftlichen Disziplinen, insbesondere auf dem Gebiet der geologischen, geographischen, morphologischen und glazialen Forschungen hin." (The congratulations of "His Magnificence" [the Rector of the University of Frankfurt] were joined by the Dean of the Faculty of Natural Sciences, Prof. Dr. Behrmann, as representative of the Physikalischer Verein, the Gesellschaft für Geographie und Statistik, as well as several other corporations, but not least also as congratulator for the large Berlin section, of which he is a member. He also pointed out the concerted efforts of the entire association and the natural science disciplines, particularly in the field of geological, geographical, morphological and glacial research.)

In fact, Walter Behrmann, together with Matthias Friedwagner, can be shown to have recommended numerous people for admission to the Frankfurt Alpine Club section from April 1930, primarily students such as August Jungk and Emilie Neunhöffer (April 1930), Katharina Schmitz (June 1930), Marie Strasburger (July 1930), Karl Gößler, Paul Loewe and Ilse Strauß (March 1932), Armin Erker and Erna Neuhaus (February 1933) as well as Ernst Flach, Herbert Grune, Hans Schmidt and Kurt Tasche (June 1933). In total, the two professors recommended at least 26 new admissions between 1930 and 1933. However, as the student department was dissolved in February 1934, his activities in this area came to an end soon afterwards.

In November and December 1930, members of the student section reported on an excursion by Walter Behrmann to the Eastern Alps in the Frankfurt section's Nachrichten-Blatt. There, the combination of geography studies and Alpine Club activities became apparent. The student Ernst Meissinger wrote:

"Kleinere durchaus harmlose Klettereien haben wir vier bis fünf Anspruchsvolleren uns natürlich nicht ganz versagen können. Es ist selbstverständlich, daß Professor Behrmann mit einem Trupp von nahezu zwanzig Leuten, die außerdem zum Teil überhaupt zum ersten Mal ins Hochgebirge kamen, offiziell nicht vom sicheren Weg abweichen konnte. Auf der anderen Seite wäre es falsch, die rein körperliche Leistung einer solchen Exkursion verkennen zu wollen. Einmal sind die Marschrouten großenteils für alpine Verhältnisse durchaus nicht klein bemessen gewesen, und wenn man, wie wir auf dem zweiten Teil der Exkursion dauernd etwa vierzig Pfund Gepäck auf dem Rücken trägt, zieht sich der Kilometer. Entscheidend ist aber außerdem die geistige Leistung. Es ist zuweilen keine Kleinigkeit[,] nach einem anstrengenden Tag abends ein bis zwei Stunden Kolloquium mitzumachen." (Of course, we four or five more ambitious climbers could not completely deny ourselves smaller, harmless climbs. It goes without saying that Professor Behrmann could not officially deviate from the safe route with a group of almost twenty people, some of whom were coming to the high mountains for the first time. On the other hand, it would be wrong to underestimate the purely physical achievement of such an excursion. For one thing, most of the routes were by no means short by alpine standards, and if, like us, you are constantly carrying around forty pounds of luggage on your back on the second part of the excursion, the kilometers drag on. However, the mental effort is also crucial. Sometimes it's no small feat to sit through an hour or two of colloquium in the evening after a hard day's work.)

Behrmann does not mention the Frankfurt on the Main section in his memoirs. He does not appear to have used the section huts specifically for his excursions with students. Instead, he made use of a Frankfurt University facility in Kleinwalsertal (Austria), namely the "academic ski hut" near Riezlern. There is still a facility there today that is run for this purpose: Haus Bergkranz, the sports and study guest house of Goethe University Frankfurt on the Main, located between Hirschegg and Riezlern.