Schmidt, Jonas Friedrich Wilhelm
Zoologist, university professor
Born: October 7, 1885 in Wiesbaden
Died: March 13, 1958 in Wiesbaden

The Schmidt family had lived in Wiesbaden for generations and ran a large agricultural business here, which was closed and wound up around 1900.

In 1903, Jonas Schmidt graduated from high school in his native city and went on to study agriculture at the Royal Prussian Agricultural Academy in Bonn-Pöppelsdorf, the Agricultural College in Berlin and the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms University in Bonn. In 1907, Schmidt passed the state examination in Bonn to become a graduate farmer. One year later, he completed his doctorate with a study on the "Relationship between body shape and performance in dairy cows" at the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Bonn.

Schmidt worked in agriculture between 1908 and 1912. In 1910, he briefly took over the position of director at the Hof Geisberg agricultural college (opens in a new tab)in Wiesbaden. This was followed by a trip to the German colonies on the African continent. In 1913, he habilitated at the Royal Prussian Agricultural Academy in Bonn-Pöppelsdorf with the thesis "Die mitteldeutsche Rotviehzucht" (Central German Red Cattle Breeding) and was appointed a private lecturer. Between 1914 and 1917, he took part in the First World War.

After the war, Schmidt was appointed Associate Professor of Animal Breeding and Taxation at the University of Jena in 1919 and Full Professor in 1920. In 1921, Schmidt moved to the University of Göttingen, where he became Professor of Animal Breeding and Animal Nutrition. This was associated with a directorship at the Institute of Animal Breeding and Dairy Science and the Institute of Animal Nutrition.

After the National Socialists came to power in 1933, Jonas Schmidt became a member of the SA Riders' Division 57 in Göttingen. Due to his age, Schmidt did not perform active SA service, but paid the association two RM per month. He left the Reiter SA in 1936 when he moved to Berlin for work.

Schmidt actively supported the expulsion of Jewish university lecturers from German universities in 1933. In April 1933, he signed a declaration by 42 Göttingen university lecturers, which appeared in the "Göttinger Tageblatt" and called for measures to be taken against the Jewish physicist and Nobel Prize winner James Franck. Franck was not affected by the wave of dismissals following the "Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service" of April 7, 1933, as he was a so-called Jewish front-line fighter. Nevertheless, Franck voluntarily resigned publicly. Franck's public declaration generated great interest at home and abroad. In November 1933, Schmidt was also a signatory to the "Confession of Professors at German Universities and Colleges to Adolf Hitler and the National Socialist State".

Schmidt's own professional career during the National Socialist era was successful. Jonas Schmidt occupied an outstanding position within the National Socialist agricultural sciences. In addition to his work as managing director of the German Society for Breeding Science, he became chairman of the Reich Working Group for Animal Breeding in the Research Council for Agricultural Sciences.

The head of this research council was Konrad Meyer, who as SS-Oberführer was primarily responsible for the General Plan East. Meyer, who was also an agricultural scientist, already knew Schmidt from his time at the University of Göttingen and was largely responsible for Schmidt moving to Berlin.

In 1936, Schmidt was appointed Professor of Animal Breeding and Domestic Animal Genetics at the Faculty of Agriculture at the Prussian Friedrich Wilhelm University in Berlin. After the unexpected death of Gustav Frölich, the director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute (KWI) for Animal Breeding Research in Dummerstorf near Rostock, Jonas Schmidt took over the management of the institute in 1940 at the same time as his work in Berlin.

During the "Third Reich", Jonas Schmidt held almost the most offices in the field of agricultural sciences. Alongside Meyer and the Hohenheim animal breeder Peter Carstens, he was regarded as one of the representatives of the principle of "down-to-earthness" in German animal breeding research. The aim of this principle was to maximize the performance of cattle and to pass this on to their offspring.

Animal breeding and, in particular, domestic animal genetics were Jonas Schmidt's main areas of research. His main work is the textbook on animal breeding published in 1939. His research on bovine twins also attracted interest from scientists in the field of human genetics and eugenics. With his research, Schmidt was also able to contribute to the Nazi regime's quest for self-sufficiency in food production.

In addition to his professional activities, Schmidt was also involved in other Nazi organizations. In 1940, Schmidt joined the Nazi Reichskriegerbund, the Nazi Altherrenbund and the National Socialist People's Welfare Organization. From 1942, he became a member of the NS-Dozentenbund. He also applied to join the NSDAP at the end of the 1930s. However, this was rejected in 1940, as Schmidt had briefly been a member of the "Hohenzollern" Masonic Lodge in Wiesbaden in 1910/11.
After the start of the war, Schmidt remained in Dummerstorf and supported the German expansionist policy in occupied Eastern Europe with his research.

His institute received a budget increase for the establishment of a sheep breeding farm for "colonization projects" in the East. Schmidt propagated the associated ideological ideas in his opening speech at the second joint animal breeding conference of the Research Service, the Reichsnährstand and the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Züchtungskunde in 1940, in which he advocated the Second World War and the expansionist policy of the National Socialists.

In 1942, Schmidt was appointed full director of the KWI for Animal Breeding Research in Dummerstorf. A year later, he was also appointed Professor of Animal Breeding at the University of Rostock. In this function at the latest, Schmidt can be described as a scientific assistant to the agricultural leadership of the Nazi state. As director of the KWI in Dummerstorf and previously in Berlin, Jonas Schmidt managed large areas of farmland. Hundreds of animals also had to be looked after in the respective institutes. After the beginning of the Second World War, there was a shortage of manpower due to the conscription of institute staff into the Wehrmacht. Jonas Schmidt therefore requested prisoners of war to work on the Koppehof experimental farm near Berlin as early as the winter of 1939/40. The first ten Polish soldiers were brought to work on the experimental farm in the winter of 1939/40. In the following months, mainly French prisoners of war were brought to Koppehof.

When Schmidt moved to Dummerstorf as provisional head of the KWI in 1940, he was provided with a large number of forced laborers. These included 224 Polish, Ukrainian, Russian, Croatian, American, French and Dutch prisoners of war and civilian forced laborers.
The further course of the war hardly diminished Schmidt's research activities. In 1944, the agricultural scientist received funding from the Reich Research Council for the "breeding of a heavy common horse for the Wehrmacht and agriculture" and for "testing the process of artificial insemination for the purpose of spreading particularly valuable animal breeds as quickly as possible".

After the end of the war, Schmidt left for southern Germany. He took over a farm in Hechingen (Hohenzollern). In 1946, he became director of the KWI for Animal Breeding Research, which was relocated to Mariensee near Neustadt am Rübenberge. After disputes with Otto Hahn, the director of the KWI, Schmidt accepted an appointment to the Agricultural University of Hohenheim in 1946. Prior to this, Schmidt had to undergo denazification proceedings.

In September 1947, the Stuttgart 3 court initially classified Schmidt in Group 4 ("fellow travelers"). He had to pay an "atonement payment" of 300 RM. However, Schmidt successfully appealed against this decision. The fact that Schmidt had not become a member of the NSDAP had the effect of exonerating him. Schmidt's classification in Group 4 and the "atonement payment" were revoked.

From 1949 to 1951, Schmidt was Rector of Hohenheim Agricultural College. In 1950, he was awarded the Hermann von Nathusius Gold Medal of the German Society for Plant Breeding. From 1952, Schmidt was a board member of the European Association for Animal Breeding in Rome. He headed the Institute of Animal Breeding in Hohenheim until his retirement in 1953. He spent his retirement in Wiesbaden . In 1956, he was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Kiel.
A street was named after Jonas Schmidt in the north-east district of Wiesbaden, near the former site of the Geisberg agricultural school, by resolution of the city council on July 1, 1965.

The historical expert commission appointed by the city council in 2020 to review traffic areas, buildings and facilities named after people in the state capital of Wiesbaden recommended renaming Jonas-Schmidt-Straße due to Schmidt's membership of various National Socialist organizations (SA-Reiterstandarte 57 in Göttingen, NS-Reichskriegerbund, NS-Altherrenbund, NSV, NSDDB). He supported the Nazi regime immaterially through his public confessions and public speeches as well as with his research and publicly articulated National Socialist ideology.

By supporting his research and promoting his academic career, Schmidt gained immaterial benefits. As institute director in Berlin and Dummerstorf, Schmidt requisitioned at least 242 prisoners of war and forced laborers, thereby participating in the deliberate harming of individuals.

[This was compiled by Peter-Michael Glöckler for the 2017 printed version of the Wiesbaden City Dictionary and revised and supplemented by Dr. Katherine Lukat in 2024].