Ernst Stromer

Ernst Freiherr Stromer von Reichenbach (June 12, 1871 – December 18, 1952) was a German paleontologist best remembered for his expedition to Egypt, during which the discovery of the first known remains of Spinosaurus was made.

From an aristocratic background, Stromer studied palaeontology in Munich. He would then make three expeditions to Egypt to unearth fossils, the most significant being his 1910–1911 expedition. Working with fellow palaeontologist Richard Markgraf, Stromer first described the dinosaur Spinosaurus. He additionally first described the dinosaurus Aegyptosaurus, Bahariasaurus, and Carcharodontosaurus, and the giant crocodilian Stomatosuchus. Due to his criticisms of Nazism, Stromer's career declined in the 1930s and 1940s. Many of the fossils discovered by Stromer were destroyed during World War II, leaving today's scientists only a few photographs of the previously existing specimens to rely on.

In 1929, the fossil bird genus Stromeria (now included in the genus Eremopezus) was named in Stromer's honour by Kálmán Lambrecht. Smith et al. (2001) also named the sauropod Paralititan stromeri in his honour.

Biography

Early life and family Ernst Stromer was born on 12 June 1871 in Nuremberg, Bavaria in Germany. He came from an aristocratic family who had produced several architects, lawyers, judges, scientists and politicians for Nuremberg since the 1400s. The "Freiherr" in his name roughly equals "baron" in English. Stromer's father, , had served as the Mayor of Nuremberg from 1867 to 1891. He had an older brother, (1867–1940), who became a historian.

Stromer originally studied medicine before switching to geology and palaeontology at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München. His mentor and thesis adviser was palaeontologist Karl Alfred von Zittel. Stromer theorised that Spinosaurus ' spines formed a fatty hump akin to a bison.

World Wars and the Interwar period

With the onset of World War I, travel restrictions meant Stromer couldn't return to Egypt and Markgraf couldn't ship any fossils to Germany. Markgraf died in 1916, and it was only in 1922 that Stromer received Markgraf's fossils. They were however broken due to being repackaged multiple times. After piecing the fossils back together, Stromer published a series of papers in the 1930s describing three new dinosaurs: the sauropod Aegyptosaurus, and the theropods Bahariasaurus (1934) and Carcharodontosaurus (1931).

As a critic of Nazism, Stromer's career suffered under Nazi Germany. Since he came from an aristocratic background, the Nazis avoided arresting or publicly attacking him, but still sought to make his life difficult. In 1937, Stromer was forced to retire. During World War II, his three sons were conscripted and fought on the Eastern Front. Two of them were killed in 1941 and 1944, whilst the remaining son, Wolfgang, was captured and sent to a Soviet labour camp where he remained until being repatriated in 1951. but was declined by the director, Karl Beurlen. Beurlen was a convinced national socialist, who believed that the Luftwaffe would protect German cities. When Stromer unsuccessfully insisted that the fossils be relocated, Beurlen threatened to report him and to have Stromer placed in a concentration camp.

Stromer's drawings and notes survived the war. In 1995, Wolfgang donated photographs of his father's destroyed Spinosaurus specimen to the Palaeontological Museum, Munich.