Hans Stadler

Hans Stadler (11 April 1875 – 22 August 1962) was a German physician and naturalist. He had absolute pitch, and took a keen interest in the study and description of bird calls, and a wrote a book, Die Vogelsprache, on the subject in collaboration with Cornel Schmitt. Along with Schmitt, he made bird recordings in the field before 1914.

Life and work Stadler was born in Rain am Lech. His father loved fishing, while his grandfather kept birds at home, and the young Stadler also developed an interest in nature. He attended Gymnasium in Regensburg living under very strict conditions, and was unable to explore nature. Around 1892, he was in contact with Ottmar Hofmann (1835-1900), an entomologist and friend of his father. He also met the Nuremberg doctor Ludwig Koch (1825-1908), who specialized in spiders. Stadler was among the first to suggest that the characters of a bird song might be affected by the environment they live in. He coined the term melotope for variations in bird song with habitat. He suggested that birds in similar habitats may have a similar structure and particularly that birds in habitats with low-frequency noise might use higher frequency vocalizations.

Stadler became a founding editor of the periodical of the Aschaffenburg Natural History Museum, Nachrichten des Naturwissenschaftlichen Museums der Stadt Aschaffenburg, through which he promoted nature conservation. During World War I he served in Italy.

He was a member of the Bund Naturschutz and was involved in the protecting old oak forests with the support of Herman Dingler. Stadler joined the NSDAP in 1922, and from 1932 to 1935 he was a local group leader. He gave lively lectures on nature protection, which included imitations of birdsong. At the International Ornithological Congress in 1930, he suggested that a library of bird song be created, just as bird skin collections were maintained by museums. When the Nazi party passed the (Reich Nature Conservation Act) in 1935, he was made an honorary nature conservation officer for Mainfranken district. He worked with Alwin Seifert, and claimed that "Holzjuden" (Jewish timber merchants, ) would deplete the old oak forests. Stadler's obtained some land near Romberg which was taken over and included as part of a nature reserve in 1942. He travelled widely in Europe and became acquainted with Stanko Karaman. At the end of World War II in 1945, Stadler was arrested due to his former party associations, and placed in the Hammelburg civilian internment camp. Here he met many other nature lovers, including the entomologist Wolfgang Stichel, with whom he wrote about the animals of the camp. Stichel even described a species Acanthosoma stadleri, however this is considered a synonym of Acanthosoma haemorrhoidale (Linnaeus, 1758). He was released from internment in 1946, after which he did not restart his clinic, but instead began to explore the Romberg nature reserve, and continued to work on nature conservation until his death.

Stadler is buried in the Sendelbach Cemetery. The lake near was named as Stadlersee in his honour. The lake continues to hold a population of endangered brine shrimps Eubranchipus grubii, that Stadler had discovered.