Childhood and Youth

Abstract

Ernst Walter Mayr was born on 5 July 1904 in Kempten, at the northern foot of the Alps, located in southern Germany, and he was the middle of three brothers. His father, Dr. jur. Otto Mayr (23 July 1867–1 July 1917) was a successful jurist from a peasant family in Oberegg near Kempten (Fig. 1.1). The family name “Mayr” is fairly frequent in Bavaria. Ernst’s great-grandfather, Johann Evangelist Mayr, was born in Westenried near Unterthingau on 16 December 1807 and died in Altusried (near Kempten) on 28 June 1864. He and a second great-grandfather (Bonifaz Müller) were the first physicians in the family and established a long medical tradition that is still alive in the family today. Johann Mayr had two sons, Dr. med. Otto Mayr (OM 1, born in Altusried on 8 August 1833, died in Lindau on 17 January 1912), Ernst’s grandfather, and Eugen Adolf Mayr (born on 16 December 1839, died in Nürnberg after 1920). Dr. Otto Mayr (OM 1) studied medicine in Munich. He was at first a physician in Oberstdorf in southwest Germany (where Ernst’s father was born) and later in Lindau am Bodensee (Lake Constance) where he became a doctor at the town hospital and served as surgeon for the poor. He was a naturalist, apiculturist, and hunter, and he participated on a regular basis in the annual meetings of the German Society of Naturalists and Surgeons. He married Wilhelmine (“Minna”) Müller, a member of the distinguished Gruber family, respected landowners in this region. Minna Mayr lived from 3 October 1847 to 22 December 1928.