RUDOLF KAUFMANN: PIONEER EVOLUTIONARY PALEONTOLOGIST

The names of Niles Eldredge and Stephen J. Gould are iconic. Their seminal hypothesis of punctuated equilibrium, the idea that evolution occurs via rapid “explosions” between long periods of stasis, originally appeared as a chapter in the 1972 textbook Models in Paleobiology. Their ground-breaking proposal was an aggregation and culmination of earlier ideas. One of the cornerstones in the foundation of this hypothesis was put in place by a little-known and underappreciated German geologist and paleontologist, one whose work was buried because of antisemitism and racism and whose love went unfulfilled from the nefarious forces of his time. Rudolf Kaufmann’s doctoral dissertation, with a meticulous attention to detail, outlining ideas on the evolution, allopatric speciation and adaptive radiation of the trilobite genus Olenus, aided in laying the groundwork for one of most profound hypotheses of evolutionary paleobiology. Rudolf Kaufmann has been relegated to scientific obscurity for the misfortune of being born in Germany before World War II.

Kaufmann was awarded his PhD from the University of Greifswald in February of 1933. In January of that year, Adolf Hitler was installed as Germany’s Chancellor. Kaufmann and his parents considered themselves Christians, however, Kaufmann’s grandparents were of Jewish ancestry. Labeled a “non-Aryan,” Kaufmann was stripped of his academic credentials and was fired from his position at the University. In an attempt to find employment, Kaufmann moved to Denmark, then Italy. Upon returning to Germany, he was jailed in Coburg for a violation of the “race laws” and ultimately sent to a prison in Amberg, serving a three-year sentence.

Upon release from prison, Kaufmann worked briefly in Germany as a laborer and then escaped to Lithuania. He avoided the concentration camps only because of a clerical error. In 1941, outside of Kaunas, Lithuania, he was summarily executed by German soldiers. Blind hatred and racism destroyed a brilliant scientific mind. Throughout his foreshortened adult life, Kaufmann continued his love of geology and study of trilobites, even while in prison.