Early years Hermann Loew was born in
Weissenfels, Saxony a short distance south of
Halle (Germany). The Loew family, though not wealthy, was well-placed. Loew's father was a functionary for the Department of Justice of the Duchy of
Saxony who later became a
Geheimer Regierungsrath of
Prussia. Between 1817 and 1829 Loew attended first the Convent School of
Rossleben, then the
University of Halle-Wittenberg, graduating in mathematics,
philology and
natural history.
Teacher, tutor and husband Recognizing his abilities as a mathematician, the university, on his graduation, appointed him as a lecturer in the same subjects. In 1830 he went to Berlin and gave lessons in different higher grade schools including the
Kadetten-Schule military school. Here he was private tutor to Prince Biron heir to the
Duchy of Courland and Semigallia and the young
Friedrich Wilhelm Ernst Albrecht von Graefe (1828–1870) later one of the most famous
oculists of all times. In 1834 Loew was appointed superior teacher (
Oberlehrer) at the Friedrich-Wilhelm-
Gymnasium in Posen, known today as
St. John Cantius High School in Poznań, Poland where he taught mathematics and natural history. In the same year, he married the daughter of senior preacher Ehricht, a favourite sermoniser. Several of Loew's pupils at Posen became scientific celebrities, the most notable being the philosopher
Kuno Fischer (1824–1907) and the mathematicians
Leo Königsberger (1837–1921) and
Lazarus Immanuel Fuchs (1835–1902). That they became such, gifted though they were, must have been due to Loew's extraordinary abilities and his popularity with students.
East Asia In 1841-2 Loew accompanied
Heinrich Kiepert (1818–1899), a celebrated
geographer, and August Schoenborn to the Near East. The results of this trip were later partly communicated to
Hermann Carl Conrad Burmeister (1807–1892),
Philipp Christoph Zeller and to
Alexander von Humboldt (1769–1859), but the remainder (the greatest part), were used in Loew's own later publications. August Schoenborn,
philologist and
geographer, was also a professor at the Friedrich-Wilhelm-Gymnasium in Posen, and author of
Latin school books. He eventually became Loew's brother-in-law. Humboldt was of course the author of the chattily readable "Kosmos", an account of the visible universe, and the most celebrated German naturalist explorer of his day. Many other countries were visited en route including places in the
Ottoman Empire.
Politics In 1848 Loew was elected to the German Parliament in
Frankfurt am Main. Elected to the first German Parliament when 40 years old, Loew resisted the separatist longings of the Poles from his outpost (Posen) near the frontier of
Poland. He belonged to
Heinrich von Gagern's Imperial Party, a grouping which fostered
Liberalism in Germany and pursued a policy of fusion for the German states.
Tragedy, Disappointment and a return to teaching Disillusioned by the failure to realise German unity and distressed by the death of his 21-year-old daughter from the
plague, in 1850, Loew left politics. In 1850 he was appointed director of the royal
Realschule Mesritz (a Realschule is a school emphasizing technical and scientific studies). Due to the efforts of Loew, the Mesritz Realschule was later to become a
gymnasium (a more classical sort of school, though still scientific). While at Mesritz Loew gave up politics so as not to be in conflict with the educational department, and resisted offers of a seat in the
Prussian Landtag (Federal state parliament) for the district of Mesritz-Bomst.
Bad health Severe health problems between 1851 and 1854 forced retirement. In 1868 he received a pension and took up the study of Diptera full-time after moving to
Guben,
Prussia. Here he worked incessantly on Diptera. In 1870 he was elected city councillor and vice-president of the city council in Guben and held a seat in the legislature in Berlin for the Sorau-Guben district between 1873 and 1876.
Last years The imminent end of Loew was signaled on a summer holiday in Blankenburg in
Thuringia when he had a
paralytic stroke after which he sought treatment in the Diaconissen-Haus in Halle, Saxony, and died on 21 April 1879. Only three of his seven children survived him. His obituary in the Vassisches Zeitung described him as a "distinguished pedagogue, naturalist pioneer of German Unity".
Loew's character A
Lutheran protestant, Loew's motto was "Gott Helfe" – God helps or God may help. Loew was an obsessive worker. Something of his nature can be judged from his refusing to eat warm food to pay off the loans incurred during his education, and from his extraordinary
calligraphy, with its machine-like precision. There is never any difficulty with reading a Loew label, characteristically justified to the side margins. Loew shared such personality traits with the neurotically obsessive fellow entomologist
Alexander Henry Haliday. ==Work==