Heinrich Dathe

Curt Heinrich Dathe (7 November 1910 – 6 January 1991) was a German zoologist best known for being the director of the Berlin Zoo where he helped in popularizing animal conservation and worked on the successful captive breeding of a range of animals including numerous species of birds.

As a youth he joined to become a member of the Nazi Party and regretted it in a posthumous biography.

He worked in a series of small jobs, helping on the market, and at one point employed to imitate different bird songs on the radio.

He was appointed director for the zoo and he served for more than three decades during which time he appeared regularly in radio and TV shows making him popular.

Dathe however was a director of the chapter (Ortsgruppe) at Leipzig zoo that helped in grassroots activities.

A school in Friedrichshain was renamed after him as the Dathe-Gymnasium but it was criticized on the basis of Dathe's NSDAP membership but this was debated and finally retained by a committee.