Anatol Heintz

Who was Anatol Heintz?

Anatol Heintz was a Norwegian palaeontologist.

He was born in Petrograd to the geophysicist Yevgeniy Alfredovich Heintz and Olga Fyodorovna Hoffmann. He had two older siblings. In 1919 the family fled to Norway. He studied at the Norwegian National Academy of Craft and Art Industry from 1919 to 1920 and at the Royal Frederick University from 1920, where he graduated in palaeontology in 1928. He was then hired as a curator at the Paleontological Museum of Tøyen. He took the dr.philos. degree in 1932 on the thesis The Structure of Dinichtys. A Contribution to our Knowledge of the Arthrodira. As a researcher he was inspired by Johan Kiær, and specialized in ancient fish, conducting paleontological expeditions to Svalbard. In 1939 he published Cephalaspida from Downtonian of Norway, about cephalaspida excavated at Ringerike. He was appointed professor at the University of Oslo and director of the Paleontological Museum in 1940.

In 1940 Norway was occupied by Nazi Germany. Open protests ensued when the Nazi authorities were about to change the rules for admission to the university in autumn 1943. In retaliation, the Gestapo arrested 11 staff, 60 male students and 10 female students.