Heinz Sielmann

Who was Heinz Sielmann?

Heinz Sielmann was a world renowned wildlife photographer, biologist, zoologist and documentary filmmaker.

His first film, in 1938, was a silent movie on birdlife in East Prussia and the Klaipėda Region. Further work was interrupted by the war. He was initially stationed in occupied Poznán, as an instructor at a radio-communications training unit of the Luftwaffe.

Sielmann was degree in Biology and specialized in Zoology, in 1940, at the Imperial Posen University.[2], at that time a Germanized University. Later, he was stationed in Crete where he was able to work cinematographically. After the war he began widely recognized work for the Educational Film Institute of the States of Germany. His feature film about woodpeckers, "Carpenters of the forest" was a huge success in the United Kingdom when broadcast by the BBC at the behest of David Attenborough. It earned Sielmann the nickname "Mr. Woodpecker".

His work includes award-winning movies like Lords of the Forest