Konrad Lorenz

(1903 - 1989)

At the age of six, Konrad Lorenz read the Swedish children’s book The Wonderful Adventures of Nils, in which a mischievous boy flies off with a flock of wild geese. Shortly thereafter, Lorenz, along with his childhood friend and future wife Margarethe Gebhardt, adopted two ducklings. “We lived with them a complete duck’s life,” he recalled, “and within a few months we were most thoroughly familiar with the whole repertoire of all the things a duck can do or say.” The Austrian-born zoologist—who served as a military psychologist in the Office of Racial Policy during World War II and was later revealed, despite his denials, to have been a member of the Nazi Party—was awarded a Nobel Prize in 1973 for his work in the field of animal behavior.