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10 ADVANCES IN PALAEOICHTHYOLOGY
The Gross Symposium 2: Advances in
Palaeoichthyology
ERVĪNS LUKŠEVIČS and ĢIRTS STINKULIS
Department of Geology, Faculty of Geographical and Earth Sciences, University of Latvia,
Rainis Blvd 19, Riga, LV-1586; Ervins.Luksevics@lu.lv; Girts.Stinkulis@lu.lv.
At the end of 2003 the community of palaeontologists celebrated centennial anniversary
since has born outstanding palaeozoologist Walter Robert Gross. His destiny has been
characteristic for 20 th century being dynamic and changeable. W. Gross has been a
citizen of several now extinct countries – born in Livland, Russian Empire; lived in
Weimar Republic, III Reich, Democratic Republic of Germany; long time has been a
citizen of a new-born Republic of Latvia; during last period of his life became a citizen of
Federative Germany (Schultze 1996). He has born in 20 th August of 1903, in Katlakalns,
in family of Baltic German Lutheran pastor Ervin Johann Gross. From 1907 to 1918 the
Gross family lived in Straupe, pastorate close to the Straupe Castle and Church. Beautiful
nature in the vicinity of Straupe already in childhood has aroused a spirit of natural
scientist in Walter’s soul. He has been interested in plants and animals, collected herbaria
and observed birds. In his memoir W. Gross (1974) remembered that already 5 years old
he decided to become a zoologist. In teenage years W. Gross started to interest about
extinct animals, which fossils he has found in outcrops at the Brasla River banks, and at
age of 17 he already started to create serious palaeontological collections.
Being very young, in 1921, W. Gross entered the Naturforsher Vereins zu Riga. He
has established contacts with the museum, and later he consigned to this museum his
palaeontological materials, which are still kept at the Natural History Museum of Latvia
(Lukševics 2002). After the military service in armed forces of Latvia he resettled to
Germany, where has spent all the rest of his life, except shorter and longer journeys.
Studies in the Marburg-am-Lane University followed, and he had to do a difficult
choice between zoology and palaeontology, but in 1929 he needed to move to Berlin,
where the studies continued in the A. Humboldt University. During study years, Gross
continued to collect and study the Devonian vertebrate fossils from Gauja River and its
tributaries. Based on the work on placoderm fish Asterolepis ornata (Gross 1931) the
degree of Doctor of Philosophy was assigned to W. Gross in 1931; he became also a
corresponding member of the Naturforscher Vereins zu Riga. Several important papers
were written between 1931 and 1935, which were focused mostly on the Devonian
fishes, mainly from the Baltic.
Since 1936 Gross became a docent at Humboldt University, since 1943 an associate
professor at the same university (Schultze 1996). Also during this time he maintained
contacts with Baltic geologists and the Naturforscher Vereins zu Riga administration;
during this time several publications of Gross were issued on Estonian and Latvian
placoderms, acanthodians and sarcopterygians (Gross 1940, 1941). In middle of the 2 nd
World War professor Gross has been enrolled in the Reich Army, where he served until
the end of war; he was interned as prisoner of war, released in 1946. Only in 1949 W.
Gross has returned to the Berlin, Humboldt University, where became a professor of