HAAS, FRITZ

HAAS, FRITZ (1886–1969), German zoologist. Born in Frankfurt, Haas was the youngest of four children in a banker's family. His early interest in zoology was focused on mollusks,   and his entire scientific career was devoted to a study of these animals. In 1911 he was appointed assistant keeper of invertebrate zoology at the Naturmuseum Senckenberg, Frankfurt. In 1914 Haas was on a collecting visit to the Pyrenees and was stranded in Spain for the duration of World War I. He put these years to productive use, and did extensive investigations with Spanish mollusks, which resulted in more than a score of papers on the molluscan fauna of Spain. On returning to Germany after the war, he became editor of the Archiv fuer Molluskenkunde and in 1922 was promoted to keeper of invertebrate zoology. With the advent of the Nazi regime, Haas was removed from his posts in 1936, and fled to the U.S. In 1938 he was appointed curator of lower invertebrates at the Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago. Though officially retired, from 1959 Haas continued his scientific activity with vigor, publishing a number of important monographs during the following decade, including the definitive monograph on freshwater clams in Das Tierreich. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: A. Solem, in: Fieldiana: Zoology, 53 no. 2 (1967), 71–144, includes bibliography of his writings. (Mordecai L. Gabriel)