1940 deaths

Peter Behrens (14 April 1868 – 27 February 1940) was a leading German architect, graphic and industrial designer, best known for his early pioneering AEG Turbine Hall in Berlin in 1909. He had a long career, designing objects, typefaces, and important buildings in a range of styles from the 1900s to the 1930s. He was a foundation member of the German Werkbund in 1907, when he also began designing for AEG, pioneered corporate design, graphic design, producing typefaces, objects, and buildings for the company. In the next few years, he became a successful architect, a leader of the rationalist / classical German Reform Movement of the 1910s. After WW1 he turned to Brick Expressionism, designing the remarkable Hoechst Administration Building outside Frankfurt, and from the mid-1920s increasingly to New Objectivity. He was also an educator, heading the architecture school at Academy of Fine Arts Vienna from 1922 to 1936. As a well known architect he produced design across Germany, in other European countries, Russia and England. Several of the leading names of European modernism worked for him when they were starting out in the 1910s, including Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Le Corbusier and Walter Gropius.

J.-H. Rosny aîné was the pseudonym of Joseph Henri Honoré Boex (17 February 1856 – 11 February 1940). He is a French author of Belgian origin, he is considered as one of the founding figures of the modern science fiction[citation needed] . Born in Brussels in 1856. He wrote in French in collaboration with his younger-brother Séraphin Justin François Boex under the pen name J.-H. Rosny until 1909. After they ended their collaboration, Joseph Boex continued to write under the name "Rosny aîné" (Rosny the Elder) while his brother used J.-H. Rosny jeune (Rosny the Younger).

Walter Georg Alfred Hasenclever (8 July 1890 – 22 June 1940) was a German Jewish Expressionist poet and playwright. His works were banned when the Nazis came to power and he went into exile in France. There he was imprisoned as a "foreign enemy". He died in Les Milles (Camp des Milles) near Aix-en-Provence.

Wilhelm Dörpfeld (26 December 1853 – 25 April 1940) was a German architect and archaeologist, a pioneer of stratigraphic excavation and precise graphical documentation of archaeological projects. He is famous for his work on Bronze Age sites around the Mediterranean, such as Tiryns and Hisarlik (the site of the legendary city of Troy), where he continued Heinrich Schliemann's excavations. Like Schliemann, Dörpfeld was an advocate of the historical reality of places mentioned in the works of Homer. While the details of his claims regarding locations mentioned in Homer's writings are not considered accurate by later archaeologists, his fundamental idea that they correspond to real places is accepted. Thus, his work greatly contributed to not only scientific techniques and study of these historically significant sites but also a renewed public interest in the culture and the mythology of Ancient Greece.

Edwin DuBose Heyward (August 31, 1885 – June 16, 1940) was an American author best known for his 1925 novel Porgy. He and his wife Dorothy, a playwright, adapted it as a 1927 play of the same name. The couple worked with composer George Gershwin to adapt the work as the 1935 opera Porgy and Bess. It was later adapted as a 1959 film of the same name.
Heyward also wrote poetry and other novels and plays. He wrote the children's book The Country Bunny and the Little Gold Shoes (1939).

Félix Grimonprez (30 June 1910 – 26 May 1940) was a French field hockey player who competed in the 1928 Summer Olympics and in the 1936 Summer Olympics.
He was born in Lille.
In 1928 he was part of the French field hockey team which was eliminated in the groups stage of the 1928 Olympic tournament. He played all three matches as forward and scored one goal.
Eight years later he was a member of the French field hockey team, which finish fourth in the 1936 Olympic tournament. He played all five matches as halfback.
He was killed in action during World War II.

John Henry Muirhead (28 April 1855 – 24 May 1940) was a Scottish philosopher best known for having initiated the Muirhead Library of Philosophy in 1890. He became the first person named to the Chair of Philosophy at the University of Birmingham in 1900.

Maurice Jaubert (3 January 1900 – 19 June 1940) was a prolific French composer who scored some of the most important films of the early sound era in France, including Jean Vigo’s Zero for Conduct and L'Atalante, and René Clair’s Quatorze Juillet and Le Dernier Milliardaire. Serving in both world wars, he died in action during World War II at the age of 40.

Arturo Bocchini (Italian pronunciation: [arˈturo bokˈkini]; 12 February 1880 – 20 November 1940) was an Italian civil servant, who was appointed Chief of the Police under the Fascist regime of Benito Mussolini. Bocchini held the office from September 1926 until his death in November 1940, becoming a key figure in the Italian regime.
He was the head both of the regular police (State Police) and the secret police (OVRA) which was a pervasive national security agency that operated at all levels of Italian society. Bocchini only reported directly to the Duce and operated autonomously without interference from the National Fascist Party and the state prefects. His power within the government led to him being called the "Vice Duce".

Émile Argand (6 January 1879 – 14 September 1940) was a Swiss geologist.
He was born in Eaux-Vives near Geneva. He attended vocational school in Geneva then worked as a draftsman. He studied anatomy in Paris, but gave up medicine to pursue his interest in geology.
He was an early proponent of Alfred Wegener's theory of continental drift, viewing plate tectonics and continental collisions as the best explanation for the formation of the Alps. He is also noted for his application of the theory of tectonics to the continent of Asia.
He founded the Geological Institute of Neuchâtel, Switzerland.