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Otto Warburg | |
|---|---|
 Otto Warburg, 1911 | |
| Born | (1859-07-20)20 July 1859 |
| Died | 10 January 1938(1938-01-10) (aged 78) |
| Occupation | botanist |
| Spouse | Anna |
| Children | Edgar, Gertrud, Siegmond, Gustav |
| Scientific career | |
| Author abbrev. (botany) | Warb. |
Otto Warburg (20 July 1859 – 10 January 1938) was aGerman-Jewishbotanist. He was also a notableindustrial agriculture expert and president of theZionist Organization from 1911 to 1921.
Warburg was born inHamburg on 20 July 1859 to a family whose ancestors came to Germany in 1566, possibly fromBologna. He completed his studies at the Johanneum Gymnasium in Hamburg in 1879, and continued his education in the field ofbotany at theUniversity of Bonn which he left after one semester to move to theUniversity of Berlin, and later to theUniversity of Strasbourg, where he received hisPh.D. in 1883. He went on to studychemistry inMunich andphysiology inTübingen withWilhelm Pfeffer. In 1885 he embarked on a 4-year expedition toSouthern andSoutheastern Asia, ending inAustralia in 1889.
He brought back hundreds of plant samples from his field research that he classified upon his return to Berlin after 1889. In 1897, he was appointedassociate professor of Tropical Agriculture at the University of Berlin. Until 1900, he devoted himself primarily to botanical research.[1]
Warburg's cremated remains were taken toPalestine and buried atKibbutzDegania in 1940.[2]
In 1911 Warburg was elected president of theZionist Organization. In 1920 he moved to Palestine and became founding director of the Agricultural Experimental Station inTel Aviv. It later became the 'Institute of Agriculture and Natural History'.[3] One of his students wasNaomi Feinbrun-Dothan.[4]
His findings were published between 1913 and 1922 in three volumes titledDie Pflanzenwelt. Upon his return to Berlin he co-foundedDer Tropenpflanzer, a journal specializing intropical agriculture, which he edited for 24 years. Realizing that as a Jew he would not be appointedfull professor, he diverted his attentions to applied botanics, and founded several companies of tropical industrial plantations in Germany's colonies.[citation needed]
Warburg was also one of the members of the El Arish expedition, appointed byTheodor Herzl as the agricultural member of the team led by Leopold Kessler.[citation needed]
in 1931 he founded theNational Botanic Garden of Israel in theHebrew University in Jerusalem onMount Scopus together with thebotanistAlexander Eig. After he retired from his position in Jerusalem in 1933, Warburg moved back to Berlin and died in early 1938.[3]
Taxa named includeDovyalis caffra,Virola peruviana,Cephalosphaera usambarensis, and the pitcher plantNepenthes treubiana.
His son, Gustav Otto Warburg, published the bookSix years of Hitler – The Jews under the Nazi regime in 1939 in London. The extent to which Jews were being persecuted in Germany through the 1930s was a hotly debated issue, with manyapologists downplaying the centrality of race inNazi ideology. This book provided counter arguments to this position. Based on official German publications and reliable external reports, it details the many methods adopted by the Nazi party against the Jews.[citation needed]
