Otto Warburg (agricultural botanist)

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Otto Warburg (1911)

Otto Warburg (born July 20, 1859 in Hamburg , † February 10, 1938 in Berlin ) was a German agricultural botanist , co-founder of the Colonial Economic Committee and Zionist . Its official botanical author abbreviation is “ Warb. “He was president of the World Zionist Organization .

Life

After graduating from high school in 1879, he studied natural sciences (botany, chemistry and zoology) in Bonn , Berlin and Strasbourg . He submitted his dissertation in Strasbourg in 1883 . In 1885 he undertook a four-year trip to East Asia, which took him to India and Ceylon , the Dutch colony of Java , China , Korea , Japan , Formosa and Australia . After his return in 1889, he aroused great interest with the hundreds of plants he had acquired on his expeditions, gave numerous lectures and published articles in specialist journals. After completing the systematisation and scientific evaluation, he handed over his collection to the Botanical Museum in Berlin in 1893.

As a tropical botanist, he was a member of various committees of the German Colonial Society and in 1896, together with Karl Supf and others, founded the Colonial Economic Committee in Berlin. Warburg was a committed advocate of applied botany for the development of agriculture in the German colonies and accordingly, together with the Bonn agricultural scientist Ferdinand Wohltmann, initiated the publication of the journal Der Tropenpflanzer (from 1897). As an entrepreneur he participated in the founding of several colonial economic companies, some of which he was a member of the board of directors and supervisory board.

Around 1900 he turned to Zionism . Together with Franz Oppenheimer and Selig Eugen Soskin , he was a member of the Commission for the Exploration of Palestine set up by the Sixth Zionist Congress in Basel in 1903 and editor of the journal Altneuland . As a member of the commission, Warburg was significantly involved in early initiatives for the development of Palestine, beginning with a call for the 'olive tree donation' in 1904. The "Narrower Action Committee", EAC, of ​​the Zionist World Organization ZWO saw him as a member from 1905 in Cologne, from 1911 as its chairman, then in Berlin until 1920.

In 1920 Warburg founded an agricultural research station in Rehovot on behalf of the ZWO. In 1922/1923 he promoted the Hebrew University of Jerusalem while traveling in the USA. Under his leadership, the originally independent research station entered into close ties with the biological-botanical faculty as the Institute of Agriculture and Natural History . After his retirement in 1933, Warburg continued to support the university from Berlin. As chairman (1934–1937) of the Society of Friends of the Jerusalem Library , he was committed to ensuring that book bequests from Jewish families who had to emigrate under the pressure of Nazi persecution should not be squandered, but should go to libraries in Eretz Israel in an orderly manner .

The Otto Warburg Minerva Center in Rechovot , which was founded in 1984 as an Israeli-German joint venture and belongs to the Agricultural, Food and Environmental Quality Sciences Faculty of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem , is named after Warburg's achievements.

It is not uncommon for Otto Warburg to be confused with the Nobel Prize winner of the same name, but much better known, Otto Warburg , for example when it comes to personal master data in online library catalogs. Both Warburgs were distantly related, but did not know each other personally, and often received each other's mail by mistake, since both were working in Berlin at the same time.

Honors

In 1892 Otto Warburg was elected a member of the Leopoldina .

To him, the plant genera were in honor Warburgia Engl. The plant family of Canellaceae , Warburgina Eig from the family of the redness plants (Rubiaceae) and the moss genus Warburgiella Müll.Hal. ex Broth. named.

Fonts (selection)

  • About the construction of the wood of Caulotretus heterophyllus . Diss. Rer. nat. Strasbourg 1883.
  • The nutmeg. Their history, botany, culture, trade and exploitation as well as their adulterations and surrogates. At the same time a contribution to the cultural history of the Banda Islands . Verlag Engelmann Leipzig 1897. Text put online in its entirety. [1]
  • Monsunia. Contributions to the knowledge of the vegetation of the South and East Asian monsoon area. Engelmann Leipzig 1900.
  • The rubber plants and their culture . Berlin 1900.
  • History and development of applied botany . In: Reports of the German Botanical Society, Vol. 19, 1901, pp. 153-183.
  • Cultivated plants of the world economy . Publisher R. Voigtländer Leipzig 1908.
  • The flora . 3 volumes, Bibliographisches Institut, Leipzig 1913, 1916 and 1922.

literature

  • Jacob Thon: Sefer Warburg (Hebrew, Das Buch Warburg ), Jerusalem 1948.
  • Frank Leimkugel: Botanical Zionism - Otto Warburg (1859-1938) and the beginnings of institutionalized natural sciences in "Erez Israel". Series: Englera, 26th ed. Botanical Garden and Botanical Museum Dahlem, Berlin 2005 ISBN 3921800544

Web links

Wikisource: Otto Warburg  - Sources and full texts
Commons : Otto Warburg  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Free University of Berlin, Botanical Garden and Botanical Museum Berlin-Dahlem : Special exhibition 1998. Otto Warburg . on www.bgbm.org
  2. ^ The Hebrew University of Jerusalem: Otto Warburg Minerva Center, Faculty of Agricultural, Food and Environmental Quality Sciences . on www.departments.agri.huji.ac.il (English)
  3. ↑ Member entry of Otto Warburg at the German Academy of Natural Scientists Leopoldina , accessed on June 10, 2016.
  4. ↑ Lotte Burkhardt: Directory of eponymous plant names - Extended Edition. Part I and II. Botanic Garden and Botanical Museum Berlin , Freie Universität Berlin , Berlin 2018, ISBN 978-3-946292-26-5 doi: 10.3372 / epolist2018 .
personal data
SURNAME Warburg, Otto
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German agricultural botanist, co-founder of the Colonial Economic Committee and Zionist
DATE OF BIRTH July 20, 1859
PLACE OF BIRTH Hamburg
DATE OF DEATH February 10, 1938
Place of death Berlin