Otto Warburg (20 July 1859 – 10 January 1938) was a German-Jewish botanist. He was also a notable industrial agriculture expert and president of the Zionist Organization from 1911 to 1921.
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Biography
Warburg was born in Hamburg on 20 July 1859 to a family whose ancestors came to Germany in 1566, possibly from Bologna. He completed his studies at the Johanneum Gymnasium in Hamburg in 1879, and continued his education in the field of botany at the University of Bonn which he left after one semester to move to the University of Berlin, and later to the University of Strasbourg, where he received his Ph.D. in 1883. He went on to study chemistry in Munich and physiology in Tübingen with Wilhelm Pfeffer. In 1885 he embarked on a 4-year expedition to Southern and Southeastern Asia, ending in Australia 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 appointed associate professor of Tropical Agriculture at the University of Berlin. Until 1900, he devoted himself primarily to botanical research.
Warburg's cremated remains were taken to Palestine and buried at Kibbutz Degania in 1940.