author
Erwin Baur
1875–1933
A pioneering plant geneticist, he helped bring Mendelian genetics into German science and made early discoveries that shaped the study of heredity in plants. His work linked careful experiments with practical plant breeding, leaving a mark on both biology and agriculture.
1 Audiobook
Grundriß der menschlichen Erblichkeitslehre und Rassenhygiene (1/2) Menschliche Erblichkeitslehre
by Erwin Baur, Eugen Fischer, Fritz Lenz
About the author
Born in Ichenheim in 1875, Erwin Baur trained in medicine before moving into botany and genetics. He became one of the early champions of Mendelian genetics in Germany, and his research focused mainly on plants, especially questions of heredity, mutation, and breeding.
Baur is especially remembered for experimental work on snapdragons and for studies that helped establish plastid inheritance, an important idea in genetics. Sources also credit him as a founder of plant virology and as a key figure in developing modern plant breeding research in Germany.
He later served as the founding director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Breeding Research in Müncheberg. Baur died in Berlin in 1933, but his name remained closely tied to the growth of twentieth-century plant genetics and crop research.