author
Erwin Baur
1875–1933
A pioneering German botanist and geneticist, he helped bring Mendelian genetics into mainstream research and transformed the study of plant breeding and plant disease. His work on heredity in plants made him an influential figure in early twentieth-century biology.
1 Audiobook
Grundriß der menschlichen Erblichkeitslehre und Rassenhygiene (1/2) Menschliche Erblichkeitslehre
by Erwin Baur, Eugen Fischer, Fritz Lenz
About the author
Born in 1875 in Ichenheim, Erwin Baur trained first in medicine before turning toward botany and genetics. He became one of the early champions of Mendelian genetics in Germany and built his reputation through experimental work on plants, especially studies of inheritance and mutation.
Baur is best known for research that helped explain heredity outside the nucleus, including classic work on variegated plants, and he is often described as a founder of plant virology. He also played a major institutional role in German science, serving in Berlin and later directing the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Breeding Research, where he promoted plant breeding as a modern experimental science.
His scientific influence was substantial, though his legacy is not uncomplicated: historical sources also connect him to eugenic and racial-hygiene ideas that circulated in Germany in his era. He died in Berlin in 1933, leaving behind a body of work that shaped genetics, botany, and agricultural research for decades.