Academic staff of Heidelberg University

Rudolf_Magnus

Rudolf Magnus (2 September 1873, Brunswick – 25 July 1927, Pontresina) was a German pharmacologist and physiologist. He studied medicine, specialising in pharmacology, in Heidelberg, where he became associate professor of pharmacology in 1904. In 1908 he became the first professor of pharmacology in Utrecht, where he spent the rest of his working life.
Had he lived, he likely would have been awarded the Nobel Prize for his work on animal reflexes. The authors of Nobel, the Man and his Prizes by H.Schück et al., edited by the Nobel Foundation (2nd ed. Amsterdam, 1962, p. 311) wrote of Magnus and his co-worker De Kleyn: ‘The examiner [1927] declared that the work done by Magnus and De Kleyn clearly deserved a prize, and the prospects for an award seemed most favourable when Magnus unexpectedly died.’ For his life and work see, Rudolf Magnus, Physiologist and Pharmacologist: A Biography (2002, Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences) by his son, Dr.Otto Magnus.
Magnus had five children, Karl (1903-1989) lung specialist; Margarete (Gretl)(1905-1968)who worked as his secretary and translator; Dorothea who died aged 11; Erica (1909-1991) architect; and Otto (1913-2014) neurologist.
Magnus is most widely known for his work as a physiologist. His book Körperstellung ("Posture")., a study of functional neurology, is his best known work.

Erich_Maschke

Erich Maschke (March 2, 1900 – February 11, 1982) was a German historian, history professor, and Nazi ideologue. He last taught at Heidelberg University. During the Nazi era he promoted racist and nationalist ideology. After the war he led the so-called Maschke Committee, commissioned by the West German parliament, which investigated the treatment of German prisoners-of-war during and after World War II by the Allies.

M._Rainer_Lepsius

M. Rainer Lepsius (8 May 1928 – 2 October 2014) was a German sociologist. A particular interest was in the work of Max Weber: he was prominent among the co-compilers of the (eventually) 47 volume edition of the Complete Works of Weber.

Hans_Ehrenberg

Hans Philipp Ehrenberg (German: [hans ˈeː.ʁənbɛʁk] ; 4 June 1883 – 21 March 1958) was a German Jewish philosopher and theologian. One of the co-founders of the Confessing Church, he was forced to emigrate to England because of his Jewish ancestry and his opposition to Nazism.

Martin_Dibelius

Martin Franz Dibelius (1883–1947) was a German Protestant theologian and New Testament professor at the University of Heidelberg. Dibelius was born in Dresden, Germany, on September 14, 1883. Along with Rudolf Bultmann he helped define a period in research about the historical Jesus characterized by skepticism toward the possibility of describing Jesus with historical certainty. In this capacity he is often regarded as an early pioneer of New Testament form criticism, a highly analytical review of literary forms within the New Testament. After studying at multiple universities, he eventually ended up as a teacher of New Testament exegesis and criticism at Heidelberg University. He is well known for portraying Jesus' Sermon on the Mount as reflecting ideals that are impossible to live up to in what he considered a fallen world. He died in Heidelberg on November 11, 1947.

Hugo_Merton

Hugo Merton (18 November 1879 in Frankfurt am Main – 23 March 1940 in Edinburgh) was a German zoologist.
He studied sciences at the University of Heidelberg. From October 1907 to August 1908, with herpetologist Jean Roux, he conducted scientific investigations in the Aru and Kei Islands. In 1913 he obtained his habilitation at Heidelberg with a dissertation on the flatworm genus Temnocephala. Because of the 1935 Nuremberg Laws imposed by the Nazis, he was forced to relinquish his position as deputy director at the Senckenberg Museum in Frankfurt as well as his professorship at the University of Heidelberg.In 1937, by way of an invitation from Professor F. A. E. Crew, he went to the University of Edinburgh, where he spent time working in the institute of animal genetics. Upon this return to Germany in 1938, he was arrested and imprisoned in the concentration camp at Dachau. During the following year, he was deported to Scotland, where he resumed his work at the university. Due to deteriorated health, he died soon afterwards in March 1940.Organisms with the specific epithet of mertoni are named in his honor, an example being the sea snake species Parahydrophis mertoni. In 1911, Max Carl Wilhelm Weber named the fish species Pseudomugil gertrudae after Merton's wife, Gertrude.

Karl_Diehl_(economist)

Karl Diehl (March 27, 1864, Frankfurt – May 12, 1943 in Freiburg im Breisgau) was a German economist and professor who taught from 1908 until his death in Freiburg. He taught at the universities of Heidelberg and Freiburg, known for teaching on the subject of Anarchism.The motivating force behind his scholarship was that academia must counter the idea that "...anarchism represents a criminal sect which lacks any social or political programme..." According to one historian on German reformers, Diehl had acquired a reputation as the "most important authority on socialism, communism, and anarchism," comparable only to Werner Sombart.

Reinhard_Mecke

Reinhard Mecke (born 14 July 1895 in Stettin; died 30 December 1969) was a German physicist, who focused on chemical physics. He was one of the pioneers of infrared spectroscopy.
Reinhard Mecke studied from 1913 mathematics and physics at the universities of Freiburg, Bern and Marburg and did his doctorate at Franz Richarz in Marburg in 1920 on halos in homogeneous nebulas. He then worked for Heinrich Konen at the university of Bonn, where he habilitated in 1923 on spectral bands of jod and where he became a privatdozent. 1927 he married one of his PhD students M. Guillery and had with her nine children including Dieter Mecke.
1932 he became extraordinary professor for chemical physics at the University of Heidelberg, as proposed by Max Trautz. He investigated spectral bands of evaporated water and infrared and Raman spectroscopy of small organic molecules. He proved the existence of the spin onto rotary oscillation spectra of molecules. 1937 he became professor for theoretical physics at the university of Freiburg and investigated there hydrogen bonds by infrared spectroscopy. 1942 he became ordinary professor and director of the Institute for Physical Chemistry. Additionally, he was in 1958 the founder and until 1968 the director of the Institute for electric materials (Institut für Elektrowerkstoffe) of the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft and the head of the Institute for Physical Chemistry. 1963 he retired in Freiburg.
1964 he became member of the Leopoldina. 1965 he received the Bunsen medal.
He was co-author of the Handbuch der Physik by Geiger and Scheel. His article Vorlesungstechnik with Anton Lambertz of the first volume was also published as a book. He was one of the organisers of the Conferences of nobel laureates in Lindau.

Gabriel_Steiner

Gabriel Steiner (26 May 1883, Ulm – 10 August 1965, Detroit) was a German-American neurologist known for his research of multiple sclerosis. In his studies, he postulated a link between multiple sclerosis and certain forms of spirochetes.Of Jewish ancestry, he studied medicine at the universities of Munich, Würzburg, Freiburg and Strasbourg, receiving his doctorate at the latter university in 1910. In 1913 he qualified as a lecturer in neurology and psychiatry, and from 1920, worked as an associate professor at the University of Heidelberg. Here, he was also head of the laboratory for pathological anatomy at the psychiatric-neurological clinic.In 1936 he emigrated to the United States, where from 1937 to 1954, he served as a professor of neurology and neuropathology at Wayne State University School of Medicine in Detroit. In retirement, he was director of the Michigan Multiple Sclerosis Center.