Friedrich Joseph Laibach (April 2, 1885 – 5 June 1967

Ernst Klee Ernst Klee (15 March 1942, Frankfurt – 18 May 2013, Frankfurt) was a German journalist and author. As a writer on Germany's history, he was best known for his exposure and documentation of medical crimes in Nazi Germany, much of which was conce ...

: ''Das Personenlexikon zum Dritten Reich. Wer war was vor und nach 1945''. Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, Zweite aktualisierte Auflage, Frankfurt am Main 2005, ISBN 978-3-596-16048-8, p. 354.) was a German

botanist Botany, also called plant science, is the branch of natural science and biology studying plants, especially Plant anatomy, their anatomy, Plant taxonomy, taxonomy, and Plant ecology, ecology. A botanist or plant scientist is a scientist who s ...

from

Limburg-Weilburg Limburg-Weilburg is a Kreis (district) in the west of Hesse, Germany. Neighboring districts are Lahn-Dill, Hochtaunuskreis, Rheingau-Taunus, Rhein-Lahn, Westerwaldkreis. History *1867 the ''Oberlahnkreis'', capital Weilburg was created *1886 t ...

Life and work

Laibach was promoted in 1907 at the

University of Bonn The University of Bonn, officially the Rhenish Friedrich Wilhelm University of Bonn (), is a public research university in Bonn, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It was founded in its present form as the () on 18 October 1818 by Frederick Willi ...

(with

Eduard Strasburger Eduard Adolf Strasburger (1 February 1844 – 18 May 1912) was a Polish- German professor and one of the most famous botanists of the 19th century. He discovered mitosis in plants. Life Eduard Strasburger was born in Warsaw, Congress Poland, t ...

). In 1919 he qualified as a professor at the University of Frankfurt (botany). After becoming a member of the National Socialists and his accession to the

Nazi Party The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party ( or NSDAP), was a far-right politics, far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that created and supported the ideology of Nazism. Its precursor ...

(National Socialist German Workers' Party (German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, abbreviated NSDAP), he was ordained as director of the Botanical Institute at the

Goethe University Goethe University Frankfurt () is a public research university located in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. It was founded in 1914 as a citizens' university, which means it was founded and funded by the wealthy and active liberal citizenry of Frankfurt ...

Frankfurt Frankfurt am Main () is the most populous city in the States of Germany, German state of Hesse. Its 773,068 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the List of cities in Germany by population, fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located in the forela ...

from 1934 to 1945. From 1934 to 1936, he also took up university lectures at the University of Frankfurt. In 1945 he was released for political reasons. After the end of the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

he was head of the biological research institute Limburg from 1946. Laibach is the founder of experimental ''

Arabidopsis ''Arabidopsis'' (rockcress) is a genus in the family Brassicaceae. They are small flowering plants related to cabbage and mustard. This genus is of great interest since it contains thale cress (''Arabidopsis thaliana''), one of the model organ ...

'' research; the thale cress (''

Arabidopsis thaliana ''Arabidopsis thaliana'', the thale cress, mouse-ear cress or arabidopsis, is a small plant from the mustard family (Brassicaceae), native to Eurasia and Africa. Commonly found along the shoulders of roads and in disturbed land, it is generally ...

'') is a perennial weed which Laibach investigated in his doctoral thesis on the chromosome sets of plants.Klee, E. (2003). Das Personenlexikon zum Dritten Reich: Wer war was vor und nach 1945 (p. 731). Frankfurt: S. Fischer.

References

20th-century German botanists 1885 births {{Germany-botanist-stub 1967 deaths