10 INTRODUCTION VOL. 12 (1953) 



He is best characterized as an artisan, or even, by his own frequent sav so in pnbhc, 

 as a technician. He believes that, in the natural sciences, one can find out something 

 new when one does something with one's hands that nobody did before. Thus, the 

 fermentation of tumors was discovered when in the surrounding Ringer-solution the 

 bicarbonate concentration was raised 20-fold. Iron-oxygenase was discovered when in 

 biological experimentation with carbon monoxide the CO-pressure was raised looo-fold. 

 Acyl phosphate was discovered when in the oxidation-reaction of fermentation the 

 phosphate concentration was raised 20-fold. The energy cycle and one-quantum reaction 

 of photosynthesis was discovered when the light-dark time intervals measured in 

 manometry were shortened from 5 minutes to i minute. Or, to mention an earlier classic 

 example: the discovery of Planck's energy quanta was initiated when in 1899 Lummer 

 and Pringsheim placed Kurlbaum's bolometer before a black body heated to different 

 temperatures. 



Although Otto Warburg endeavors to advance science mainly through his own 

 experimental works, it cannot be said that he fails to look out for the future of scientists. 

 Thus, he very early recognized the native gifts of Richard Kuhn and Adolf Butenandt, 

 and assisted notably in their obtaining research institutes of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society 

 at relatively youthful ages, and he is at present similarly concerned for younger col- 

 leagues. For all positions obtained by Otto Meyerhof in Germany — in Kiel, in Berlin, 

 and in Heidelberg — he labored, successfully, against widespread opposition. After 1933, 

 I he helped scores of political refugees to leave Germany and to obtain haven and positions 

 ' elsewhere. 



But, like the Cowardly Lion of Oz, he was no "resistance-fighter": he was not 

 prepared to die a.^ a defenceless scientist in combat with political dictators. Yet he has 

 been evet ready to lose his life as a soldier in the army. In World War I, as an officer 

 in the Prussian Horse Guards on the Russian front, he rode in many field patrols in 

 advance of the infantry, and was eventually wounded in action. In the early years of 

 this fighting, he was, by the by, armed with both pistol and — less effective but more 

 sinister ^ — -mediaeval lance! 



He has spent the greater part of his life in Berlin, the most restless city in a restless 

 world. Here he was ever favored with luck. In World War II, during the years 1939 to 

 1945, he and his entire staff enjoyed the singular privilege of continuing to work on 

 purely scientific problems without reference to war work (see appended table). In 1943, 

 as Berlin became dangerous because of air attacks. Prince von Eulenberg placed at his 

 j disposal the nearby castle of Liebenberg, where he and his staff lived and worked, with 

 transported equipment, undisturbed until 1945. In that year the Red Army took 

 possession of the Island of Riigen in the Baltic, and immediately provided a military 

 guard for his estate there, making it possible for him to continue liis studies still un- 

 disturbed. 

 [ His only misfortune was that in June i()45 the Russians removed all the eciuipmcnt 



from his institutes. It appears that this took place at the instigation of the loceil Dahlcm 

 communists, for shortly thereafter Marshal Zhukov, Commander-in-Chief of the Russian- 

 occupied zone, invited Warburg for a visit to tell him, in the name of the Russian 

 government, that the dismanthng of his institutes had been a mistake, and a misfortune 

 I for science. The Marshal issued an order that the apparatus and books be returned, 

 but alas, everything had already been scattered to the four winds. 



After the Yalta-Tclieran agreements it became doubtful whether Warburg 



