Fritz von Wettstein

Friedrich Wettstein, Ritter von Westersheim (24 June 1895 in Prague – 12 February 1945 in Trins, Tirol) was an Austrian botanist.

Fritz von Wettstein
Born	Friedrich Wettstein, Ritter von Westersheim (1896-06-24)June 24, 1896 Prague, Kingdom of Bohemia, Austria-Hungary
Died	February 12, 1945(1945-02-12) (aged 49) Trins, Tirol, Austria
Nationality	Austrian
Scientific career
Fields	Botany
Institutions	University of Göttingen Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich

Academic career

Fritz Wettstein was the son of Richard Wettstein. From 1925 he was professor at Göttingen, in 1931 in Munich and in 1934 director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Biology in Berlin-Dahlem.

Wettstein made a major contribution to botanical and genetical science. He worked especially on cytoplasmic inheritance in mosses and fireweed. Following Erwin Baur at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institut, Berlin-Dahlem, he investigated hybrids and polyploids of mosses, and advanced the understanding of the relationships and characteristics of polyploid forms.^[1]

Political implications

Wettstein has been criticised because at international scientific conferences before the war he defended National Socialist racial ideas.^[2]

Works

• Morphologie und Physiologie des Formwechsels der Moose auf genetischer Grundlage (1924)
• Über plasmatische Vererbung sowie Plasma-und Genwirkung (1930)
• Genetik (1932)
• Karl von Goebel (1933)