Otto Wolff

Otto Wolff
Born	1921 Glatz, Silesia
Died	2003 Arlesheim, Switzerland

Otto Wolff (* 1921 Glatz, Silesia; † 2003 Arlesheim, Switzerland) was an anthroposophical physician and author. After Friedrich Husemann, he was the editor and main author of the three-volume standard work of anthroposophic medicine "The Anthroposophical Approach to Medicine: An Outline of a Spiritual Scientifically Oriented Medicine" In the words of his wife, Gudrune Hoffmann, his "... Life motive was ... to cognitively permeate natural science and especially medicine with spiritual science."

Otto Wolff was born into a merchant family as the 5th and youngest child. During his school years he developed an intense interest in chemistry and read up on the subject autodidactically. After graduating from high school in March 1939 and serving 1/2 year in the labor service, he began studying medicine in Berlin and Königsberg, taking the medical preliminary examination (Physikum) in December 1940 after 3 1/2 trimesters. He felt at home in the university milieu, especially in an interdisciplinary circle of professors around Konrad Lorenz, in which he was the only student to participate. In April 1941 he was drafted for military service in the medical corps and came to Russia, where his own illnesses put him in life-threatening situations. Detached to study, he spent the end of the war in Breslau, Vienna, Innsbruck, where he graduated. He was quickly released from French captivity and returned to Germany. In Munich he found a biochemical activity. There he became acquainted with Rudolf Steiner's works through Johannes Rohen. A little later he met Friedrich Husemann, who invited him to join him as an assistant at the Wiesneck Clinic near Freiburg (now the Friedrich Husemann Clinic). He worked there for 7 years and became co-author of the standard work "Husemann/Wolff".

Furthermore, he worked as a general practitioner and school doctor (among others in Nuremberg) Through the mediation of Wilhelm Pelikan, he joined Weleda in Schwäbisch Gmünd in 1963 for about 10 years and was also active for many years in remedy research and development, and increasingly as a lecturer. In 1981 he was the first editor of the Journal of Anthroposophic medicine. The last years of his life were marked by extensive teaching in most countries of Europe, North, Central and South America, and Africa. He was a long-time medical mentor in the Working Group of Anthroposophic Dentists.

In 1998 his life's work was published: "Grundlagen einer geisteswissenschaftlich erweiterten Biochemie", dedicated to Eugen Kolisko, as whose student he felt himself to be.