Carl Ritter
Steudner was born in Greiffenberg, located in Silesia, but grew up in Görlitz. He studied botany, mineralogy, and medicine in Berlin and Würzburg. Among his professors were Christian Gottfried Ehrenberg, Heinrich Wilhelm Dove, and Carl Ritter in Berlin; and Rudolf Virchow, Franz von Rinecker, and Albert von Kölliker in Würzburg, where he began his friendship with Ernst Haeckel.