page_title: Günther Friedländer
section_title: Biography
hierarchical_section_title: Günther Friedländer / Biography
caption_attribution_description: עברית: עם סיום בחינות הדו'קטורט, ברן יולי 1927
context_page_description: Günther Friedländer was a pharmacist, botanist, pharmacognoist, food chemist, an industrialist of medical products, and the founder of Teva Pharmaceutical Industries.
context_section_description: Günther Friedländer was born on April 8, 1902 in Königshütte (Chorzów) - Upper Silesia in Germany – a developing coal industry area.  His parents were Paula Kober and Adolf Aron Friedlander, a merchant in the footwear industry. In 1912, the Friedländer family moved from Kőnigshütte, an area polluted with coal dust, west to Ratibor, where a small Jewish community lived. At age 11, Friedländer joined the Jewish movement "Blau-Weiss" (Blue-White) in Ratibor. In parallel to his life-science studies,  Friedländer wrote stories and plays relevant to events occurring around him, to the meaning of life, and about his longing for Palestine and Jerusalem such as: "In our fathers land," "Poem to Jerusalem," "Persephone, the Goddess of Spring," and "Jacob the dreamer." 
  In 1920,  Friedländer was accepted to Wilhelm Friedrich University, School of Pharmacy in Breslau, and became a member of the Zionist student movement: KJV (Kartell Jüdischer Verbindungen).  Upon completing his exams and receiving the first science degree, Friedländer went to the University of Bern in Switzerland to do his doctorate studies with Professor Alexandro Tschirch. In July 1927, Friedländer completed his doctorate studies Summa Cum Laude and received his doctorate of philosophy for his thesis on "Research in development processes within the field of Pharmacological, botanical and chemical pharmacology." After receiving his Ph.D.,  Friedländer returned to Breslau and worked as an assistant of Dr. A. Rop in the University faculty for Pharmacy and acted as the laboratory manager, where he taught the Pharmacy faculty students during their two last semesters in the university. At that time,  Friedländer was working on analytical chemistry research under the supervision of Dr. A Rop. In November 1929, Friedlander received his pharmacist diploma signed by Dr. Shozol, the Prussian Minister for National Welfare.
  In April 1930,  Friedländer moved to Görlitz in order to manage the pharmacy and laboratory of his aunt Else Kober, named the "Royal Pharmacy in Görlitz – (1883), "Kronen-Apotheke – Görlitz".  Else Kober was a First World War widow, and a bereaved mother to her only child. Her husband Max Kober,  Friedländer's uncle and the brother of his mother Paula, was a pharmacist and the owner of the pharmacy in Görlitz. He was drafted to the army during the First World War and mortally wounded. On May 31, 1933, four months after the rise of the Nazis to power, and two months following the "humiliating trip" that was forced by the Nazis on the "white collar" professional Jews in Görliz,  Friedländer sailed to Palestine to explore and search for the location to establish his pharmaceutical industry to be named Teva. During his journey in Palestine, he decided to build the company in Jerusalem, and he then returned to Germany. The "Blau-Weiss" movement of which Friedländer was a member in Ratibor, advocated going to nature, to know and to love nature's gift and its flora. Since Balfour declaration in 1917, the "Blue-White" movement adopted Zionism values and taught in its spirit. This was a "life changing" event in  Friedländer's life at age of 15. He wrote stories, poems, and a play related to Erez Israel, and directed his life towards Erez Israel to produce there medicine from locally grown plants.
caption: 1927 - Friedländer at the Bern University laboratory
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