Alfred Philippson was a German geologist

Geologist

A geologist is a scientist who studies the solid and liquid matter that constitutes the Earth as well as the processes and history that has shaped it. Geologists usually engage in studying geology. Geologists, studying more of an applied science than a theoretical one, must approach Geology using...

 and geographer

Geographer

A geographer is a scholar whose area of study is geography, the study of Earth's natural environment and human society.Although geographers are historically known as people who make maps, map making is actually the field of study of cartography, a subset of geography...

.
He was born at Bonn

Bonn

Bonn is the 19th largest city in Germany. Located in the Cologne/Bonn Region, about 25 kilometres south of Cologne on the river Rhine in the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, it was the capital of West Germany from 1949 to 1990 and the official seat of government of united Germany from 1990 to 1999....

, son of Ludwig Philippson

Ludwig Philippson

Ludwig Philippson was a German rabbi and author, the son of Moses Philippson.He was educated at the gymanasium of Halle and at the University of Berlin, and maintained himself by tutoring and by doing literary work...

. He received his education at the gymnasium

Gymnasium (school)

A gymnasium is a type of school providing secondary education in some parts of Europe, comparable to English grammar schools or sixth form colleges and U.S. college preparatory high schools. The word γυμνάσιον was used in Ancient Greece, meaning a locality for both physical and intellectual...

 and university

University

A university is an institution of higher education and research, which grants academic degrees in a variety of subjects. A university is an organisation that provides both undergraduate education and postgraduate education...

 of his native town and at the University of Leipzig

University of Leipzig

The University of Leipzig , located in Leipzig in the Free State of Saxony, Germany, is one of the oldest universities in the world and the second-oldest university in Germany...

 (Ph.D. 1886). In 1892 he became Privatdozent

Privatdozent

Privatdozent or Private lecturer is a title conferred in some European university systems, especially in German-speaking countries, for someone who pursues an academic career and holds all formal qualifications to become a tenured university professor...

at Bonn, was appointed assistant professor seven years later, and in 1904 he was called to Bern as professor of geography

Geography

Geography is the science that studies the lands, features, inhabitants, and phenomena of Earth. A literal translation would be "to describe or write about the Earth". The first person to use the word "geography" was Eratosthenes...

. Having made voyages through Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

 (Apulia region

Apulia

Apulia is a region in Southern Italy bordering the Adriatic Sea in the east, the Ionian Sea to the southeast, and the Strait of Òtranto and Gulf of Taranto in the south. Its most southern portion, known as Salento peninsula, forms a high heel on the "boot" of Italy. The region comprises , and...

), Greece

Greece

Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....

, Turkey

Turkey

Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...

, and Asia Minor

Asia Minor

Asia Minor is a geographical location at the westernmost protrusion of Asia, also called Anatolia, and corresponds to the western two thirds of the Asian part of Turkey...

, he published: Studien über Wasserscheiden, Berlin, 1886; Der Peloponnes, ib. 1892; Europa (with Neumann), Leipzig, 1894; Thessalien und Epirus, Berlin, 1897; Beiträge zur Kenntnis der Griechischen Inselwelt, Gotha, 1901; Das Mittelmeergebiet, Leipzig, 1904. He also published essays in the technical journals, such as Das fernste Italien. Geographische Reiseskizzen und Studien, Leipzig, 1925, and Apulien, Netherlands, 1937.

Since 1887 Philippson undertook, on a commission from the Berlin Akademie der Wissenschaften, an annual journey to Asia Minor

Asia Minor

Asia Minor is a geographical location at the westernmost protrusion of Asia, also called Anatolia, and corresponds to the western two thirds of the Asian part of Turkey...

 for the purpose of geological investigation. His chief object in these excursions was to study, on a geological basis, the phenomena of the earth

Earth

Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets...

's surface both in their interrelationship and in their influence on the human race.

Under the Nazis, he was sent to the Theresienstadt concentration camp (1942-45), where he wrote a memoir on his scholarly activity (Wie ich zum Geographen wurde, partly published in 1996). He survived the war, resuming work on his multi-volume essay on the Greek landscapes (with E. Kirsten; posthumously published and continued by Kirsten).