Gabriele Rabel

Who is Gabriele Rabel?

Gabriele Rabel was an Austrian physicist and botanist. Rabel studied under Richard Wettstein at the University of Vienna, studying plants. She studied theoretical physics in Leipzig and in Berlin with Albert Einstein and Max Planck, eventually getting her P.hD. in physics. In 1923 she was diagnosed with manic depression and lived in a sanatorium for two years. She started studying philosophy, working with Hermann Keyserling and Rudolf Steiner. Rabel worked at the Goethe Archives and wrote books about Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Immanuel Kant. She lived in the United States for four years lecturing. During the 1930s and 1940s she wrote about evolution, genetics, and Charles I of Austria, and lived in Cambridge. Her papers are held in the collection of Churchill College, Cambridge.