Background
He was the son of historian Bernhard Erdmannsdörffer.
He was the son of historian Bernhard Erdmannsdörffer.
He studied natural sciences at the universities of Heidelberg and Strasbourg, receiving his doctorate in 1900.
Foreign the next twelve years he worked as a research assistant at the Prussian Geological Survey, and in the meantime, obtained his habilitation in mineralogy and petrology from the University of Berlin (1908). In 1912 he was appointed chair of mineralogy and petrology at the Technical University of Hanover, and in 1926 returned to Heidelberg, where he succeeded Ernst Anton Wülfing as director of the mineralogical-petrographic institute. In 1932 he was named academic rector at Heidelberg.
In 1953 he was awarded the Hans-Stille-Medaille by the Deutsche Geologische Gesellschaft.
He was an editor of the journal Heidelberger Beiträge zur Mineralogie und Petrographie.
German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina. Heidelberg Academy for Sciences and Humanities.