Werner Otto von Hentig

Werner Otto von Hentig (22 May 1886, Berlin, Germany – 8 August 1984, Lindesnes, Norway) was a German Army Officer, adventurer and diplomat from Berlin. When still only a 25 year old lieutenant he was commissioned by the Kaiser to lead an expedition into the unknown and uncharted territories of Central Asia. The region associated with the political "Great Game" had its roots in Victorian rivalries between the local Great Powers: Russia and British India. The small expedition party, travelling in extreme climatic conditions, suffered extraordinary privations with courage and equanimity. Surviving diary accounts of participants on both sides of the Great War bear witness to the unusual camaraderie and esprit de corps summoned by Hentig's outstanding qualities of leadership.

Hentig was the elder brother of the criminal psychologist Hans von Hentig and the father of Hartmut von Hentig (). Though critical of the Nazi regime, he served in the Third Reich and intervened at personal risk to save Jews who were in danger, and was instrumental in arranging for thousands of Jews to be transferred from Germany to Palestine during the 1930s.

Hentig joined the Imperial German diplomatic service in 1909 and was posted as an attaché to the German mission at Beijing. He was later posted to Istanbul and Tehran. During the First World War he was wounded in the Battle of Masuria, then later in 1915, with Oskar Niedermayer, led the Niedermayer–Hentig Expedition, a German mission to Kabul that sought to enlist the Afghan Amir's support for the Central Powers and an attack on British India.

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