Gerhard Doerfer (8 March 1920 – 27 December 2003) was a German Turkologist, Altaist, and philologist best known for his studies of the Turkic languages, especially Khalaj. Doerfer spent his childhood in Königsberg and Berlin. After release from captivity following the World War II, from 1949 to 1954 he took in Berlin courses in Turkic and Altaic languages, Islamic and Iranian Studies. In 1955–57 he was an assistant professor in Mainz University, in 1960 he moved to the Göttingen University, where in 1966 he became an associate professor. Between 1968 and 1973, he conducted several expeditions to research the Turkic Khalaj and Oguz languages in Persia. In 1970 Doerfer became a professor of a newly founded for him Chair of Turkic and Altaistic Studies at the Georgia Augusta Göttingen Univers