[1] Afterwards, he was an assistant to Wilhelm von Branca at Berlin's Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität, where he attained his habilitation and became a private lecturer.

During World War I, he was a military geologist until 1917 where he became a professor at the University of Tübingen and later an academic rector and director of the geological paleontology institute.

Edwin Hennig is well known for joining expeditions with Werner Janensch to the Tendaguru Beds in what is now Tanzania, East Africa.

He is also known for describing discoveries of Australopithecus afarensis from East Africa, collected by Ludwig Kohl-Larsen.

Much like Othenio Abel, Hennig was a supporter of orthogenesis theories of evolution as was his assistant, Karl Beurlen.