He was the father of geneticist Charlotte Auerbach.

He studied mathematics, physics and chemistry at the universities of Leipzig and Breslau — at Leipzig his instructors were Johannes Wislicenus and Wilhelm Ostwald; at Breslau he was a student of Albert Ladenburg.

From 1894 to 1903 he was associated with factories in Edenkoben and Krefeld, and afterwards worked in the chemical laboratory of Richard Abegg at Breslau.

From 1904 he worked at the Reich Health Office in Berlin, where he eventually attained the position of Oberregierungsrat.

With Richard Abegg, he was author of a multi-volume manual on inorganic chemistry, titled "Handbuch der anorganischen Chemie".