Adolf Friedrich Johann Butenandt (24 March 1903–18 January 1995) was a German biochemist and member of the Nazi party. He initially rejected the award in accordance with government policy, but accepted it in 1949 after World War II.

He finished his studies with a Ph.D. in chemistry in 1927 at the University of Göttingen.
For this research he won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1939 together with Leopold Ru?i?ka who was involved in the synthesis of several newly discovered steroids.
After his Habilitation he became lecturer in Göttingen 1931.
He was professor at the Technical University of Danzig 1933.
Butenandt joined the Nazi Party on May 1, 1936 (party member No. 3716562).
When the institute moved to Tübingen in 1945 he became a professor at the University of Tübingen. In 1956, when the institute relocated to Martinsried, a suburb of Munich, Butenandt became a professor at the University of Munich.
He also served as president of the Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science following Otto Hahn from 1960 to 1972.
Butenandt is credited with the discovery and naming of the silkworm moth pheromone Bombykol in 1959.
Butenandt died in Munich in 1995. He was 91.