Hermann Leuchs

Friedrich Hermann Leuchs ( born August 26, 1879 in Nuremberg, † uncertain May 2, 1945 in Berlin) was a German chemist.

Life and work

Leuchs studied chemistry and received his doctorate in 1902 with Emil Fischer in Berlin. He rose in the hierarchy of the University of Berlin on slowly and was appointed full professor in 1916. Although it has been promised him, to succeed the late Emil Fischer in 1919 as head of the institute, Wilhelm Schlenk was offered this job, which is the ratio of the two clearly loaded. As a Schlenk 1935 was forced to leave for political reasons, the Institute, Leuchs came still to his successors. In 1942, he was " not reliable" and regarded as superseded by Erich Tiede, the former head of department of inorganic chemistry.

It dealt mainly with the chemistry of amino acids and strychnine.

Named after him are the Leuchs reaction and the Leuchs'schen anhydrides.

His early observable psychological problems grew with time, and his biographer says of him. " In the last years of his life he was a misanthrope to such a degree that he no longer hid it " The rule of the Nazis, the Second World War and the destruction of Berlin worsened his condition. Probably on May 2, 1945, Leuchs his life in his Berlin apartment to an end.