Klaus Praefcke

Klaus Praefcke ( born January 3, 1933 Wustrow / fish Land Mecklenburg, † November 20, 2013 in Berlin) was a German chemist and professor of the Department of Organic Chemistry.

Life

Klaus Praefcke grew up in Kuehlungsborn. After graduation in July 1952 at the Gymnasium Frederico - Francisceum in Bad Doberan Praefcke studied History at the Humboldt University in Berlin. From 1954 to 1963 he studied chemistry at the Technical University of Berlin. His doctoral work he made in the field of Organic Chemistry. As an academic student of Horst Baganz he became the Dr. -Ing. doctorate. Subsequently, he conducted research in the private laboratory of Alexander Schönberg at the TU Berlin. In 1970 he habilitated himself ibid. Between 1971 and 1998 worked Praefcke as Professor of Organic Chemistry at the TU Berlin.

Praefcke was a visiting professor at several universities and used research collaborations with well-known foreign academic institutions ( including: Egypt, Great Britain, India, Israel, Japan, Kuwait, New Zealand, North and South America, Russia and Turkey). A call to the Chair of Organic Chemistry at the University of Tromsø (Norway ) refused Praefcke.

Work

His more than 300 scientific works are mainly attributable to the organic chemical synthesis. In this case, he has worked on, inter alia, aliphatic diazo compounds, organic preparative photochemistry Synthesis of Metallo [Pd, Pt ] macro carbocycles, inositol and carbohydrate chemistry. In recent years, his scientific research, he dealt mainly with the chemistry and physics of liquid crystals. Several drug classes of liquid crystalline materials were first synthesized from him.

From the State University of Ivanovo, Russia, 1993, he was awarded an Honorary Professorship for his contributions to the chemistry and physics of liquid crystals.

Since 1973 Praefcke built an extensive collection of contemporary history on the topic of " Jews and the Middle East ( the ) Cartoon " on having about 4500 documents. In addition, he devoted himself to study and photographic documentation on the history of decorative, historical and craft treasures and monuments in his native Kühlungsborn and the surrounding region (Mecklenburg- Vorpommern), this was documented in 2006 in an exhibition at the Kunstverein in Kuehlungsborn.

Klaus Praefcke was married and the father of a daughter and a son.