Richard Willstätter
Richard Martin Willstätter ( born August 13, 1872 in Karlsruhe, † August 3, 1942 in Muralto ) was a German chemist and received the 1915 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
Education and academic career
Richard Willstätter grew up in a wealthy wholesale merchant family in Nuremberg. He was middle school and as a teenager probably very messy, what his mother to remark " Richard, from you is nothing! " Should have led.
Willstätter was a member of the alumni association Red-White - Red Absolvia Nuremberg, which was founded in 1867 at the Royal Grammar School. Today, the school is named " Willstätter -Gymnasium -Nuremberg ". But his relationship with the order soon changed - he probably would have otherwise can not cope with his huge workload.
After graduation, he studied chemistry in Munich with Baeyer and his doctorate in 1894 at Alfred Einhorn on the structure of cocaine. Until 20 years later, he managed to complete structural elucidation of cocaine.
In 1902 he was appointed associate professor of chemistry. In 1905 he accepted an appointment at the ETH in Zurich, where he held the Chair of Chemistry until 1912.
From 1912 to 1916 Richard was Willstätter director of the newly founded Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Chemistry in Berlin -Dahlem and was subsequently appointed as full professor at the University of Munich, where he took over the chair of Adolf von Baeyer. At the same time he was director of the " Chemical Laboratory of the State". 1914 Richard Willstätter corresponding member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences, 1916, he was appointed to her a full member.
Willstätter research priorities
Willstätter interest was early on the problems of general scientific interest, that is, the processes of life or biochemistry - a topical to this day theme. His research focus was the color chemistry of chlorophyll, hemoglobin, the anthocyanins and the beginnings of biochemistry in the area. With today seemingly simple means he resorted to problems that then broken new ground. His researches were successful, because he clearly planned the experiments and took the view that one must explore nature with gentle, natural methods. Essential for the assessment of scientific performance Willstätter is that he made both epochal discoveries in classical organic chemistry and complicated novel issues - as in his studies of the chlorophyll, photosynthesis and the enzymes - edited.
Willstätter pioneering work
In the field of organic chemistry made Willstätter pioneering work. He had specialized in the study of complex organic compounds, including chlorophyll and enzymes. He succeeded in the multi-step total synthesis of the alkaloid cocaine. Also for his investigations of plant pigments, especially chlorophyll and anthocyanins, he won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1915 was awarded.
Hitler Putsch
Since 1923, at the time of the Hitler coup, there was at the Ludwig- Maximilians- University, was at the " Second Faculty of Philosophy ," Chemical Institute, anti-Semitic actions against Willstätter of Jewish origin. To this end, the scandal was to succeed Paul Heinrich von Groth by Victor Moritz Goldschmidt from Oslo. Here defended Willstätter friends, the surgeon Ferdinand Sauerbruch and the internist F. v. Mueller, him as possible; Sauerbruch academic student Rudolf Nissen experienced with a solidarity meeting of Willstätter students, an explanation was signed by 337 students. Experience how the virulent anti-Semitism had become academic, teaching Nissen, after the handover of power to the Nazis and the "Jewish boycott " from April 1933 to rapidly leave Germany because he had recognized the hazards arising from the Nazi peril. Willstätter put in protest against the emerging anti-Semitic policies of the University in 1925 from his office.
Willstätter fled to Switzerland
Willstätter resigned his professorship in 1924 and established his pace with the opportunistic attitude of some professors, the higher weight conceded in appeal antisemitic considerations as scientific achievements. He investigated further at the University of Munich, without possessing a professorship. He has worked together with the lecturer Henry Herb and Karl Lobinger. From 1928 he held Margaret Rohde Forest, a former doctoral student of Richard Kuhn, as a private assistant - despite unfavorable conditions - ten years faithfulness; Laboratory workplaces presented Heinrich Wieland available. Before further racist persecution by the Nazis Willstätter fled on March 4, 1939, after losing almost his entire estate in Switzerland and became employees in the chemical industry, with Sandoz in Basel. He continued his research continued as a private scholar. In Locarno Richard Willstätter spent the last three years of his life.