Elfriede Husemann (1908–1975): Focus on natural macromolecules #

For a long time, Elfriede Husemann stood in the shadow of Hermann Staudinger, the founder of modern polymer chemistry. After his retirement, she took over the leadership of his institute at the University of Freiburg.

Elfriede Husemann was born in Gütersloh on 27 December 1908. Her aptitude for science was already apparent at school, and after completing her Abitur at the Auguste-Viktoria-Schule in Bielefeld, she enrolled in chemistry at the Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg in Breisgau. In autumn 1929, she moved to Leipzig, where she studied, among others, under the physical chemist and future Nobel Prize in Chemistry laureate Peter Debye (1884–1966).

After completing her preliminary diploma in the summer semester of 1930, she returned to Freiburg. There, in 1933, she completed her doctoral thesis on magnesium compounds under the supervision of Eduard Zintl (1898–1941). As Zintl accepted an appointment in Darmstadt in the autumn of the same year, Hermann Staudinger (1881–1965) wrote the assessment of Husemann’s dissertation. She received the grade “very good” for her doctoral thesis and oral examinations in chemistry, physics and mineralogy, and was awarded the academic degree “Dr. phil. nat.”

From 1933 to 1946, Husemann conducted research as an assistant in Staudinger’s laboratory, where she worked on macromolecules. In October 1939, she completed her habilitation with a thesis on the structure of wood polyoses, the polymeric carbohydrates in wood now known as hemicelluloses. Husemann was only the eighth woman in Germany to complete a habilitation in chemistry. Her two assessors – Hermann Staudinger and Georg Wittig (1897–1987), both of whom later received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry – gave the habilitation thesis a very positive assessment, as Husemann had also worked on new methods for characterising high polymers.

In the years that followed, Husemann’s collaboration with the physician Helmut Ruska (1908–1973), a senior employee at Siemens & Halke AG in Berlin, proved extremely successful. Ruska is considered a pioneer of medical and biological electron microscopy. Husemann, in turn, was the first to use electron microscopy in polysaccharide research. Her pioneering work made electron microscopy a valuable tool for the optical visualisation of macromolecules. On the basis of these studies, Staudinger’s institute acquired an electron microscope in 1942, which Husemann looked after from then on.

Women in science faced considerable difficulties under the National Socialists, particularly if, like Husemann, they did not belong to the NSDAP and did not wish to join the party. Nevertheless, 1942 marked a career breakthrough for the now 33-year-old scientist. Due to the shortage of teaching staff during the war years, she finally obtained a lectureship.

After the Second World War, in autumn 1945, Husemann helped rebuild the Chemical Institute in Freiburg. On Staudinger’s recommendation, she was appointed extraordinary professor in January 1946. Despite limited funding, her research was crowned with success. She was the first to achieve an optical visualisation of the polysaccharide amylopectin, the branched main component of plant starch. Her work elucidating the three-dimensional structure of amylose, the other main component of starch, also attracted particular attention. Alongside her research on carbohydrates, another of Husemann’s passions deserves a mention: she was an enthusiastic motorcyclist. Her rides into the surrounding heights of the Black Forest are legendary.

Husemann turned down an appointment in Jena and remained in Freiburg, even though the faculty’s application to establish a chair was repeatedly delayed – a typical problem faced by women scientists of the time, as Husemann put it. For a long time, she herself stood in the shadow of her “father figure”, Staudinger, who received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry alone in 1953. After Staudinger’s retirement in 1956, Husemann took over the leadership of his institute as an extraordinary professor. It was not until 1962 that she received the well-deserved appointment to the prestigious chair of macromolecular chemistry at the Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg. As Staudinger’s worthy successor, she developed the Freiburg institute into a modern centre for polymer science. Her best-known students include Beate Pfannemüller (1920–2008), Walter Burchard (born 1930) and Helmut Ringsdorf (born 1929).

Numerous publications, particularly on the chemistry of natural macromolecules, testify to Husemann’s productivity and made her known far beyond Freiburg. In recognition of her findings in starch research, she received the Saare Medal in 1956, an award from the Working Group for Cereal Research. She retired in 1974.

Elfriede Husemann died of cancer at the age of 67. She passed away in Freiburg on 9 November 1975.

Literature

de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elfriede_Husemann

www.leo-bw.de/detail/-/Detail/details/PERSON/kgl_biographien/113303814X/Husemann+Elfriede

www.kipnis.de/index.php/alexander/kurzbiografien/169-husemann-elfriede-1908-1975-polymerchemikerin 

academictree.org/chemistry/publications.php