Almuth Klemer (1924–2022): The Sugar Chemist

Almuth Klemer was the first woman to obtain her habilitation in chemistry at the University of Münster. Grateful for her successful academic career, she established a foundation in old age that supports chemistry students and schoolchildren in need.

Almuth Klemer was born on 12 February 1924 in the small town of Bassum in Lower Saxony. Even as a girl, she was interested in the natural sciences – an inclination her parents encouraged. Klemer passed her Abitur in February 1942. Two months later, however, she had to spend a year in the labour service. Only afterwards was she able to begin studying chemistry at Justus Liebig University Gießen.

Before long, a properly organised programme of teaching and study was no longer possible in Gießen. The city was almost completely destroyed by heavy air raids in 1944, and the university was dissolved at the end of the war. Amid the turmoil of the final days of the war, Klemer managed to return home. To support herself, she initially worked in a steelworks. At the same time, she attended courses offered to returning soldiers in order to improve her knowledge of physics and mathematics. For the winter semester of 1945/46, she received the long-awaited notification of admission to study physics, mathematics and chemistry at the Westphalian Wilhelms University (WWU) Münster – although, under the criteria applied by the professional supervisory authorities to women, only for a teaching degree.

Klemer was described by her fellow students as sociable, enthusiastic and a good team player. She coped extremely well with the modest, almost impoverished equipment in the laboratories, and during evening discussions she convinced her academic teachers of her aptitude for the natural sciences. The professors soon supported her change from studying for a teaching degree to studying “full chemistry” at WWU. After completing her Diplom examination in 1950, she immediately began her doctoral thesis, entitled “On the synthesis of sugar–amino acid compounds and a new method for the preparation of sugar anhydrides”. Klemer was awarded her doctorate in 1952. Her doctoral supervisor was Fritz Micheel (1900–1982), who headed WWU’s Institute of Organic Chemistry from 1937 to 1968 and played a decisive role in rebuilding organic chemistry in Münster after the war.

From then on, Klemer focused her research on the synthesis and degradation of sugar molecules. In 1958, she became the first woman to obtain her habilitation in chemistry at WWU. She published extracts from her habilitation thesis under the title “Synthesis of a trisaccharide with a branched structure (4-α,6-β-bis-D-glucosido-D-glucose)”. She remained loyal to the University of Münster throughout her research career: in 1963, she was appointed academic councillor there, a year later adjunct professor, and finally, in 1980, full professor of organic chemistry. For almost thirty years, until 1986, Klemer taught and conducted research as a professor at WWU. During this period, she supervised 54 doctoral students.

In addition to almost 100 scientific publications, Klemer wrote numerous textbooks and research reports on carbohydrate chemistry as an author and co-author. She also devoted intensive attention to the position of women in science, writing an insightful monograph on the subject as early as the late 1960s. She experienced the downsides of a life devoted to science herself: she remained unmarried and childless.

For her scientific and social commitment, Klemer was awarded the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany on ribbon in 1970. From 2014 onwards, she used the Almuth Klemer Foundation to support education, science and research in her field, including by awarding the Almuth Klemer Scholarship to chemistry students at WWU. Klemer also supported schoolchildren in need from the Göttingen district with her personal fortune. “I am grateful for a successful professional life that would not have been possible without a scholarship and support from the Chemical Industry Fund,” she emphasised. By establishing her foundation, she wanted to give something back: “I think it is important that talent is encouraged through incentives to achieve.”

Almuth Klemer died in November 2022 at the age of 98.

December 2014: Presentation of the certificate of recognition to the founder (second from left) by the Regierungspräsident Prof. Dr Reinhard Klenke (right), in the presence of the Rector of WWU Prof. Dr Ursula Nelles (third from left) and the foundation’s board member Prof. Dr Armido Studer (left).