Hildegard Hess (1920–2014), Berlin’s first commercial chemist #

Hildegard Hess followed in her father’s footsteps. While still working on her doctoral thesis at the Technical University of Berlin, she worked in his analytical laboratory. She eventually took it over and ran it for three decades.

Hildegard Hess was born in 1920 in the Berlin district of Britz. Her father, Ludwig Hess (1882–1956), was director of a factory owned by the chemical company Riedel de Haën, while her mother, Hertha, was a trained nurse. As the family lived in a company-owned flat on the factory grounds at the time, Hess came into contact with chemistry at an early age. In 1931, her father took over a chemical testing laboratory as a state-certified food chemist and commercial chemist.

Hess attended a convent school and was therefore exempt from membership of the League of German Girls. She completed her Abitur in 1939, shortly before the school was closed by the National Socialists. She then began studying chemistry at the Friedrich Wilhelm University in Berlin, but soon transferred to the Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg. She completed her training in 1944 at the Reich Institute for Food Chemistry and Pharmaceutical Chemistry in Berlin. Her academic teachers included future Nobel Prize winners in Chemistry Hermann Staudinger (1881–1965) and Georg Wittig (1897–1987). “It was only under Professor Wittig that I really understood chemistry,” Hess later recalled. His enthusiasm had made him her most wonderful teacher.

After graduating, Hess joined her father’s commercial laboratory. Alongside this work, she completed a doctorate under Josef Schormüller (1903–1974) at the Institute of Food Chemistry at the Technical University of Berlin, researching the vitamin content of the mycelium of microorganisms. She was awarded her doctorate in 1953. The following year, she was officially appointed and sworn in as a commercial chemist. This allowed Hess to work in chemistry as a consultant and expert for manufacturers and the trade. She was the first woman to hold this position in Berlin, and probably even throughout Germany.

After her father’s death in 1956, Hess took over his commercial laboratory and ran it for three decades. In 1986, the laboratory merged with the Institute Kirchhoff Berlin, founded three years earlier. The analytical services company is still in operation today.

Alongside her work as an independent chemist, Hess taught at TU Berlin, where she held a teaching appointment in nutritional sciences from 1955 to 1965. She also taught courses for food retailers. Hildegard Hess died in Berlin on 23 July 2014, aged 84.

Literature
German Chemical Society (GDCh): Chemists – they existed and they exist, 2003, p. 26
G. Boeck, Nachrichten aus der Chemie 51, 2003, p. 67