Lieselotte Feikes (1923–2008): In the service of environmental protection #

From 1953 to 1984, Lieselotte Feikes worked for Freudenberg in Weinheim an der Bergstraße. Among other things, she developed a process for treating tannery wastewater on behalf of the company. At the end of her career, she was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit.

Lieselotte Feikes was born in 1923 in the small town of Viersen near Düsseldorf. After the early death of her father Josef, who had worked as a private tutor, she grew up with her sister in a household of women, strongly shaped by their mother’s friendly nature. At school, she was already very interested in mathematics, but found the subject too dry to study at university. Chemistry, by contrast, appealed to her because of the experiments.

After completing her school-leaving examinations in March 1942, she wanted to study chemistry. However, after leaving school she first had to complete the Reich Labour Service. It was not until the summer semester of 1943, with the support of relatives, that she was able to enrol in chemistry at the University of Halle. Her most important academic teacher was the future Nobel laureate Karl Ziegler (1898-1973). After just three semesters, however, Feikes had to interrupt her studies in the summer of 1944 because lectures had ceased owing to the war. In the months that followed, she worked as a laboratory assistant on wartime service at the University of Halle’s Institute of Chemistry. In October 1944, she became a laboratory assistant there to Margot Goehring (later Becke-Goehring, 1914-2009).

After the war, Feikes initially returned to her home town of Viersen, but from there applied for a post with Goehring, who by then was teaching and conducting research at the University of Heidelberg. She was accepted and studied chemistry, with physics and geology as subsidiary subjects, at Heidelberg University from 1946 to 1953. During her studies, she worked as an assistant in the analytical laboratory of the Institute of Chemistry.

Feikes was awarded her doctorate in 1953 for her dissertation, entitled “On the reaction between polythionate ions and hydrogen sulphide”. While she was still at her graduation ceremony, she was advised to call on Karl Freudenberg (1886-1983), director of the Institute of Organic Chemistry. He arranged a position for her at the family-owned Carl Freudenberg & Co. KG in Weinheim an der Bergstraße. The company had grown out of a tannery, but was already making seals and nonwoven fabrics at the time. Among its best-known products are household goods under the Vileda brand.

From late July 1953, Feikes worked for the Carl Freudenberg plants in Weinheim, initially on a three-month trial basis. The 29-year-old chemist’s work focused mainly on analysing the wastewater generated by the company. When her probationary period ended, she asked for a permanent position. In her application she wrote: “The work is still in full swing, and I really enjoy working here in the laboratory!” Hans Freudenberg (1888-1966), then a member of the Freudenberg Group’s management, recognised her scientific potential and offered her continued employment.

Feikes worked in the company’s leather laboratory from November 1953 to May 1973, taking over its management in 1969. She was also tasked with overseeing the treatment of tannery wastewater at the company’s sites in Weinheim and Schönau, which posed a considerable threat to people and the environment—not least because, at the beginning of the 20th century, Freudenberg had developed a tanning process using chromates rather than plant-based substances. Feikes devised a multi-stage process for treating tannery wastewater (mechanical, chemical and biological), which was used at two newly built treatment plants operated by the company in Weinheim and Schönau. She also contributed her expertise to the subsequent construction of treatment plants for the Freudenberg Group in France, Brazil and Mexico. From the early 1970s, Feikes was responsible for all environmental protection across the Freudenberg Group. In 1983, she wrote the much-discussed book “Ecological Problems of the Leather Industry”.

In recognition of her contributions to environmental protection and wastewater treatment, Feikes was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit in August 1985. In May 1979, she had already received the annual award of the Association for Tannery Chemistry and Technology for her contribution to solving the environmental problems of the leather industry. She was made an honorary member of the Association of Austrian Leather Technologists in 1984 and of the Association for Tannery Chemistry and Technology in 1989.

Although Feikes retired in January 1984, she continued to work as a consultant to the Freudenberg Group until 1991. She remained the company’s environmental protection officer until 1987. Lieselotte Feikes died in Weinheim on 29 January 2008, aged 84.

(Contributor: Dr. Michael Horchler, Head of Corporate Archives / Freudenberg Group)

Literature
• S. M. Schwarzl and M. Hertel, Nachrichten aus der Chemie 50, 2002, p. 639
• German Chemical Society (GDCh): Women Chemists – They Have Been and Still Are Among Us, brochure 2003, p. 29
• Corporate Archives of Freudenberg & Co. KG, Weinheim