Margot Becke-Goehring (1914–2009): The first female rector of a West German university

Throughout her career, Margot Becke-Goehring held several positions that had previously been occupied only by men. She was the first female dean and rector in the history of Heidelberg University. After leaving the university, she headed the Gmelin Institute in Frankfurt am Main.

Margot Becke-Goehring was born on 10 June 1914 in Allenstein, East Prussia. She attended school in Gera and Erfurt, where she passed her Abitur in 1933. She then studied chemistry in Halle and Munich – against her parents’ wishes. “Physically too demanding, no prospects for a woman,” said her father, the career officer Albert Goehring. But this assessment proved to be wrong. Just five years after passing her Abitur, his daughter received her doctorate at the University of Halle as an academic student of the inorganic chemist Hellmuth Stamm (1901-1977). She continued her research in Halle and completed her habilitation in 1944 at the institute of the future Nobel laureate Karl Ziegler (1898-1973), with a thesis on sulfoxylic acid. “The period of my first independent research was so full of science that, when I think back today, I almost forget that there was a war,” Becke-Goehring later said of the early years of her career.
At Heidelberg University, she initially obtained a lectureship in 1946, but as early as the following year was appointed extraordinary professor of inorganic and analytical chemistry. At a meeting of the Heidelberg Chemical Society in 1955, she met her future husband, the industrial chemist Friedrich Becke (1910-1972). After their marriage, Becke-Goehring continued her career at Heidelberg University. In 1959, she became a full professor and, in 1961, the first woman dean of its Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences. But that was not all: in 1966, she crowned her academic career by being elected rector of Heidelberg University. This made her the first female rector of a West German university.

Her rectorship coincided with a period of upheaval, which Becke-Goehring helped to shape. Among other things, she initiated new curricula and campaigned for student support, from which the Federal Training Assistance Act (Bafög) later developed. The student unrest of the 1960s, which was particularly pronounced in Heidelberg, posed a considerable challenge to the chemist. Becke-Goehring described “the mass with raised fists, ready to use violence” as distressing, but looking back she also stressed: “I could say what I had to say and make my legal position clear. ... In those days, one could still prevail if one had just a little courage; one could stand up for the rule of law without the police.” However, when it became apparent that the university’s new constitution contradicted her views, she resigned from office and shortly afterwards terminated her civil-service appointment. She left Heidelberg University in 1969.

From 1969 until her retirement ten years later, Becke-Goehring headed the Gmelin Institute for Inorganic Chemistry and Borderline Areas in Frankfurt am Main. The main purpose of the institute, which belonged to the Max Planck Society, was to publish Gmelin’s Handbook of Inorganic Chemistry. Until the institute was dissolved in 1997, the work compiled the entire body of knowledge in inorganic chemistry.
Becke-Goehring received several honours for her achievements. In 1961, she became the first woman to receive the Alfred-Stock Memorial Award from the GDCh, and in 1980 she was awarded the Gmelin-Beilstein commemorative coin. The University of Stuttgart awarded her an honorary doctorate.

Margot Becke-Goehring died in Heidelberg on 14 November 2009 at the age of 95. Her life’s work has been preserved for posterity in many books and more than 300 scientific publications, particularly on the chemistry of sulphur, phosphorus and nitrogen.

Literature

H. Eberle: Die Martin-Luther-Universität in der Zeit des Nationalsozialismus, Mdv, Halle, 2002, p. 412, ISBN 3-89812-150-X

E. Fluck: Margot Becke, obituary in the annual report of the Max Planck Society, 2009, supplement, pp. 18-19

M. Becke-Goehring, D. Mussgnug: Erinnerungen – fast vom Winde verweht. Universität Heidelberg zwischen 1933-1968, Verlag Dieter Winkler, Bochum, 2005

German Chemical Society (GDCh): Chemikerinnen – es gab und es gibt sie, brochure, 2003, p. 23