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

During her career, Margot Becke-Goehring held several positions that had previously been occupied only by men. She was the first woman to become 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 went to school in Gera and Erfurt, where she passed her school-leaving examination in 1933. She then studied chemistry in Halle and Munich – against her parents’ wishes. “It is physically too demanding; women have no prospects,” said her father, Albert Goehring, a professional army officer. But this assessment proved wrong. Just five years after passing her school-leaving examination, his daughter received her doctorate at the University of Halle as a research student of inorganic chemist Hellmuth Stamm (1901–1977). She continued her research in Halle and, in 1944, completed her habilitation at the institute of the future Nobel laureate Karl Ziegler (1898–1973), with a thesis on sulfoxylic acid. “The time I spent doing my first independent research was so full of science that, looking back now, I almost forget there was a war,” Becke-Goehring later said of the early years of her career.
At Heidelberg University, she was initially appointed to a lectureship in 1946, but the following year was made an associate professor of inorganic and analytical chemistry. At a meeting of the Heidelberg Chemical Society in 1955, she met her future husband, industrial chemist Friedrich Becke (1910–1972). After their marriage, Becke-Goehring continued her career at Heidelberg University. She became a full professor in 1959 and, in 1961, the first woman to become dean of its Faculty of Science and Mathematics. But that was not all: in 1966, she crowned her academic career by being elected rector of Heidelberg University. This made her the first woman rector of a West German university.

Her rectorship coincided with a period of upheaval, which Becke-Goehring helped shape. Among other things, she initiated new degree programmes and advocated student support, which later led to the Federal Training Assistance Act (BAföG). The student unrest of the 1960s, which was particularly intense in Heidelberg, posed a considerable challenge to the chemist. Becke-Goehring described the “crowd with raised fists, ready to use violence” as unnerving, but also emphasised in retrospect: “I was able to say what I had to say and make my position on the law clear. ... In those days, you could still stand your ground if you had just a little courage; you could uphold the rule of law without the police.” However, when it became clear that the university’s new constitution was at odds with her views, she resigned from her post and shortly afterwards terminated her civil-service employment. She left Heidelberg University in 1969.

From 1969 until her retirement ten years later, Becke-Goehring headed the Gmelin Institute for Inorganic Chemistry and Related Fields in Frankfurt am Main. The institute, which belonged to the Max Planck Society, was primarily responsible for publishing Gmelin’s Handbook of Inorganic Chemistry. Until the institute was dissolved in 1997, the work brought together the entire body of knowledge in inorganic chemistry.
Becke-Goehring received several honours in recognition of 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, aged 95. Her life’s work has been preserved for posterity in many books and more than 300 scientific publications, mainly on sulphur, phosphorus and nitrogen chemistry.

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