Marianne Baudler (1921-2003): Expert in phosphorus chemistry

Marianne Baudler’s passion was for the non-metals. The former director of the Institute of Inorganic Chemistry at the University of Cologne was particularly interested in phosphorus compounds.

Marianne Baudler was born on 27 April 1921 in Stettin, Western Pomerania, the daughter of manufacturer Fritz Baudler and his wife Clara. She completed her Abitur there at the age of 19 and then moved to Dresden to study chemistry. Her diploma thesis, for which she received the grade “Excellent”, provided a solid basis for an academic career. For her doctoral thesis, the young scientist joined the working group of the Hungarian-German chemist Franz Fehér (1903–1991) at the Georg August University of Göttingen. He was a recognised expert in the chemistry of the non-metals and had a decisive influence on Baudler’s life as a researcher.

After completing her dissertation on polysulphur hydrides in 1946, Baudler worked as a research assistant to her doctoral supervisor in Göttingen until 1949. When Fehér accepted an appointment to the Chair of Inorganic Chemistry at the University of Cologne, she followed him. Baudler completed her habilitation at the University of Cologne in 1959 with a thesis on diphosphoric acids and was appointed associate professor in 1963. A few years later, she declined an appointment at TU Berlin. She was not to regret this decision: in 1968, she was appointed personal full professor and director of the Institute of Inorganic Chemistry at the University of Cologne. Her final appointment as a full professor followed in 1969.

Baudler remained loyal to the non-metals, particularly phosphorus, until her retirement in 1986. She was especially interested in phosphines and other compounds containing at least one phosphorus–phosphorus bond. To characterise the substances, she used all available spectroscopic methods, from IR and Raman spectroscopy and NMR measurements to mass spectrometry.

Baudler received several awards for her scientific work. In 1982, for example, she became a Full Member of the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina. In the year of her retirement, the GDCh awarded her the prestigious Alfred-Stock Memorial Award. After Margot Becke-Goehring (1914–2009), she was only the second woman to receive this honour. Marianne Baudler died in Davos on 5 March 2003 at the age of 81.

In December 2022, the GDCh Board decided that the GDCh Award for Inorganic Chemistry (formerly the Alfred-Stock Memorial Award) would in future be named after Marianne Baudler.

Literature

J. Hahn, Nachrichten aus der Chemie 51, 2003, p. 955
University Archives of Cologne, ref. 631, papers of Prof. Dr Marianne Baudler