Dr. Ralph Wieneke
Chemistry – (Y)Our Passion, (Y)Our commitment
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The building was inaugurated in 1926 as a laboratory for dye and textile chemistry and as the headquarters of the institute of the same name. The laboratory had already been founded in 1893 by RICHARD MÖHLAU (1857–1940) as the first university laboratory of its kind in Germany, and he directed it until 1911. HANS THEODOR BUCHERER (1869–1949) succeeded MÖHLAU as director of the laboratory from 1911 to 1913. Under the direction of WALTER KÖNIG (1878–1964), from 1913 to 1954, the institute developed into a world-leading centre for research into synthetic dyes and their applications. KÖNIG’s work on polymethine dyes was groundbreaking for the development of colour photography. The name König Building was bestowed during his tenure, in 1953. When it opened in 1926, the König Building also became home to the dye collection, whose oldest holdings date back to the mid-19th century. Systematic collecting for research purposes at the Institute of Dye and Textile Chemistry resulted in a unique collection documenting the development of synthetic dyes from the discovery of mauveine in 1856 to the present day.
Johann Friedrich Gmelin (1775–1804) came to Göttingen in 1775, initially as a full professor of philosophy. In 1778, he was appointed full professor at the Faculty of Medicine, where he held the first Göttingen nominal professorship of chemistry and pharmacy until his death. This put Göttingen ahead of other universities in establishing professorships in chemistry and the natural sciences. In 1781, Göttingen University was granted the funds to build a chemical laboratory. The plans for the construction began in 1782, and building work commenced in 1783. Since then, the two-storey half-timbered building has stood on Hospitalstraße in Göttingen, today known as the "Wöhler House". In its rooms, under the succeeding distinguished institute directors Friedrich Stromeyer (1776–1835), Friedrich Wöhler (1800–1882), Hans Hübner (1837–1884), Victor Meyer (1848–1897) and Otto Wallach (1847–1931), Göttingen developed into a centre of modern chemical research and a training institution of international renown.
Friedrich Jacob Merck, a pharmacist, received permission from Landgrave Ludwig VI in 1668 to run the pharmacy at the Schlossgraben in Darmstadt. Viewed from today, this pharmacy was the seed from which the Merck company grew; in 2018, the company celebrated its 350th anniversary. This pharmacy would have deserved our commemorative plaque 'Historic Site of Chemistry' if it were still standing. Instead, this distinction was awarded to the Pützer Tower. Since its construction in 1904, this tower has symbolised the continued existence of Merck, which at that time moved its premises to Frankfurter Straße 250, leaving the cramped site in Darmstadt city centre. Outside the city, in the north of Darmstadt, space was created for the company's expansion. The Pützer Tower at the factory entrance is now a well-guarded treasure of Merck as an industrial monument. At the interface between the company and the public, it symbolises the importance of the company – for Darmstadt and for the world. Over 350 years, Merck advanced from a pharmacy in the desolate little landgraviate ravaged by the Thirty Years' War to a – still family-run – listed global player, and has remained loyal to Darmstadt. And, step by step, Darmstadt developed into the thriving city of science that we know today. Friedrich Pützer (1871–1922), a full professor of architecture at TU Darmstadt from 1902 and its later rector, was one of the defining architects of his time as a university lecturer, monument conservator, urban planner and church architect. He became an important partner for Merck in designing the new company premises. Of his ensemble of buildings, only the Pützer Tower has survived. The tower had no technical function within the chemical company; instead, it was designed as a 'health insurance, gatekeeper's and civil servants' residential building'. When one considers that a building as tall as the Pützer Tower was at that time something extraordinarily modern and entirely new, it is easy to imagine that the tower then fulfilled the function of presenting the company to a far greater extent than it does today: imposing, towering, self-confident and hungry for the future.
2017 was an anniversary year for the German Chemical Society. In the 19th century, the first national chemical societies were established throughout Europe. Germany was no exception. On 11 November 1867, the German Chemical Society in Berlin was founded. Its founding president was August Wilhelm von Hofmann, and the founding venue was the Diorama of the Gropius brothers. This was reason enough to establish a ‘Historical Site of Chemistry’ in Berlin during the anniversary year. Although the Diorama building no longer exists, an exception was made to the rules of our ‘Historical Sites of Chemistry’ programme, and a commemorative plaque was installed elsewhere, not far from the former site of the Diorama. If you travel to Berlin today, visit the square in front of the University Library of Humboldt University, in the immediate vicinity of Friedrichstraße railway station. There, on the central lamppost, our plaque commemorates August Wilhelm von Hofmann and the foundation of the German Chemical Society in November 1867. After the Second World War, chemists in Germany reorganised themselves and gave their society a new name as a symbol of a new beginning: since 1949, as the German Chemical Society, we have continued the work of the first chemical society. Many buildings and monuments in Berlin fell victim to the Second World War. The Diorama had already had to make way for the construction of the Stadtbahn in 1876. When reading our plaque on the lamppost in front of the Jakob and Wilhelm Grimm Centre in Berlin-Mitte, you are standing with your back to the Stadtbahn tracks and thus very close to the place where the Diorama once offered its visitors thrilling experiences.
In 1817, Goethe noted in "Records of Official Activity": "After Göttling's death, His Serene Highness acquired his estate of apparatus and books, which was placed in Döbereiner's hands and considerably augmented with French glassware and other tools required by modern chemistry. A laboratory was established, and a house and garden were purchased to provide more spacious accommodation and greater freedom in handling hazardous materials." in: Georg Schwedt, Goethe as a Chemist, Springer, Heidelberg 1998, p. 146
On 10 July 2015, the GDCh and the University of Marburg invite you to Marburg for the unveiling of the commemorative plaque “Historic Site of Chemistry”. Johannes Hartmann (1568–1631) was appointed “Professor Publicus Chymiatriae” at the then still young University of Marburg by Landgrave Moritz of Hesse-Kassel, a learned man, and established the world’s first “Laboratorium Chymicum Publicum”. He taught there until 1621, when he went to Kassel as personal physician to the Hessian landgraves. The University of Marburg began in three secularised churches. Hartmann’s laboratory was located in the Franciscan monastery founded in 1234, also known as the Barefoot Monastery. The buildings of the former Franciscan monastery, which have belonged to the university since 1528, have today retained only a small part of their medieval fabric; the “Institute of Sports Science and Motology” of Philipps-Universität Marburg at Barfüßer-Straße 1 now stands above some surviving foundation walls. At that time, chemistry existed at universities only as an auxiliary science of medicine. Hartmann’s practical course participants were therefore medical students. Chymiatry refers to the branch of chemistry devoted to the healing arts. Students could attend lectures on chymiatry while simultaneously preparing chymiatrical formulations in the laboratory, thus gaining practical experience in chemistry and the preparation of medicines. His laboratory diary from 1609, written in Latin, provides an illustrative insight into Hartmann’s work.
On 9 May 2014, the Old Chemical Institute in Bonn – where Friedrich August Kekulé began his work in 1867 and where he lived, taught and conducted research until his death – was included in the GDCh programme “Historic Sites of Chemistry”. You can also download the invitation flyer. Friedrich August Kekulé von Stradonitz (1829–1896) was a German chemist and natural scientist who laid the foundations for the modern structural theory of organic chemistry. He is famous for the daydream that is said to have led him to his theory of benzene and the benzene ring, which he described in his speech at the Benzene Festival in Berlin in 1890.
Following the oxo synthesis (hydroformylation) discovered by Otto Roelen in 1938, more than twelve million tonnes of so-called oxo alcohols are produced annually in Oberhausen-Holten and worldwide. Many chemists are at least familiar with his discovery, but few know its inventor. On 24 September 2013, the GDCh and OXEA honoured the pioneering work of Otto Roelen (1897–1993) in the field of hydroformylation (oxo synthesis). This discovery (a reaction of olefins with carbon monoxide and hydrogen) was groundbreaking for the production of aldehydes and their subsequent products (carboxylic acids and alcohols) from fossil raw materials. Also honoured were the Fischer–Tropsch process, first practised on an industrial scale at the Ruhrchemie plant (the production of hydrocarbons from carbon monoxide and hydrogen), and the large-scale production of high-molecular-weight polyethylene using the process developed by Karl Ziegler (1898–1973). The application of oxo synthesis and Ziegler polymerisation marked the beginning of the era of industrially used homogeneous catalysis.
With the Fresenius Chemical Laboratory in Wiesbaden, opened by Carl Remigius Fresenius in 1848, the GDCh honoured the twelfth “Historic Site of Chemistry” in Wiesbaden on 18 July 2013, thereby commemorating the beginnings of analytical chemistry. When Carl Remigius Fresenius was born in Frankfurt am Main on 28 December 1818, Frankfurt was a free city. His grandfather was a pastor in Frankfurt and, notably, Goethe’s baptismal pastor; his father was a solicitor. With C.R. Fresenius, a multigenerational tradition of chemists began in the Fresenius family. Becoming a chemist and leading the laboratory into the future: many family members of subsequent generations have taken on this task to this day. In his parents’ garden house, C.F. Fresenius conducted his first chemical experiments; he began an apprenticeship at the Stein pharmacy in Frankfurt and studied chemistry and natural sciences in Bonn in 1840. And he was already publishing. The first edition of his “Guide to Qualitative Analysis” appeared. In 1842, Fresenius was a state assistant at the University Laboratory in Gießen, where he obtained his doctorate under – Justus Liebig! In 1844, when he was barely 26 years old, he became a private lecturer in Gießen, and just one year later, in 1845, he was appointed professor at the Ducal Nassau Agricultural Institute at Hof Geisberg near Wiesbaden. He married and moved to Wiesbaden. He and his wife Charlotte Rumpf had three sons and four daughters. Two of his sons, Theodor Wilhelm and Remigius Heinrich Fresenius, later continued his laboratory. His great entrepreneurial idea was to establish his own modern chemical laboratory that would remove and fill the obstacles and gaps he recognised at the time in the further development of the chemical sciences. The development of modern analytical chemistry took root in his laboratory – founded and shaped by C.R. Fresenius to this day. He acquired the building at Kapellenstraße 11 in Wiesbaden for his project at his own expense and was not deterred even by the turmoil of the March Revolution of 1848. With the authorisation of the Ducal Nassau Ministry, he opened his laboratory on 1 May 1848 with five students and one assistant. The institute grew; a few years later, there were 38 students and three assistants. In 1863, he established the pharmaceutical teaching institute alongside it; in 1862, he founded the journal for analytical chemistry, which continues to this day under the name “Analytical and Bioanalytical Chemistry”. In 1876/77, he organised the systematic training of food chemists in his laboratory, and in 1884 a bacteriological department was opened. From 1895, preparation for the food chemist examination became possible at the Wiesbaden laboratory. C.R. Fresenius, the chemist, teacher, publisher and entrepreneur, counted among his students many future founders of the emerging chemical industry. Here too, he made a formative contribution. His active life came to an end in 1897. He died, while his descendants ensured the continued development – through changing times to the present day. The GDCh has awarded the Fresenius Award for outstanding achievements in the field of analytical chemistry since 1961, thereby commemorating C.R. Fresenius.
On 1 October 2012, the GDCh honoured the place where Friedrich von Heyden, Hermann Kolbe (aspirin), Richard Seifert (Odol) and, in particular, Richard Müller (silicones) worked, at 01445 Radebeul, Meißner Str. 35 (formerly Dr F. v. Heyden Salicylic Acid Factory). More than 130 years ago, Dr Friedrich von Heyden produced a synthetic pharmaceutical active ingredient on an industrial scale for the first time – salicylic acid. He is therefore regarded as one of the founders of the modern pharmaceutical industry. A chemical factory was built for its production in the village of Radebeul near Dresden. The old production and administrative building, which is currently the headquarters of Arevipharma GmbH, is a listed monument. Processes for producing active ingredients are still being developed and optimised here. The chemist Schmitt, together with his students Richard Seifert and Friedrich von Heyden, improved the salicylic acid synthesis presented by Hermann Kolbe (Kolbe–Schmitt reaction). Kolbe’s son Carl Kolbe, also a chemist, took over the management of the factory from its founder in 1884 and the factory itself in 1885. His daughter Johanna married the chemist Ernst von Meyer (University of Leipzig, later Dresden University of Technology), who was also closely associated with the factory. After the death of Hermann Kolbe, who was a partner and scientific Head of v. Heyden’s Salicylic Acid Factory in Radebeul, Schmitt took over his duties. He was also one of the co-founders of the German Chemical Society, on whose Board he was elected in 1896. After attending the G.E. Lessing Grammar School in Döbeln, Richard Müller studied chemistry at the University of Leipzig, where he received his doctorate in 1931. From 1933 onwards, he then worked as laboratory Head in Radebeul at the v. Heyden Chemical Factory. During his research there, he succeeded in producing methylchlorosilanes industrially in 1941; these are starting materials for the production of silicones. At the same time, the US chemist Eugene G. Rochow developed the same process. Since both carried out their development independently of one another, this process is now known as the Müller–Rochow synthesis. Müller played a major role in rebuilding the chemical industry in Radebeul after the end of the Second World War. In 1951, he received the National Prize of the GDR. In 1952, he became Head of VEB Silicone Chemistry in Nünchritz, a separate branch plant of the von Heyden Chemical Factory, and in 1953 scientific Head of the entire operation. He demonstrated civic courage during the 17 June 1953 uprising, when he was the spokesman for the workforce of the then state-owned VEB von Heyden Chemical Factory. From 1954 to 1972, Müller taught as Head of the Institute of Silicone and Fluorocarbon Chemistry at Dresden University of Technology, which awarded him an honorary doctorate in 1992.
Robert Wilhelm Eberhard Bunsen (* 30 March 1811 in Göttingen; † 16 August 1899 in Heidelberg) was a German chemist. Together with Gustav Robert Kirchhoff, he developed spectral analysis, which can be used to detect chemical elements with a high degree of specificity. He perfected the Bunsen burner, named after him, and invented the Bunsen cell and the Bunsen photometer. In 1852, Bunsen took over Leopold Gmelin’s chair at Heidelberg University. Here too, he was provided with a new laboratory (including accommodation). Using nitric acid, he succeeded in producing pure metals such as chromium, magnesium, aluminium, manganese, sodium, barium, calcium and lithium by electrolysis. In his collaboration with Sir Henry Roscoe from 1852 onwards, he studied the light-induced formation of hydrogen chloride from hydrogen and chlorine. After seven years, Bunsen ended his collaboration with Roscoe in 1859 and worked with Kirchhoff on the spectral analysis of chemical elements. Spectroscopy made it possible to study the characteristic spectral lines produced when chemical substances were heated in flames. For this purpose, Bunsen perfected a special gas burner that had previously been invented by Michael Faraday and would later bear Bunsen’s name. Through the spectral analysis of water from Bad Dürkheim, Bunsen and Kirchhoff discovered the alkali metals caesium and rubidium in 1860/61. Their studies also made it possible to explain the Fraunhofer lines, thereby laying one of the most important foundations for modern astronomy.
Wolfen Film Factory is of great significance as a “Historic Site of Chemistry”, as production here began with cine film in 1910. By the mid-1920s, Wolfen Film Factory had developed into the largest film factory in Europe. Today’s museum was established in 1993 in a former coating plant. Visitors can see the entire manufacturing process of photographic film using original machinery at the original site. The outstanding exhibit is the original coating machine on which the world’s first multilayer colour film (Agfacolor-Neu) was produced in 1936. The combination of a historic production site and an extensive archive is unique in the world.
Honouring the place of work of Ernst Beckmann and other famous Leipzig scientists On 15 May 2009, the GDCh and the Faculty of Chemistry and Mineralogy of Leipzig University honoured the groundbreaking work of Ernst Beckmann (1853–1923) in physical and synthetic organic chemistry.
Max Planck Institute for Coal Research, Mülheim/Ruhr On 8 May 2008, the GDCh and the Max Planck Institute for Coal Research in Mülheim an der Ruhr honoured the groundbreaking work of Karl Ziegler (1898–1973) in the fields of organic and organometallic chemistry and chemical catalysis. The patent filed in 1953 for producing high-molecular-weight polyethylene at normal pressure and room temperature using “organometallic mixed catalysts” made from aluminium alkyls and transition-metal compounds triggered a rapid expansion in the large-scale production of polyolefins, which are inexpensive plastics with a wide range of applications. To this day, research and development in the field of “Ziegler chemistry” remain of major economic and technological importance. Karl Ziegler received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1963 jointly with Giulio Natta, who elucidated the stereochemistry of the polymerisation of propylene using Ziegler catalysts. Karl Ziegler was a co-founder of the GDCh in 1946 and its first president until 1951. The GDCh awards the Karl Ziegler Award, endowed by his daughter, Dr Marianne Witte, as well as the Karl Ziegler Young Scientist Award.
Old Chemical Institute of Philipps-Universität Marburg Hans Meerwein (1879–1965) carried out pioneering work in the field of synthetic and mechanistic organic chemistry in this building. The discovery of the transient occurrence of carbenium ions was groundbreaking for understanding the course of organic chemical reactions. Many of the reactions he investigated now bear his name, such as the Wagner–Meerwein rearrangement. The later Nobel Prize winners in Chemistry Hans Fischer, Adolf Butenandt, Otto Hahn, Karl Ziegler and Georg Wittig also worked here as students and young scientists. Programme of the ceremonial event on 1 September 2006.
Country estate Haus "Energie" in Großbothen near Leipzig Wilhelm Ostwald (1853–1932) was one of the most important chemists of his time, and his name is still associated with many terms today. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1909 for his work in the fields of catalysis, chemical equilibria and reaction rates, i.e. for establishing physical chemistry.
Old Chemical Institute of the Freiberg University of Mining and Technology On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the death of Clemens Winkler (1838–1904), the Old Chemical Institute of the Freiberg University of Mining and Technology was included in the “Historic Sites of Chemistry” programme. The corresponding event took place in Freiberg on 20/21 October 2004. From 1873 to 1902, Clemens Winkler was Professor of Inorganic and Analytical Chemistry at Freiberg University of Mining and Technology, where, among other things, he discovered the element germanium in 1886.
Liebig Museum Gießen As one of the GDCh events held during the Year of Chemistry 2003, the former Liebig laboratory, now the Liebig Museum, was included in the GDCh programme “Historic Sites of Chemistry” during the week of celebrations marking the 200th birthday of Justus von Liebig, on Friday, 16 May 2003. It was in this building that Justus von Liebig (1803–1873) designed and established the first modern university laboratory for chemistry. Here, he founded experimentally oriented chemistry studies and taught and conducted research from 1824 to 1852. Together with his students, during this period he carried out pioneering and groundbreaking work in the fields of analytical, organic, agricultural and physiological chemistry.
Institute of Nuclear Chemistry at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz Unveiling of a memorial plaque commemorating the joint work of Lise Meitner, Otto Hahn and Fritz Straßmann. On 22 February 2002, the 100th anniversary of Fritz Straßmann’s birth, the GDCh honoured the joint work of Lise Meitner, Otto Hahn and Fritz Straßmann. In 1938, they led to the discovery and interpretation of nuclear fission. At a ceremonial event at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, where Straßmann taught and conducted research from 1946 to 1970, the “Historic Sites of Science” memorial plaque was unveiled—the second of its kind in Germany. The University of Mainz’s Institute of Nuclear Chemistry has set up a dedicated website for this purpose.
Institute of Macromolecular Chemistry of the University of Freiburg Hermann Staudinger (1881-1965) is regarded as the “father” of macromolecular chemistry. In 1999, the GDCh and the American Chemical Society (ACS), as part of the ACS Historic Chemical Landmarks programme, honoured the establishment of polymer science by Nobel laureate Hermann Staudinger (1881-1965) as an “International Historic Chemical Landmark”. A commemorative plaque was installed at the Institute of Macromolecular Chemistry of the University of Freiburg on 19 April 1999.
