Richard Willstätter
Born	13 August 1872 Karlsruhe, Baden, Germany
Died	3 August 1942( 1942-08-03) (aged 69) Muralto, Locarno, Switzerland
Nationality	Germany
Fields	Physical chemistry
Institutions	University of Munich ETH Zürich University of Berlin Kaiser Wilhelm Institute
Alma mater	University of Munich
Doctoral advisor	Alfred Einhorn Adolf von Baeyer
Known for	Organic chemistry
Notable awards	Nobel Prize for Chemistry (1915), Fellow of the Royal Society[1]

Richard Martin Willstätter FRS^[1] (13 August 1872 – 3 August 1942) was a German organic chemist whose study of the structure of plant pigments, chlorophyll included, won him the 1915 Nobel Prize for Chemistry. Willstätter invented paper chromatography independently of Mikhail Tsvet.^[2][3]

Biography[link]

Willstätter was born in to a Jewish family in Karlsruhe.^[4] He went to school there and, when his family moved, he attended the Technical School in Nuremberg. At age 18 he entered the University of Munich to study science and stayed for the next fifteen years. He was in the Department of Chemistry, first as a student of Adolf von Baeyer -- he received his doctorate in 1894 - then as a faculty member. His doctoral thesis was on the structure of cocaine. Willstätter continued his research into other alkaloids and synthesized several of them. In 1896 he was named Lecturer and in 1902 Professor extraordinarius (professor without a chair).

In 1905 he left Munich to become professor at the ETH Zürich and there he worked on the plant pigment chlorophyll. He first determined its structure.

In 1912 he became professor of chemistry at the University of Berlin and director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Chemistry, studying the structure of pigments of flowers and fruits. It was here that Willstätter showed that chlorophyll was a mixture of two compounds, chlorophyll a and chlorophyll b.^[5]

In 1916 he returned to Munich as the successor to his mentor Baeyer. During the 1920s Willstätter investigated the mechanisms of enzyme reactions and did much to establish that enzymes are chemical substances, not biological organisms.

In 1924 Willstätter's career came to "a tragic end when, as a gesture against increasing antisemitism, he announced his retirement." According to his Nobel biography:^[6] "Expressions of confidence by the Faculty, by his students and by the Minister failed to shake the fifty-three year old scientist in his decision to resign. He lived on in retirement in Munich....Dazzling offers both at home and abroad were alike rejected by him."

In 1939 Willstätter emigrated to Switzerland. He spent the last three years of his life there in Muralto near Locarno writing his autobiography. He died of a heart attack in 1942.

Willstätter's autobiography, Aus meinem Leben, was not published in German until 1949. It was translated into English as From My Life in 1965.^[7]

Anecdote[link]

In 1911 the fledgling American chemist Michael Heidelberger went to work for a year with Willstätter in Zurich. Willstätter helped his somewhat impecunious American student by sharing the cost of laboratory supplies with him, arranging that when expensive materials, such as silver nitrate, were to be bought, it was his turn to pay, while Heidelberger took turns buying cheaper materials like sulfuric acid. "Better training than that you couldn't have," Heidelberger summed up his experience with Willstätter. They remained friends for life.

References[link]

See also[link]

• List of Jewish Nobel laureates

External links[link]

• Presentation of the Nobel Prize to Willstätter
• Biography of Willstätter by the Nobel Institute
• On Plant Pigments, Willstätter's Nobel lecture
• Mahnmale, Gedenkstätten, Erinnerungsorte für die Opfer des Nationalsozialismus in München 1933-1945

Adolf von Baeyer
von Baeyer in 1905
Born	Johann Friedrich Wilhelm Adolf von Baeyer (1835-10-31)October 31, 1835 Berlin, Germany
Died	August 20, 1917(1917-08-20) (aged 81) Starnberg, Germany
Nationality	Germany
Fields	Organic chemistry
Institutions	University of Berlin Gewerbe-Akademie, Berlin University of Strasbourg University of Munich
Alma mater	University of Berlin
Doctoral advisor	Robert Wilhelm Bunsen Friedrich August Kekulé
Doctoral students	Emil Fischer John Ulric Nef Victor Villiger Carl Theodore Liebermann Carl Gräbe
Known for	Synthesis of indigo
Notable awards	Nobel Prize for Chemistry (1905)

Johann Friedrich Wilhelm Adolf von Baeyer (German pronunciation: [ˈbaɪɐ]; (October 31, 1835 – August 20, 1917) was a German chemist who synthesized indigo,^[1] and was the 1905 recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.^[2]

List[link]

Born in Berlin, he initially studied mathematics and physics at Berlin University before moving to Heidelberg to study chemistry with Robert Bunsen. There he worked primarily in August Kekulé's laboratory, earning his doctorate (from Berlin) in 1858. He followed Kekulé to the University of Ghent, when Kekulé became professor there. He became a lecturer at the Berlin Trade Academy in 1860, and a Professor at the University of Strasbourg in 1871. In 1875 he succeeded Justus von Liebig as Chemistry Professor at the University of Munich.^[3]

Baeyer's chief achievements include the synthesis and description of the plant dye indigo, the discovery of the phthalein dyes, and the investigation of polyacetylenes, oxonium salts, nitroso compounds (1869) and uric acid derivatives (1860 and onwards) (including the discovery of barbituric acid (1864), the parent compound of the barbiturates). He was the first to propose the correct formula for indole in 1869, after publishing the first synthesis three years earlier. His contributions to theoretical chemistry include the 'strain' (Spannung) theory of triple bonds and strain theory in small carbon rings.^[4]

In 1871 he discovered the synthesis of phenolphthalein by condensation of phthalic anhydride with two equivalents of phenol under acidic conditions (hence the name). That same year he was the first to obtain synthetic fluorescein, a fluorophore pigment which is frequently referred to as pyoverdin when naturally synthesized by microorganisms (e.g., by some fluorescent strains of Pseudomonas). Von Baeyer named his finding resorcinphthalein as he had synthesized it from phthalic anhydride and resorcinol. The term fluorescein would not start to be used until 1878.

In 1872 he experimented with phenol and formaldehyde, almost preempting Leo Baekeland's later discovery of Bakelite.

In 1881 the Royal Society of London awarded Baeyer the Davy Medal for his work with indigo. He was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1884.^[5] In 1905 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry "in recognition of his services in the advancement of organic chemistry and the chemical industry, through his work on organic dyes and hydroaromatic compounds".

Baeyer's name is pronounced like the English word "buyer." His birth name was Johann Friedrich Wilhelm Adolf Baeyer, but throughout most of his life he was known simply as "Adolf Baeyer." On his fiftieth birthday he was raised to the hereditary nobility, changing his name to "Adolf von Baeyer."

References[link]

Attribuyion

 Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Baeyer, Johann Friedrich Wilhelm Adolf von". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. 

External links[link]

• Biography Biography from Nobelprize.org website
• Speech given by Professor A. Lindstedt, President of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, on December 10, 1905, upon Baeyer's receiving the Nobel Prize^{[dead link]}
• von Baeyer biography