Elmar Profft

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Elmar Profft (born May 28, 1905 in Hanover , † January 12, 1978 in Wernigerode ) was a German chemist and university professor. In 1961 he was rector of the Technical University of Chemistry in Leuna-Merseburg .

Life

Elmar Profft studied chemistry at the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität from 1924 and became a member of the Corps Teutonia Berlin . As a student of Walter Nernst and Carl Mannich , he was promoted to Dr. phil. PhD . Mannich's work on aminomethylation influenced Profft's own work. He then worked for five years as an assistant in Landsberg (Warthe) at the Prussian agricultural research institutes. In 1936 he took over the management of the research institute belonging to the Glanzstoff-Fabriken AG in Teltow - Seehof . In 1947 he went to the Fahlberg-List chemical plant, located in the Salbke district of Magdeburg, as head of the scientific department . He later became the plant's research director. His area of ​​responsibility here was research into the recycling of waste products and, above all, the elimination of gaps in supply that existed in the post-war period. With the help of the Mannich reaction , it was possible to manufacture the anesthetic falicain using local raw materials and thus to close the supply gap that existed in East Germany. He wrote works on hydroxyaminonitrobenzenes and thus enabled knowledge about the connections between taste and constitution of sweeteners. Profft developed the artificial sweetener falimint .

Apartment building in Magdeburg-Salbke, where Elmar Profft lived, photo 2010

During this time Profft lived in Alt Salbke 57 in the immediate vicinity of the plant. The newspaper Neues Deutschland quoted him in 1950 with a political demand for a ban on nuclear weapons .

After his 1955 at the University of Leipzig carried Habilitation he became in 1956 professor at the Technische Hochschule Merseburg . In March 1961 he took over the role of Rector there , succeeding Heinz Schmellenmeier . Statements in connection with his membership in the Corps Vandalia-Teutonia in West Berlin and with the building of the Wall were at odds with the worldview of the German Democratic Republic . That is why he was released from his university duties in December 1961. His successor as rector was Rolf Landsberg from January 1962 .

In the following year 1962 Profft went to Wernigerode with the young chemist Herbert Teubner . There he set up the department for veterinary drug research of the VVB Pharmazeutische Industrie , which he took over as head and in which various veterinary drugs were developed. In 1970 he retired, and was succeeded by Herbert Teubner, who has now received his doctorate.

Profft had set up a laboratory in his home in Wernigerode, in which he continued to conduct research in the field of preparative chemistry until his death. In 1990 - 12 years after his death - he was rehabilitated.

He has 75 patents and 150 publications. Profft was co-editor of the Zeitschrift für Chemie , published in Leipzig , and for many years was in charge of the inter-company central working group for organic-chemical intermediates . He was named an Honored Inventor in 1950. In 1960 he was awarded the GDR National Prize.

Fonts

  • Knowledge of 2,3-oxynaphthaldehyde and naphthocoumarins , dissertation Berlin 1930;
  • The Falicaine , 1954;
  • Higher intense sweetener homologs. In: Chemische Zeitung 46, Issue 10, 1956, 309f .;
  • To the knowledge of the Falicaine (7th communication with quotation of the earlier communication), in: Chemische Technik 10, 1958, 302ff.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Kösener Corpslisten 1996, 165 , 153.
  2. ^ Address book of the city of Magdeburg 1950-51, page 461.
  3. ↑ “We don't need atomic bombs!” In Neues Deutschland of April 13, 1950, page 2.
personal data
SURNAME Profft, Elmar
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German chemist and university professor
DATE OF BIRTH May 28, 1905
PLACE OF BIRTH Hanover
DATE OF DEATH January 12, 1978
Place of death Wernigerode