Franz Hein (chemist)

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Franz Hein (left) in conversation with Erhard Kurras (1959)

Franz Hein (born June 30, 1892 in Grötzingen (Karlsruhe) , † March 26, 1976 in Jena ) was a German chemist and professor at the University of Jena . He dealt with complex chemistry and is considered to be the founder of the chemistry of metal aromatic complexes.

Life

Franz Hein, son of the painter of the same name , studied chemistry, physics and mathematics at the University of Leipzig from 1912 to 1917 . In 1917 he received his doctorate under Arthur Hantzsch and Konrad Schäfer , and in 1921 the habilitation in chemistry at the University of Leipzig. From 1921 to 1923 he was a private lecturer in chemistry at the University of Leipzig and from 1923 to 1942 he was a regular associate professor for inorganic chemistry in Leipzig (the position was newly established at that time). From 1942 to 1946 he was a full professor of inorganic chemistry at the University of Jena , where he was again appointed full professor of inorganic chemistry from 1946 to 1956 (initially as a substitute for the retired Adolf Sievert ). The four directors of the chemical institutes had been brought to the West by the Americans in 1945 and Hein was the only one of them to return to Jena in 1946. He then headed the reconstruction of the chemical institutes and was also acting director of the Institute for Organic Chemistry until 1954. He retired in 1957, but remained provisional director of the Institute for Inorganic Chemistry until 1959. His successor was Lothar Kolditz (* 1929).

Between 1946 and 1972, seventy chemists received their doctorates from Hein and four completed their habilitation. His students became professors: Gerhard Bähr (1919–1968, Professor in Greifswald), Siegfried Herzog (Professor in Greifswald), who expanded inert gas technology according to Wilhelm Schlenk in Jena , Kurt Madeja (1924–2002, Professor in Greifswald), Kurt Issleib (Professor in Halle / Saale), Horst Müller (* 1921, Professor in Magdeburg). Erhard Kurras received his doctorate in 1959 and completed his habilitation under Hein in 1970.

He was married to Paula Rässler.

plant

He dealt with organic transition metal compounds and the elucidation of their structure, first in 1919 with a work on organic chromium compounds. This was the first presentation of metal aromatic complexes (dibenzene chromium derivatives, Heinsche polyphenyl chromium compounds). He did not yet realize that these were sandwich complexes.

Organometallic sandwich complexes were first discovered in the early 1950s by Ernst Otto Fischer , Robert B. Woodward and Geoffrey Wilkinson on ferrocene (for which Wilkinson and Fischer received the Nobel Prize in 1973). Hein did not have the methods used by these (X-ray structure analysis, etc.) at that time. Harold Zeiss (1917–1995) and Minoru Tsutsui (1918–1981) soon discovered that the chromium salts examined by Hein were also sandwich complexes .

Hein built a school of complex chemistry in Jena. From 1956 to 1968 he headed the research center for complex chemistry of the Academy of Sciences of the GDR, which was set up in recognition of his achievements and which worked closely with the Institute for Inorganic Chemistry in Jena.

His book on complex compounds from 1950 was a standard work, which he greatly expanded in a second edition in collaboration with Bodo Heyn in the 1970s.

Honors and memberships

He was a member

Hein was a member of the Reich Air Protection Association since 1934, of the National Socialist Company Cell Organization in 1933, of the National Socialist Teachers' Association (1933 to 1939), of the National Socialist People's Welfare (1934 to 1945) and of the National Socialist German Lecturer Association (1939 to 1945). In 1933 he signed the confession of professors at German universities and colleges about Adolf Hitler .

In 1952 he received the National Prize of the GDR III. Science and technology class .

Publications (selection)

  • I. Optical investigations into the constitution of bismuth compounds. II. Studies on triphenylmethane derivatives , dissertation, Leipzig, 1917
  • About the polyphenylchromium bases and their salts , Habilitation, Leipzig, 1921
  • Chemical coordination theory , Leipzig: S. Hirzel 1950
  • Chemistry of complex compounds , 2 volumes, Leipzig: S. Hirzel 1971, 1978 (the extended new edition of his chemical coordination theory , in volume 2 the special part)

literature

  • Peter Hallpap: Prof. Dr. Franz Hein was born 120 years ago and was appointed to Jena 70 years ago , chemical history note 1/2012, University of Jena, online

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Some sources give the date of February 26th, including Killy / Vierhaus, Deutsche Biografische Enzyklopädie.
  2. ↑ Hallpap, chemistry Historical note 1/2012, University of Jena. This quotes Poggendorff's biographical-literary concise dictionary for the history of exact sciences , Volume 8, p. 1491
  3. ↑ biographical data, publications and Academic pedigree of Franz Hein at academictree.org, accessed on February 9, 2018th
  4. ↑ According to Werner History of Inorganic Chemistry , Wiley-VCH 2016, p. 109, he is a victim of political discrimination in the GDR because of his critical attitude to GDR politics. He was denied his habilitation in Jena, worked at Hein's research center on complex chemistry until 1969, then went to Rostock, where his work was hindered so that he tried to leave for the West. In 1988 he stayed after a trip to the West and took a position at the MPI for Coal Research in Mülheim, whereupon he was accused of betraying secrets in the GDR and forbade any contact with him. His colleague Uwe Rosenthal was strictly monitored by the Stasi.
personal data
SURNAME Hein, Franz
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German chemist
DATE OF BIRTH June 30, 1892
PLACE OF BIRTH Grötzingen (Karlsruhe)
DATE OF DEATH March 26, 1976
Place of death Jena