Hans Finkelstein

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Hans Finkelstein (born May 17, 1885 in Leipzig ; † December 1938 ) was a German chemist.

Life

This biography follows that published by W. Baker and JFW McOmie in 1959, which includes additional references.

Hans Finkelstein came from a liberal Jewish family and joined the Protestant Church at the age of ten. He studied chemistry like his father Berthold Finkelstein, one of the first chemists at BASF . After studying in Leipzig and Dresden , he worked from 1906 in Strasbourg with Johannes Thiele on his doctoral thesis, which he presented in 1909. Hans Finkelstein continued his scientific work as an assistant at Thiele from 1910 to 1912.

During this time he also began to translate some scientific books into German with his father. In 1912 he left his university career and became head of the research department in the “ Chemical Factories - formerly Weiler-ter Meer ” in Uerdingen (now Bayer AG ). As an industrial chemist, he wrote several patents. Also in 1912 he married Annemarie Bruns, with whom he had two children.

As a result of the ordinance on the elimination of Jews from German economic life of November 12, 1938, issued immediately after the November pogroms 1938 , he was forced to resign from his position in the company and surrender his passport due to his Jewish descent. In December 1938 he died under tragic circumstances with no prospect of a future in the Third Reich.

plant

In chemistry, Hans Finkelstein is particularly known for the Finkelstein reaction named after him , which describes the exchange of a halogen atom in a hydrocarbon by another halogen atom. This process is of technical importance, for example, for the formation of organic iodine compounds. The original work by Hans Finkelstein was published as part of his doctoral thesis and shortly afterwards in a scientific journal article in 1910.

Individual evidence

  1. Hans Finkelstein: About a derivative of benzocyclobutene . In: Chemical Reports . tape 92 , no. 5 , 1959, pp. 37-46 , doi : 10.1002 / cber.19590920538 .
  2. Hans Finkelstein: Representation of organic iodides from the corresponding bromides and chlorides . In: Reports of the German Chemical Society . tape 43 , no. 2 , 1910, pp. 1528–1532 , doi : 10.1002 / cber.19100430257 .