Karl Lothar Wolf

(Karl) Lothar Wolf (born February 14, 1901 in Kirchheimbolanden ; † February 3, 1969 in Marienthal ) was a German chemist and university professor .

Life

Wolf studied mathematics , physics and chemistry at the universities of Bonn , Giessen , Heidelberg and Munich . In 1921 he became a member of the Corps Rhenania Bonn and the Corps Hassia Gießen . In 1926 he was promoted to Dr. phil. PhD . From 1925 he worked in the Einstein Tower in Potsdam . In 1927 he went to the Albertus University in Königsberg , where he completed his habilitation in chemistry in 1928 . In the same year he represented the chair for physical chemistry at the Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel . After an intermezzo at the TH Karlsruhe , he returned to Kiel in October 1930 - at the age of 29 - as a full professor . In 1933, he rejected a call from Karlsruhe.

Since May 1, 1933 a member of the NSDAP ( member no. 2,729,714), he was rector of Kiel University from 1933 to 1935 and promoted the National Socialist reorganization of the university. The scandal of an alleged relationship with the student Leiva Petersen , the daughter of a colleague, was used by the succeeding Rector Georg Dahm as a pretext to get Wolf's dismissal from the faculty and to have him transferred to the Julius Maximilians University of Würzburg , where he was until In 1937 he took over the provisional management of the extraordinary chair for physical chemistry, which had become vacant when Klaus Clusius was transferred in 1936 . At Karl Ziegler's instigation, he came from there to the Martin Luther University in Halle-Wittenberg in 1937 , where he temporarily served as cell leader of the NSDAP. Officially professor since 1938 , he took on armaments contracts from the Reich Office for Economic Development (synthetic lubricants). In 1942 he received the War Merit Cross 2nd Class. In 1943 he also became director of the four-year plan institute for interface physics . In 1944 he was awarded the War Merit Cross 1st Class for his research on fat substitutes.

In 1945 he was deported to the American zone of occupation and released from the University of Halle. After denazification , he was 131er and headed the North Palatinate High School in Kirchheimbolanden from 1948 to 1954 . In 1955 he began to set up a laboratory for the physics and chemistry of interfaces in Kirchheimbolanden and Marienthal. It was financed by donations from industry and grants from the German Research Foundation and finally transferred to the Fraunhofer Society .

He was a representative of German chemistry , whose ideas were also included in his book Theoretical Chemistry . Their holistic-morphological atomic theory with recourse to Paracelsists of the early modern period and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe , however, found little resonance with the National Socialists or otherwise. On the other hand, his preoccupation with Goethe earned him recognition and he was co-editor of his scientific writings in Weimar. The science historian and chemist Rembert Ramsauer was one of his doctoral students .

In 1959 Wolf received the formal position of emeritus professor of physical chemistry at the University of Mainz .

Fonts

• Theoretical Chemistry, Leipzig: Barth, 4th edition 1959
• Drops, bubbles and lamellae or From the forms of liquid bodies, Springer Verlag, Understandable Science 1968
• Elektrochemie, Aulis Verlag 1961
• Physics and chemistry of interfaces, 2 volumes, Springer Verlag 1957, 1959
• with Robert Wolff: Symmetrie, Böhlau, Münster 1956
• Shape and symmetry: a system of symmetrical bodies, Niemeyer 1952
• The archetype of the elementary atom, Stuttgart: Metzler 1950
• Experiments on the physics and chemistry of interfaces with an outline of their theory and an excursus on the nature of intermolecular forces, Marburg 1950
• with Hans-Georg Trieschmann : Practical Introduction to Physical Chemistry, Vieweg 1937, 3rd edition, Barth 1954
• with Wilhelm Troll : Goethe's morphological order: attempt at a scientific morphology, Leipzig: Akademische Verlagsgesellschaft 1940, Halle: Niemeyer 1942

In the 1950s and 1960s he was co-editor of the natural science writings of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe near Böhlau in Weimar.

Awards and memberships

• War Merit Cross 2nd Class
• War Merit Cross 1st Class
• Member of the Leopoldina (since 1940)

literature

• Michael Grüttner : Biographical Lexicon on National Socialist Science Policy (= Studies on Science and University History. Volume 6). Synchron, Heidelberg 2004, ISBN 3-935025-68-8 , pp. 185-186.
• Helmut Heiber : University under the swastika , Part II: The surrender of the high schools , Vol. 1, Munich, Saur, 1992, pp. 442-450. ISBN 3-598-22630-6
• Henrik Eberle : The Martin Luther University in the time of National Socialism. Mdv, Halle 2002, ISBN 3-89812-150-X , p. 449
• Frank Kuschel: Mühlpforte No. 1 and physical chemistry at the University of Halle. The story of a university refuge. Diepholz / Berlin 2017, pp. 51–60. ISBN 978-3-86225-108-7 . Website .

Web links

• Literature by and about Karl Lothar Wolf in the catalog of the German National Library
• Entry on Karl Lothar Wolf in the Catalogus Professorum Halensis

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Kösener Corpslisten 1960, 12/771; 97/1142.
2. ↑ Jörg Schönert, Literary Studies and Science Studies. Metzler, Stuttgart 2000 ISBN 3-476-01751-6 , page 241.
3. ^ Klaus Koschel: The development and differentiation of the subject chemistry at the University of Würzburg. In: Peter Baumgart (Ed.): Four hundred years of the University of Würzburg. A commemorative publication. Degener & Co. (Gerhard Gessner), Neustadt an der Aisch 1982 (= sources and contributions to the history of the University of Würzburg. Volume 6), ISBN 3-7686-9062-8 , pp. 703–749; here: p. 732.
4. ↑ Henrik Eberle: The Martin Luther University in the time of National Socialism , 2002, p. 449.
5. ^ ^{A b} Henry Hatt : Code name Steinbock II (Zingel, Molchfisch): Relocation of IG Farben (BASF) to Unterloquitz, BoD - Books on Demand, 2014, p. 143.