Karl Söllner

Karl Söllner (born January 9, 1903 in Vienna , Austria-Hungary , † June 14, 1986 in Chevy Chase , Maryland ) was an Austrian-American chemist who was mainly active in the field of physical chemistry and biophysics .

Life

Söllner was the son of the lawyer Anton Maria Söllner and his wife Julie, b. Karplus. He grew up in Vienna. After attending the Schottengymnasium , which he left with the Matura in 1921, he began studying chemistry and philosophy at the University of Vienna. From his third semester he was employed as a student assistant (demonstrator) at the first chemical laboratory of the university. He completed his studies with a dissertation supervised by Alfons Klemenc (1885–1960). In 1926 and 1927 Söllner deepened his knowledge in the field of physical chemistry and electrochemistry in Vienna at the university and technical college there. In 1928 he joined the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physical Chemistry and Electrochemistry in Berlin , where he worked as a scientific assistant at Herbert Freundlich's side . At the beginning of May 1933 Söllner completed his habilitation at the University of Berlin with a habilitation thesis on a topic in the field of osmosis that was examined by Fritz Haber , Max Bodenstein and Herbert Freundlich .

In the same year, after the National Socialists came to power , Söllner was dismissed from civil service due to his - according to the National Socialist definition - partly Jewish descent in accordance with the provisions of the law on the restoration of the civil service: at the end of July 1933, he was dismissed from the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute. He then emigrated to Great Britain, where he found a job at the Chair of Chemistry at University College London , where he worked from 1933 to 1937. He was also employed as a visiting researcher and specialist advisor at Imperial Chemical Industries .

In 1937 Söllner moved to the United States . There he received a position as a chemist at the Department of Agronomy at Cornell University in Ithaca with the support of the "Emergency Committee in Aid of Displaced German Scholars". In 1938 he moved to the Department of Physiological Chemistry of the School of Medicine at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis . There he worked as research assistant employed (Associate Chemist), in 1939 he was appointed to the "Regular Chemist" and 1943 Extraordinary Professor (Associate Professor) promoted before 1947 eventually reaching the rank of ordinary professor.

After his emigration, Söllner was classified as an enemy of the state by the National Socialist police . In the spring of 1940 the Reich Main Security Office in Berlin put him on the special wanted list GB , a directory of people who, in the event of a successful invasion and occupation of the British Isles by the Wehrmacht, were to be located and arrested by the occupying troops following special SS units with priority.

Söllner later moved to the Institute of Health in Bethesda, Maryland , where he worked in the laboratory of the National Institute of Arthritis Metabolism and Digestive Diseases , initially with the rank of Principal Research Analyst, from 1948 as Senior Physical Biochemist and from 1965 as Head the Section for Electrochemistry and Colloid Chemistry . In 1973 he officially retired, but continued to work as a consultant and visiting researcher for the institute. In 1975 the scientist retired.

Söllner was a specialist in ultrasound for colloid systems . In this context, he focused his research on the investigation of membranes and their electrophysical properties as well as on "Studies of Dispersion of Solids, Coagulation, and Fog Formation." Söllner published around 120 scientific papers in specialist journals. He was also a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science , the American Institute of Chemistry and the New York Academy of Sciences , as well as the American Chemical Society , the Society of General Physiologists and the Electrochemical Society.

family

Söllner was married to Herta (Helen), born on July 23, 1934. Rosenberg. The daughter Barbara Sollner-Webb emerged from the marriage, who also embarked on a scientific career.

Fonts

• Knowledge of the thermal decomposition of nitric acid , 1926.
• To explain the abnormal osmosis in non-swellable membranes, I.-III. Part , 1933.
• The Structure of the Colladion Membrane and Its Electrical Behavior, an Experimental Test of Some Aspects of the Teorell and Meyer-Sievers Theories of Electrical Membrane Behavior , 1944.

literature

• Reinhard Rürup : Karl Söllner (Sollner). Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physical Chemistry and Electrochemistry, Berlin-Dahlem. In: Ders .: Fates and Careers. Memorial book for the researchers expelled from the Kaiser Wilhelm Society by the National Socialists. 2008, p. 319f.
• Allen G. Debus: World Who's who in Science: A Biographical Dictionary of Notable Scientists from Antiquity to the Present , 1968, p. 1577.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Entry on Söllner on the special wanted list GB (reproduced on the website of the Imperial War Museum in London).