Kurt Hess

This article deals with the chemist Kurt Hess. For the farmer and headmaster, see Kurt Luis Hess .

Kurt Hess (born October 5, 1888 in Krefeld , † April 8, 1961 in Immenstadt ) was a German chemist who researched mainly on cellulose , polymers, flour and protein chemistry .

Life

Hess studied chemistry in Dresden and Jena from 1908 to 1911. He received his doctorate in 1911 from the University of Jena . From 1911 to 1913 he worked for Emil Fischer . In 1914 he was appointed private lecturer at the University of Freiburg and in 1916 appointed associate professor there. From 1918 to 1921 he was an associate professor at the TH Karlsruhe . In 1921, he refused a professorship at the University of Vienna , in the same year Hess was appointed "Scientific Member of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society" and appointed head of department at what was then the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Chemistry in Berlin. where he headed the organic-chemical department until 1930. In 1931 he moved to IG Farben as an “external employee” . His father Christian Hess († 1923) was a member of the board of directors at Bayer .

However, he retained his laboratory and his status at the then Kaiser Wilhelm Institute (KWI) for Chemistry as an "External Scientific Member" of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society until 1948. The science historian Mark Walker characterizes Hess as a fanatical National Socialist; According to Walker, he was an "adversary" of the Jewish employee Lise Meitner at the KWI for Chemistry and denounced Meitner in 1938 after the annexation of Austria. The KWI for Chemistry was later incorporated into the Max Planck Society and renamed the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry . In 1940 Hess joined the NSDAP .

In 1952 Hess became honorary professor and head of the "Laboratory for flour and protein research" at what was then the TH Hannover . Hess has submitted more than 500 scientific papers, mainly on topics such as cellulose, fiber materials, rubber, chemistry and physics of high polymers and the chemistry of flour and proteins.

At the Technical University of Munich at the Garching location, a research center of the German Research Institute for Food Chemistry was named after Hess for a long time , the "Kurt Hess Institute for Flour and Protein Research".

Memberships

• since 1928: Member of the Leopoldina

literature

• Grete Ronge:  Hess, Kurt. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 9, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1972, ISBN 3-428-00190-7 , p. 10 ( digitized version ).
• Manfred Rasch : The Silesian Coal Research Institute of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society: A counterexample to the alleged Harnack principle , page 208, in: Bernhard vom Brocke , Hubert Laitko (ed.): The Kaiser Wilhelm / Max Planck Society and their Institute, de Gruyter, Berlin 1996

Individual evidence

1. ↑ see Mark Walker: Otto Hahn, Responsibility and Displacement, Series Results, Issue 10, of the Commission KWG in National Socialism, Berlin 2003 .
2. ^ See Maier, Chemiker im Third Reich, page 295 on Google Books
3. ↑ see for example AiF-FV 12637N ( Memento from March 5, 2004 in the Internet Archive )