Matthias Pier

Matthias Pier (born July 22, 1882 in Nackenheim , † September 12, 1965 in Heidelberg ) was a German industrial chemist. It achieved worldwide importance through the large-scale production of methanol from synthesis gas and the Bergius-Pier process for coal liquefaction.

Life

Pier attended high school in Mainz and initially studied chemistry at the Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg and the Universität Jena . In 1903 he was reciprocated in the Corps Saxonia Jena . As an inactive he moved to the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität zu Berlin . With a doctoral thesis in physical chemistry supervised by Walther Nernst , he was awarded a Dr. phil. PhD. From 1910 he worked in the Central Office for Scientific and Technical Investigations in Neubabelsberg and dealt with catalytic printing processes ( explosives ). From 1920 he worked at BASF in Ludwigshafen and from 1927 Pier was employed as an authorized signatory at IG Farben and there from 1934 in the position of director. He was arrested by the military government in January 1946 and was held in various camps until November 1947. He retired from BASF in January 1949. He was married without children.

Honors

Pier has received numerous awards and prizes, including the Carl Engler Medal (1936), the Goethe Medal for Art and Science and the DECHEMA Medal . He was Dr. Ing. Eh of the Technical University of Hanover , Honorary Senator of the University of Heidelberg and since 1942 member of the German Academy of Natural Scientists Leopoldina . The Minister-President of Baden-Württemberg honored him in 1950 by awarding him the title of "Professor". In 1952 he received the Great Cross of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany. A conference room in the CCe Kulturhaus Leuna is called Matthias-Pier-Saal . In Nackenheim the "Prof.-Dr.-Pier-Straße" was named after him.

Memberships

• Stahlhelm, Bund der Frontsoldaten (June 1933)
• National Socialist German Workers' Party (May 1937)

See also

• German synthetic gasoline
• Automatic arrest

literature

• Manfred Rasch :  Pier, Matthias. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 20, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-428-00201-6 , p. 428 f. ( Digitized version ).

Web links

• Literature by and about Matthias Pier in the catalog of the German National Library
• Newspaper article about Matthias Pier in the press kit for the 20th century of the ZBW - Leibniz Information Center for Economics .
• Discover Matthias Pier's biogram at Landeskunde online | Baden-Württemberg State Archive

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Kösener Corpslisten 1960, 71/563.
2. ↑ DGMK German Scientific Society for Petroleum, Natural Gas and Coal eV Matthias Pier ( Memento of the original dated February 2, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . 
3. ↑ DGMK German Scientific Society for Oil, Natural Gas and Coal: Dr. phil. Dr.-Ing. Eh Matthias Pier ( Memento of the original from February 2, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The  archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 50 kB) Carl Engler Medal 1936.
4. ↑ Matthias Pier Hall in the CCe Kulturhaus Leuna