Otto Dieffenbach (chemist, 1862)

Otto Dieffenbach (born June 10, 1862 in Schwarz (Grebenau) , † September 20, 1919 in Heppenheim ) was a German electrochemist .

Life

Otto Dieffenbach was born as the second child of the Protestant pastor Georg Christian Dieffenbach and his wife Wilhelmine Mönnich in 1862 in Schwarz, a district of Grebenau, in the Vogelsberg district. He was the younger brother of Karl Dieffenbach . After graduating from high school, he studied chemistry at the University of Giessen.

In 1890 Dieffenbach completed his habilitation at the TH Darmstadt with the thesis Relationships between heat of combustion and the constitution of organic compounds . He was appointed private lecturer in electrochemistry. In April 1894 he finally became a full professor of chemical technology and electrochemistry. He was the first director of the Institute of Chemical Technology and Electrochemistry. Dieffenbach had a decisive influence on the design of the laboratories in the new building of the Chemical Institute, which opened in 1896 in Hochschulstrasse. The architect of this building complex was his colleague from the architecture department Erwin Marx .

From 1898 to 1901 and from 1913 to 1916 Dieffenbach was Dean of the Department of Chemistry at the TH. In October 1914, along with 32 other professors from the TH Darmstadt, he was one of the signatories of the declaration by university lecturers of the German Reich of October 16, 1914.

On March 31, 1918 Dieffenbach was retired at his request for health reasons. He died in Heppenheim in September 1919 at the age of 57. He was married to Josephine Fuchs since 1906.

Honors

• 1902: Award of the Knight's Cross 1st Class of the Order of Merit of Philip the Magnanimous
• 1907: Appointed Privy Councilor
• 1918: Award of the Cross of Honor of the Order of Merit of Philip the Magnanimous

literature

• Christa Wolf and Marianne Viefhaus: Directory of professors at TH Darmstadt , Darmstadt 1977, p. 38.