Paul Ernst Levy

Paul Ernst Levy (born July 4, 1875 in Aachen ; † May 11, 1956 there ) was a German chemist and metallurgist .

Live and act

The son of a cloth wholesaler studied chemistry and metallurgy at the universities of Aachen, Munich and Würzburg and received his doctorate in 1897. He then returned to Aachen and was from 1898 to 1912 assistant to Ludwig Claisen at the organic laboratory of the RWTH Aachen . Despite his habilitation in 1911, Levy had to teach the subjects of mining, metallurgy and chemistry free of charge until 1927. Only when he took over the teaching position for fats, oils, waxes and resins did he receive a salary and, in 1928, a non-civil servant professorship. In addition, in 1931 he was given the teaching position for the newly established textile department.

In the spring of 1933, denunciation measures by the student body began at RWTH Aachen University . The ASTA ( General Student Committee ) and the student leaders sent the denunciation committee specially appointed for this purpose, consisting of Hermann Bonin , Hubert Hoff , Felix Rötscher , Adolf Wallichs , and Robert Hans Wentzel, about which of the lecturers and professors were not of Aryan descent and were supposed to be or actually had an undesirable political attitude. According to the law for the restoration of the civil service due to his Jewish origin, Levy should now together with the other non-Aryan professors Otto Blumenthal , Walter Maximilian Fuchs , Arthur Guttmann , Ludwig Hopf , Theodore von Kármán , Karl Walter Mautner , Alfred Meusel , Leopold Karl Pick , Rudolf Ruer , Hermann Salmang and Ludwig Strauss had their teaching permits withdrawn from September 1933. A request from his incumbent rector Paul Röntgen to the Reich Commissioner in the Ministry of Education Bernhard Rust to be allowed to hold Levy for the further implementation of his research assignment was not approved. It was not until 1934 that the subsequent rector Otto Gruber allowed him to continue working in the laboratory at his own expense until 1936. Three years later, Levy decided to flee to Brussels with the help of a schoolboy and his wife . His sister, who also lived in Aachen, was no longer able to escape and was taken to the concentration camp . After the death of his wife in 1950, Levy returned to Aachen despite the bad memories, where he finally died on May 11, 1956.

Paul Ernst Levy had devoted himself increasingly to the research and structure of abietic acid and achieved initially controversial but later significant results. The exploration of the formula of the Englishman Sir Derek HR Barton , which is still recognized today in its final structure, would have been inconceivable at that time without Levy's preliminary work.

Works (selection)

• Contributions to the knowledge of aldehydes with double and triple carbon bonds; Munich, Univ., Diss., 1897

Web link and sources

• Remembering the Expelled Professors
• Catalog Freiburg: Title on the author: "Levy, Paul Ernst"