Paul Günther (physical chemist)

Ernst Gustav Paul Günther (born December 6, 1892 in Berlin , † November 14, 1969 in Karlsruhe ) was a German chemist ( physical chemistry ).

Life

His father was a factory owner, court goldsmith and later a merchant in Charlottenburg. After attending the Köllnisches Gymnasium in Berlin, he studied chemistry in Göttingen, Leipzig and Berlin from 1911, where he took the doctoral examination as a notexist with Walter Nernst in 1914, when he was drafted, and received his doctorate in 1917 (studies on specific heat at low temperatures ), although his dissertation was finished in 1914. During the First World War, he worked at the Military Research Office in Berlin, where he trained in the chemistry of explosives with Hermann Kast . Later he kept in contact with the Chemisch-Technische Reichsanstalt, which was created in 1920. In 1919 he was again at the Institute for Physical Chemistry in Berlin as Nernst's assistant and completed his habilitation in 1926 (on the internal friction of gases at low temperatures) with Nernst and Max Bodenstein . Then he was a private lecturer there and also taught at the Agricultural University in Berlin. He conducted courses in X-ray spectroscopy and gave lectures on chemistry and technology of explosives at the Institute for Technical Chemistry from 1927 to 1936. In 1936 he became a non-official adjunct professor of physical chemistry. From 1936 he was deputy professor at Bodenstein for three years and in 1939 he became a full professor. The reason for the delay was that he was not politically committed in the interests of the National Socialists. During the Second World War he was a war administrator at the high command of the Wehrmacht, but in 1941 he was called back to his institute as an explosives expert. At the end of the war he relocated his institute to Göttingen and was briefly in American captivity. In 1946 he became a full professor for physical chemistry and electrochemistry at the TH Karlsruhe , where he rebuilt the institute after it was destroyed in the war and was rector in 1948/49. In 1961 he retired. From 1963 until his death he was a research associate at the Fraunhofer Institute for the Chemistry of Propellants and Explosives (today Fraunhofer Institute for Chemical Technology) in Pfinztal near Karlsruhe.

At Nernst he dealt with measurements of the specific heat and the viscosity of gases at low temperatures and then with X-ray spectroscopy also for analytical chemistry, where he also developed apparatus such as X-ray spectrographs. He also used X-ray spectroscopy to examine old paintings and dispelled concerns that it would damage the works of art. In Karlsruhe he also dealt with the chemical effects of ultrasound.

His career in the Third Reich was hampered by the fact that he was a member of the SPD from 1919 to 1925. This also led to a falling out with his parents' house. During the Second World War he stood up for persecuted Jews (financially and with forged documents) and, together with Wolfgang Heubner, saved Robert Havemann , who was sentenced to death, from execution, as he would be indispensable for research that was important for the war effort. After the war it was considered unencumbered and found support from the Allied occupying powers, for example in rebuilding the Bunsen Society.

From 1920 to 1925 he was a consultant for the Chemisches Zentralblatt and from 1922 to 1927 assistant in the editorial department of the natural sciences .

In 1958 he received the Bunsen commemorative coin . From 1947 to 1949 he was chairman of the German Bunsen Society, which he helped to initiate. From 1948 until 1961 he published the journal for electrochemistry of the Bunsen Society (later reports of the Bunsen Society). 1960 to 1962 he was president of the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences , of which he was a member from 1951.

In 1950 he married Charlotte Auguste Obermayer, a former student of his in Berlin and assistant in Karlsruhe. The marriage remained childless.

Fonts

• Studies on the specific heat at low temperatures, Annalen der Physik Volume 51, 1916, pp. 828-846; Volume 63, 1920, pp. 476-480
• with H. Kast: Experiments with nitrogen tetroxide explosives, magazine for the entire shooting u. Sprengstoffwesen, Volume 14, 1919, pp. 81-84, 103-105;
• Laboratory book for the explosives industry, Halle: Knapp 1923
• with I. Stransky: An X-ray spectrograph for chemical-analytical purposes, Journal for physical chemistry, Volume 106, 1923, pp. 433-441
• Tables for X-ray spectral analysis, Springer 1924
• The quantitative X-ray spectral analysis, Die Naturwissenschaften, Volume 14, 1926, pp. 1118-1124
• Chemical effects of X-rays, Angewandte Chemie, Volume 46, 1933, pp. 627-631
• with W. Zeil, U. Grisar, E. Heim: Experiments on the sonoluminescence of aqueous solutions, Zs. f. Elektrochemie, Vol. 61, 1957, pp. 188-201
• The generation of chemists between humanism and technology, Angewandte Chemie, Volume 75, 1963, pp. 5-9
• The German natural scientists of the 19th century a. Goethe, in: E. Oldemeyer (ed.), Die Philosophie u. the Sciences. Simon Moser on his 65th birthday, 1967, pp. 52–69
• Systematics d. Chemistry, in: SJ Schmidt (Ed.), Wissenschaftstheorie, Volume 2, 1970, pp. 29-38.

literature

• R. Lepsius: Paul Günther for his 70th birthday, Chemiker Zeitung, Volume 86, 1962, p. 863
• J. Eggert, W. Jost, W. Witte: Prof. Dr. Paul Günther on his 75th birthday, reports of the German Bunsen Society for Physical Chemistry, Volume 71, 1967, p. 933
• K. Schäfer: Paul Günther, Yearbook of the Heidelberger Akad. D. Knowledge for 1970, pp. 55-57

Web links

• Literature by and about Paul Günther in the catalog of the German National Library
• Biography of Alexander Kipnis