Rudolf Brill

Grave of Rudolf Brill in the forest cemetery in Darmstadt

Rudolf Brill (born September 7, 1899 in Eschwege , † February 17, 1989 in Lenggries ) was a German chemist and university professor.

Life

Rudolf Brill was born in Eschwege / Werra in 1899 as the son of the businessman Rudolf Brill. From 1918 to 1922 he studied chemistry at the TH Berlin . On May 13, 1922, he acquired the title of graduate engineer here. On October 15, 1923, he was promoted to Dr. phil. PhD . The topic of the dissertation was radiographic examinations. A contribution to the chemical constitution of silk fibroin.

After completing his doctorate, he moved to BASF in a research laboratory in Ludwigshafen-Oppau . Brill published the first work on electron densities in crystals and founded the experimental electron density determination.

In 1941 Brill succeeded Eduard Zintl, who died in January 1941, at the Technical University of Darmstadt . Brill was appointed to the Chair of Inorganic and Physical Chemistry and at the same time was appointed head of the institute. Due to his special technical and organizational skills, Brill was the only candidate the university proposed to the state government. As the successor to Eduard Zintl, who was sponsored by Gauleiter Jakob Sprenger , Brill had a new building that was about halfway complete, with generous financial and human resources. Brill was able to move into his office and several laboratories when he took up his duties.

Rudolf Brill joined the NSDAP on October 1, 1941 as part of his appointment to Darmstadt . From 1943 to 1945, Brill was the National Socialist Lecturer League Leader at TH Darmstadt. He was the only Lecturer League Leader at the TH Darmstadt who was already a professor at the time he took over the office. According to statements by his colleagues Wilhelm Schlink (physicist) and Erich Reuleaux , he is said to have exercised the office “apolitically”.

Brill was involved in "war-important research projects". He was particularly successful in acquiring third-party funding. His institute for inorganic and physical chemistry was classified in 1942 as a "military economy", which was associated with certain privileges for the institute. After the American army marched into Darmstadt in March 1945, the usable parts of the new institute building at Herrngarten were used as a medical center. As a result, there were practically no more job opportunities for Brill.

Brill was dismissed from civil service on June 25, 1946 for "political reasons".

From 1941 to 1947 Rudolf Brill was also honorary professor at Heidelberg University . He was one of nine Darmstadt professors and academic staff in whom the United States War Department expressed an interest in August 1945. Brill accepted this invitation and came to the USA with Operation Overcast in 1947. He initially advised the communications force of the United States Army Signal Corps in Fort Monmouth, New Jersey. From 1948 he worked in a research laboratory of the Philipps Oil Company in Bartlesville . In 1950 he became a professor at the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn , New York.

He returned to Germany in the late 1950s. In 1958 he was appointed director of the Fritz Haber Institute of the Max Planck Society in Berlin and took over the management of Max von Laue on March 1, 1959 . He held this position until 1969. From 1967 until his retirement in 1969 he was also director of the Faculty of Physical Chemistry at the Fritz Haber Institute. Since 1958 he was honorary professor for physical chemistry at the Free University of Berlin and also at the University of Heidelberg.

Brill had been married to Else Rutloff since 1924. He died at the age of 89 at his retirement home in Lenggries in Upper Bavaria. His grave is in the Darmstadt forest cemetery .

Honors

• 1942: Full member of the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences .
• 1965: Johann Joseph Ritter von Prechtl Medal
• 1979: Honorary member of the Society of German Chemists .

Works

• 1924: Radiographic examinations. A contribution to the chemical constitution of silk fibroin , dissertation, Berlin.

literature

• Michael Grüttner : Biographical Lexicon on National Socialist Science Policy, Heidelberg 2004, p. 28f.
• Melanie Hanel: The Technical University of Darmstadt in the “Third Reich” , dissertation, Darmstadt 2013.
• Hans Wolfgang Kohlschütter: The Faculty of Chemistry, Biology, Geology and Mineralogy 1946-1971 , in: 100 Years of the Technical University of Darmstadt , yearbook 1976/77, Darmstadt 1977, pp. 199-206.
• Thomas Steinhauser u. a .: A hundred years at the interface of chemistry and physics. The Fritz Haber Institute of the Max Planck Society between 1911 and 2011 , Berlin a. a.
• Christa Wolf and Marianne Viefhaus: Directory of professors at TH Darmstadt , Darmstadt 1977, p. 32.