Theodor Curtius (chemist)

Theodor Curtius, 1907

Theodor Curtius (3rd from left) with Christian Klucker (4th from left) in front of the Forno hut, around 1920

Julius Wilhelm Theodor Curtius (born May 27, 1857 in Duisburg , † February 8, 1928 in Heidelberg ) was a German chemist .

Life

Curtius studied chemistry in Heidelberg and Leipzig , among other things, and received his doctorate from the University of Leipzig in 1882 with Hermann Kolbe on the subject of some new synthetic amido acids analogous to hippuric acid and completed his habilitation in 1886 at the University of Erlangen. He then worked as a professor in Kiel (1889-1897), for a year in Bonn and from 1898 in Heidelberg as successor to Victor Meyers . He was a member of the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences , the Göttingen Academy of Sciences (since 1919), the Prussian and Bavarian Academy of Sciences (since 1907).

He examined especially nitrogen compounds and discovered the hydrazine , the hydrogen azide and the diazo compounds . The Curtius reaction of carboxylic acid azides is named after him .

In his spare time he composed, sang in concerts and was an active mountaineer . With the mountain guide Christian Klucker , he achieved the first ascent of Piz Bacun (1883) in the Forno area and the Sciora di Dentro (1888) in Bergell . Curtius donated to the Swiss Alpine Club Built in 1889, the Fornohütte at Forno Glacier in Bergell. Together with his friend, Eduard Buchner , he founded the Kiel section of the German Alpine Club with 20 members in 1893 .

Theodor Curtius found his final resting place in the Bergfriedhof (Heidelberg) in the forest department : (Dept. WA). His gravestone is adorned with a bronze relief depicting Curtius' profile.

The politician Julius Curtius was his nephew.

The Heidelberg University Archives have a photo album for Theodor Curtius' 25th anniversary as a doctor in 1907. It shows scientific students, buildings, laboratories such as the physical-chemical, pharmaceutical, organic work room and much more.

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  Grave of Theodor Curtius in the Bergfriedhof (Heidelberg) , Forest Department A

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  Obituary by his student August Darapsky

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  Obituary by Carl Duisberg

literature

• Berthold Peter Anft:  Curtius, Julius Wilhelm Theodor. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 3, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1957, ISBN 3-428-00184-2 , p. 445 ( digitized version ).
• Margot Becke-Goehring (Ed.): Friends in the time of the dawn of chemistry: the correspondence between Theodor Curtius and Carl Duisberg . Springer, Berlin 1990, ISBN 3-540-52219-0 .
• Christian Klucker : Memories of a mountain guide. Rentsch, Erlenbach 1930; New edition: AS , Zurich 2010, ISBN 978-3-909111-73-2 .
• Dagmar Drüll: Heidelberger Gelehrtenlexikon 1803-1932 . (Ed.): Rectorate of the Ruprecht-Karls-Universität-Heidelberg, Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden, 2019, ISBN 978-3-658-26396-6 , S. 177 f., Doi: 10.1007 / 978-3-658-26397- 3
• Ingo Runde: "There is a lot to do, only the older interns for the doctoral theses are missing ..." Comments on Theodor Curtius and chemical research during the First World War , in: The University of Heidelberg and its professors during the First World War. Contributions to the conference in the Heidelberg University Archives on November 6th and 7th, 2014 (= Heidelberger Schriften zur Universitätsgeschichte 6), ed. von dems., Universitätsverlag Winter, Heidelberg 2017, pp. 337–343, ISBN 978-3-8253-6695-7 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ biographical data, publications and Academic pedigree of Theodor Curtius at academictree.org, accessed on 28 January 2018th
2. ↑ Kiel University - Great Researchers from the Fjord: Theodor Curtius ( Memento from October 4, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
3. ↑ Holger Krahnke: The members of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen 1751-2001 (= Treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Philological-Historical Class. Volume 3, Vol. 246 = Treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Mathematical-Physical Class. Episode 3, vol. 50). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2001, ISBN 3-525-82516-1 , p. 60.
4. ↑ Theodor Curtius' membership entry at the Bavarian Academy of Sciences , accessed on January 16, 2017.
5. ^ DAV-Kiel founded on December 8th, 1893 with its own Kieler Wetterhütte in Verwall (in the Paznauntal (Austria))

Web links

Commons : Theodor Curtius  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Theodor Curtius in the catalog of the German National Library