Wilhelm Gaus

Wilhelm Karl Friedrich Gaus (born October 26, 1876 in Braunschweig , † November 20, 1953 in Gut Schmalzhof near Starnberg ) was a German chemist . From 1931 to 1937 he headed BASF .

life and work

His father Wilhelm Gaus (1847-1916) was a postal director of rural origin from Lower Saxony . His mother Anna Ternedde (1851-1934) came from Seesen . After studying chemistry in Braunschweig , Berlin and Breslau in 1896, he was awarded a doctorate in 1900. phil. His academic teachers in Breslau were Richard Abegg and Albert Ladenburg . He completed his military service and worked as Abegg's private assistant before moving to BASF in Ludwigshafen as a physical chemist in 1902 . By 1910 he succeeded in expanding the indigo synthesis in the rationalized production of important precursors and auxiliary materials. He became head of the nitrogen department and Carl Bosch's deputy . Gaus played an important role in his ammonia synthesis project . After the end of the First World War , several large German chemical companies merged to form IG Farbenindustrie AG . As a result, Gaus took on management functions in the group, particularly in the development of new research and production areas. In 1931 he was appointed head of BASF. In the same year he was selected by the University of Karlsruhe with the presentation of Dr.-Ing. E. h. honored. Gaus moved to the IG Farben supervisory board in 1937. His successor as head of BASF was NSDAP member Carl Wurster . Gaus was considered a sharp critic of the Nazi government.

Fonts

• Ammonia partial pressures over ammoniacal metal salt solutions, a contribution to electroaffinity theory , dissertation Breslau 1900
• About the influence of neutral salts on the tension of ammonia from aqueous solution , Zeitschrift für inorganic Chemie 25, 1900, p. 236ff.

literature

• Horst-Rüdiger Jarck, Günter Scheel (Ed.): Braunschweigisches Biographisches Lexikon. 19th and 20th centuries , Hannover 1996, p. 200.
• Karl Schoenemann:  Gaus, Wilhelm Karl Friedrich. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 6, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1964, ISBN 3-428-00187-7 , p. 101 ( digitized version ).