1 The Life and Work of Hermann Staudinger: 1881–1919
“Pioneer of polymer research”, “founder of plastics chemistry”, “father of macromolecules”: all chemistry textbooks abandon their normal matter-of-fact style when
they start talking about Hermann Staudinger. Tribute is still being paid to him for
his achievements, even though he died 47 years ago. Just about every chemist is still
familiar with the name “Staudinger”, which plays a prominent role in the history of
the field rather than being a mere footnote. Flashback to Stockholm on 10 December
1953, when Staudinger was presented the Nobel Prize in Chemistry by King Gustav
Adolf of Sweden at the age of 72, after he had retired from his professorship. This
was the absolute highlight of Staudinger’s life and work, which had been devoted to
basic research, the theoretical foundations for his field, combined with untiring
experimental work that took him from Worms, where he was born, to the chemical
laboratory at Freiburg University, where he spent much of his life as director for
25 years. More than 500 different publications under his name are a reflection of the
meticulous nature of Staudinger’s scientific work. Six universities (Mainz, Torino,
Salamanca, Karlsruhe, Zurich and Strasbourg) awarded him honorary doctorates,
and he was also an honorary member of countless scientific associations.
1.1 Plenty Left for Biographers to Investigate
Staudinger has remained largely unknown outside the academic community, however. A fate that he shares with other pioneers in the plastics chemistry field – even
those who were originally famous for their inventions but were soon forgotten in
spite of the success of their creations: who still associates nylon with Wallace Hume
Carothers (1896–1937), PVC with Fritz Klatte (1880–1934) or Plexiglas/Perspex
with Otto Ro ¨hm (1876–1939)? The winner of the 1953 Nobel Prize in Chemistry
was never really a celebrity, although he did not try to avoid the limelight, as we will
see later on. To this day, no biographer has written a detailed, historically accurate
description of his life to go alongside Staudinger’s Arbeitserinnerungen, which
appeared in 1961 [1], neither has his life been put in its historical context nor has
light been shed on his character and personality on the basis of this. This is
particularly surprising, because Staudinger’s scientific and political activities happened during the most turbulent decades of recent history, influenced by sudden
paradigm shifts and regime changes and – above all – shaken by two World Wars.
German Empire, Weimar Republic, Nazi dictatorship, post-war Germany: upheavals
in government and society affect the scientific community too – including chemists,
who are said to have little interest in politics. Positions had to be adopted, particularly by holders of prominent functions: accepting or rejecting the status quo,
opportunistic and flexible or confrontational. Unlike others in his field, Staudinger
did not retreat into an ivory tower in his role as a basic research scientist; instead of
this, he expressed his opinions on issues that had nothing to do with his scientific
Courageous Questioning of Established Thinking: The Life and Work of Hermann. . .
83
“Pioneer of polymer research”, “founder of plastics chemistry”, “father of macromolecules”: all chemistry textbooks abandon their normal matter-of-fact style when
they start talking about Hermann Staudinger. Tribute is still being paid to him for
his achievements, even though he died 47 years ago. Just about every chemist is still
familiar with the name “Staudinger”, which plays a prominent role in the history of
the field rather than being a mere footnote. Flashback to Stockholm on 10 December
1953, when Staudinger was presented the Nobel Prize in Chemistry by King Gustav
Adolf of Sweden at the age of 72, after he had retired from his professorship. This
was the absolute highlight of Staudinger’s life and work, which had been devoted to
basic research, the theoretical foundations for his field, combined with untiring
experimental work that took him from Worms, where he was born, to the chemical
laboratory at Freiburg University, where he spent much of his life as director for
25 years. More than 500 different publications under his name are a reflection of the
meticulous nature of Staudinger’s scientific work. Six universities (Mainz, Torino,
Salamanca, Karlsruhe, Zurich and Strasbourg) awarded him honorary doctorates,
and he was also an honorary member of countless scientific associations.
1.1 Plenty Left for Biographers to Investigate
Staudinger has remained largely unknown outside the academic community, however. A fate that he shares with other pioneers in the plastics chemistry field – even
those who were originally famous for their inventions but were soon forgotten in
spite of the success of their creations: who still associates nylon with Wallace Hume
Carothers (1896–1937), PVC with Fritz Klatte (1880–1934) or Plexiglas/Perspex
with Otto Ro ¨hm (1876–1939)? The winner of the 1953 Nobel Prize in Chemistry
was never really a celebrity, although he did not try to avoid the limelight, as we will
see later on. To this day, no biographer has written a detailed, historically accurate
description of his life to go alongside Staudinger’s Arbeitserinnerungen, which
appeared in 1961 [1], neither has his life been put in its historical context nor has
light been shed on his character and personality on the basis of this. This is
particularly surprising, because Staudinger’s scientific and political activities happened during the most turbulent decades of recent history, influenced by sudden
paradigm shifts and regime changes and – above all – shaken by two World Wars.
German Empire, Weimar Republic, Nazi dictatorship, post-war Germany: upheavals
in government and society affect the scientific community too – including chemists,
who are said to have little interest in politics. Positions had to be adopted, particularly by holders of prominent functions: accepting or rejecting the status quo,
opportunistic and flexible or confrontational. Unlike others in his field, Staudinger
did not retreat into an ivory tower in his role as a basic research scientist; instead of
this, he expressed his opinions on issues that had nothing to do with his scientific
Courageous Questioning of Established Thinking: The Life and Work of Hermann. . .
83