field when he considered this necessary and it did not seem to him to be acceptable to
remain silent.
1.2 How Everything Began
Chemistry was still far from Staudinger’s mind when he started to think about a
career in 1899 on finishing school, where the emphasis had been on classical
languages and literature. He was particularly interested in botany, but he decided
to get conventional vocational training first before entering the academic world so
that he had more than one iron in the fire, since – as the saying goes – a trade in hand
finds gold in every land. Staudinger completed an apprenticeship with a carpenter in
his home town of Worms. This was a profession he was never to pursue afterwards,
because it turned out that he was destined to become a scientist and researcher. Very
soon after he had registered to study botany at the University of Halle/Saale, he took
the advice given to him by his father, the grammar school teacher and philosopher
Franz Staudinger (1849–1921), and started to study chemistry, “in order to be able
to understand botanical problems better” [1, p. 1]. After the family moved to
Darmstadt, he registered to study at the Technical University there, leaving not
only Halle but also botany behind him: the young Staudinger switched completely
to chemistry. After two terms in Darmstadt, he took his initial exams and then
returned to Halle to study for a doctorate, which he obtained when he was only
22 years old (title of the dissertation was “Accumulation of malonic ester on
unsaturated compounds”; his doctoral advisor was Daniel Vorla ¨nder, 1867–1941).
Once he had completed his doctorate, Staudinger spent another term in Halle as a
private scientific assistant, before he moved to Strasbourg University in the autumn of
1903, where he became a teaching assistant of Johannes Thiele (1865–1918) and
finally qualified to teach at a university in the spring of 1907 – with a thesis about
highly reactive, dimerising ketenes. Staudinger became a professor the same year:
Karlsruhe Technical University appointed him to be an Associate Professor for
organic chemistry. In this position, he decided to concentrate specifically on polymer
research, focussing in particular on isoprene and butadiene, in order to make progress
in the development of synthetic rubber, which – however – ended up taking another
20 years and was completed by a different chemist.
1.3 To Switzerland for the Next Step in His Career
Staudinger stayed in Baden-Wu ¨rttemberg for 5 years and then accepted an appointment in Switzerland: the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich
offered him a chair in the summer of 1912. As successor to Richard Willsta ¨tter
(1872–1942), who moved to the new Kaiser-Wilhelm-Institut fu ¨r Chemie in Berlin,
Staudinger was given a full professorship at the age of 31 and continued his
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M. Weber and G. Deussing
remain silent.
1.2 How Everything Began
Chemistry was still far from Staudinger’s mind when he started to think about a
career in 1899 on finishing school, where the emphasis had been on classical
languages and literature. He was particularly interested in botany, but he decided
to get conventional vocational training first before entering the academic world so
that he had more than one iron in the fire, since – as the saying goes – a trade in hand
finds gold in every land. Staudinger completed an apprenticeship with a carpenter in
his home town of Worms. This was a profession he was never to pursue afterwards,
because it turned out that he was destined to become a scientist and researcher. Very
soon after he had registered to study botany at the University of Halle/Saale, he took
the advice given to him by his father, the grammar school teacher and philosopher
Franz Staudinger (1849–1921), and started to study chemistry, “in order to be able
to understand botanical problems better” [1, p. 1]. After the family moved to
Darmstadt, he registered to study at the Technical University there, leaving not
only Halle but also botany behind him: the young Staudinger switched completely
to chemistry. After two terms in Darmstadt, he took his initial exams and then
returned to Halle to study for a doctorate, which he obtained when he was only
22 years old (title of the dissertation was “Accumulation of malonic ester on
unsaturated compounds”; his doctoral advisor was Daniel Vorla ¨nder, 1867–1941).
Once he had completed his doctorate, Staudinger spent another term in Halle as a
private scientific assistant, before he moved to Strasbourg University in the autumn of
1903, where he became a teaching assistant of Johannes Thiele (1865–1918) and
finally qualified to teach at a university in the spring of 1907 – with a thesis about
highly reactive, dimerising ketenes. Staudinger became a professor the same year:
Karlsruhe Technical University appointed him to be an Associate Professor for
organic chemistry. In this position, he decided to concentrate specifically on polymer
research, focussing in particular on isoprene and butadiene, in order to make progress
in the development of synthetic rubber, which – however – ended up taking another
20 years and was completed by a different chemist.
1.3 To Switzerland for the Next Step in His Career
Staudinger stayed in Baden-Wu ¨rttemberg for 5 years and then accepted an appointment in Switzerland: the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich
offered him a chair in the summer of 1912. As successor to Richard Willsta ¨tter
(1872–1942), who moved to the new Kaiser-Wilhelm-Institut fu ¨r Chemie in Berlin,
Staudinger was given a full professorship at the age of 31 and continued his
84
M. Weber and G. Deussing