Willstätter was born into aJewish family inKarlsruhe.[3] He was the son of Maxwell (Max) Willstätter, a textile merchant, and his wife, Sophie Ulmann.
He went to school at the Karlsruhe Gymnasium and, when his family moved toNuremberg, he attended the Technical School there. At age 18 he entered theUniversity of Munich to study science and stayed for the next fifteen years. He was in the Department of Chemistry, first as a student ofAlfred Einhorn—he received his doctorate in 1894[citation needed] – then as a faculty member. His doctoral thesis was on the structure ofcocaine. Willstätter continued his research into otheralkaloids and synthesized several of them. In 1896 he was namedLecturer and in 1902Professor extraordinarius (professor without a chair).
In 1905 he left Munich to become professor at theETH Zürich and there he worked on the plant pigmentchlorophyll. He first determined its empirical formula.
In 1915 his friendFritz Haber asked him to join in the development of poison gases.[5] Willstätter would not work on poisons but agreed to work on protection. He and his coworkers developed a three layer filter that absorbed all of the enemy's gases. Thirty million were manufactured by 1917 and Willstätter was awarded the Iron Cross Second Class.[6]
In 1916 he returned to Munich as the successor to his mentor Baeyer. During the 1920s Willstätter investigated the mechanisms ofenzyme reactions and did much to establish thatenzymes are chemical substances, not biological organisms. However, to the end of his life he refused to accept that enzymes were proteins.
In 1934 Willstätter's career came to "a tragic end when, as a gesture against increasing antisemitism, he announced his retirement."[2] According to his Nobel biography:[7] "Expressions of confidence by the Faculty, by his students and by the Minister failed to shake the fifty-three year old scientist in his decision to resign. He lived on in retirement in Munich....Dazzling offers both at home and abroad were alike rejected by him."[2] His only research was with assistants who telephoned their results. Despite pleas for him to move to Jerusalem or to Switzerland earlier in the 1930s, Willstätter did not flee from Germany until 1939.
In 1933, theCentralverein (Central Union of German Citizens of the Jewish Faith) commissioned a book entitledJuden im deutschen Kulturbereich: ein Sammelwerk or 'Jews in the Realm of German Culture'.[8]Amos Elon described it as a list of "Jewish 'achievements' and Jewish 'achievers,' which included Jewish luminaries in literature and the arts, in Jewish as well as Christian theology, in politics, warfare, industry, and the natural sciences ... a vast, meticulously detailed encyclopedia of Jewish contributions to German life and culture during the past two centuries."[9] The oversized book ran to 1,060 pages and comprised thousands of entries and names. Willstätter wrote the introduction. However, not surprisingly, in December 1934 the (Nazi) Berlin State Police confiscated all the copies that had already been printed.[8]
In 1939 Willstätter emigrated toSwitzerland. He spent the last three years of his life there inMuralto nearLocarno writing his autobiography. He died of a heart attack in 1942.
Willstätter's autobiography,Aus meinem Leben, was not published in German until 1949. It was translated into English asFrom My Life in 1965.[10]
^Motilva, Maria-José (2008), "Chlorophylls – from functionality in food to health relevance",5th Pigments in Food congress- for quality and health, University of Helsinki,ISBN978-952-10-4846-3
^L.F.Haber (1986).The Poisonous Cloud: Chemical Warfare in the First World War, Clarendon Press
^Van der Kloot, W. (2004).April 1915: Five future Nobel prize-winners inaugurate weapons of mass destruction and the academic-industrial-military complex. Notes Rec. R. Soc. Lond. 58: 149–160, 2004/
The prominence of German Jews and the contributions they made became fully apparent only after they were gone. In 1933, in a lastminute attempt to counter the Nazi threat, the traumatized leaders of the Centralverein (Central Union of German Citizens of the Jewish Faith), the most representative organization of assimilated German Jews, commissioned the compilation of a list of Jewish "achievers" and "achievements" in all fields. The project, pathetic only in retrospect, included Jewish luminaries in literature and the arts, in Jewish as well as Christian theology, in politics, warfare, industry, and the natural sciences. The result, entitled Jews in the Realm of German Culture, was a vast, meticulously detailed encyclopedia of Jewish contributions to German life and culture during the past two centuries. The task was executed with overwhelming thoroughness by a committee of experts headed bySiegmund Kaznelson [de], well known during the Weimar period as an editor and publisher. The oversized book ran to 1,060 pages and comprised thousands of entries and names. Richard Willstätter, a Nobel Prize winner in chemistry, wrote the introduction. To avoid possible misunderstandings, the book even included an appendix on "non-Jews widely regarded as Jews."
^Richard Willstätter:Aus meinem Leben, edited by A. Stoll, Verlag Chemie, Weinheim, 1949; English edition:From My Life, Benjamin, New York, 1965.
