NEWS & VIEWS NATURE|Vol 449|13 September 2007

OBITUARY Ernst Otto Fischer (1918–2007) Organometallic chemist, and cosmopolitan Bavarian patriot.

Ernst Otto Fischer belonged to the metal–carbon triple bonds (‘carbynes’, with generation robbed of its youth by the Gerhard Kreis in 1973). Whereas Wilkinson Nazi regime. His bitter experiences on the became interested at an early stage in the Russian front in the Second World War catalytic effects of these organometallic had a powerful influence on the liberal and materials (such as the use of rhodium cosmopolitan sentiments of a scientist who complexes to catalyse hydrogenation and dedicated his career to fundamental research. oxosynthesis reactions), Fischer focused He died aged 88 on 23 July in Munich, where exclusively on investigating the rich he had lived and worked all his life. structures and reactivities of the new world Following his return from war, Fischer of organometallic chemistry. The two shared studied the chemistry of organometallic the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1973. complexes under Walter Hieber at Munich’s The long-term influence of Fischer’s Technische Universität. He and his fellow extensive experimental work is impressive, students had initially to rebuild the badly and has opened up new horizons, also bombed institute with their own hands. extending to practical applications. The Fischer earned his doctorate there in 1952, best example is the technique of ‘olefin with an experimental thesis on a simple metathesis’, in which bonds between organic synthesis process for the versatile reagent building-blocks are redistributed to produce tetracarbonylnickel. new products useful in medicine and But the spur to become a research chemist industry. The catalysis cycle of this process came from his father, a physics professor, who involves the formation of a metal–carbene drew his attention to a 1951 article in Nature intermediate. Without Fischer’s original on a new type of organo-iron compound research, this advance — which culminated known as ferrocene (or ‘dicyclopentadienyl in the Nobel prize awarded to Yves Chauvin, iron’). Fischer was sceptical of the bivalency Robert Grubbs and Richard Schrock in 2005 The contributions of Fischer’s protégés to of iron proposed in the paper to explain — would not have been possible. basic and industrial research has been just as the compound’s structure. Together with Throughout his life, Ernst Otto Fischer significant. A particularly fitting example is Wolfgang Pfab, he used X-ray diffraction to remained deeply attached to his native the Wacker process to produce acetaldehyde. determine its true structure, in which two Bavaria and his home city of Munich. This uses an ingeniously simple catalytic five-sided carbon rings sandwich a core of Following his first, brilliant individual conversion technique based on ethylene, a single iron atom. This forms an especially research results on ferrocene and similar oxygen and water, and was devised by Walter stable compound, with an electronic organometallic complexes, he moved in 1957 Hafner together with another of Fischer’s structure similar to that of a noble gas. to the city’s Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität. former students, Reinhard Jira. The British chemist Geoffrey Wilkinson In 1964, he returned to take the chair of his Beyond the realm of chemistry, Ernst had independently come across the same own mentor, Walter Hieber, at the Technische Otto Fischer was a highly erudite man who sandwich-compound structure for ferrocene. Universität, a position he held for 20 fruitful captivated his international colleagues with These were moments of glory that heralded years. his profound knowledge of literature and a renaissance of inorganic chemistry. There Fischer’s special talent was to radiate music. He could be both impulsive and has been a steady stream of compounds delight in all things new, a trait that served to contemplative, emollient and combative, combining metals and organic ligands ever motivate and inspire his charges. A bachelor and coupled a love of his country with since, with novel structures, reactivities and throughout his life, he regarded the members a cosmopolitan outlook — seemingly applications in catalysis. Fischer followed his of his research group as his family. Once he contradictory traits that found their human initial achievement soon afterwards (in 1955) had established their competence — and he symbiosis in him. For colleagues such as with the discovery of a similar structure, had an unerring instinct for young talent — myself, he was the epitome of the contentious, dibenzenechromium, that comprised he granted them unlimited scope to unleash relentless fighter for the freedom of science, two six-sided carbon rings sandwiching a their creativity. In this way, all the researchers who fiercely rejected any manipulative chromium atom. This discovery was based who clustered around him in Munich, more outside influences. He was the grand old man purely on theoretical considerations and was than 200 in total, felt a personal responsibility of fundamental research, who would settle made together with his extraordinarily gifted for the common cause. for nothing less than creativity and scientific student Walter Hafner. Shaped in this way, Fischer’s students curiosity. In the face of strong and not always became role models in their turn, With his death, his Bavarian homeland has harmonious competition from Wilkinson shouldering responsibility for the lost one of its most illustrious sons. He found (who was initially based at Harvard community, passing on knowledge and his final resting place in the Old Cemetery in University, and then at Imperial College creating new levels of accountability among Munich-Solln on 26 July 2007. in London), Fischer’s Munich laboratories an ever-expanding group of researchers. Wolfgang A. Herrmann produced a host of new organometallic More than a dozen of his postdoctoral Wolfgang A. Herrmann is in the Department compounds in the years that followed. These students were awarded chair professorships of Inorganic Chemistry and is president of the included the first compounds with metal– at German universities, and many of his Technische Universität München, Arcisstraße 21, carbon double bonds (‘carbenes’, discovered alumni later rose to the higher echelons of the 80333 München, Germany. together with Alfred Maasböl in 1964) and chemical industry. e-mail: [email protected]

156