150 Years of Chemical Society in Germany by Wolfram Koch n 2017, the German Chemical Society (Gesellschaft Deutscher Chemiker, GDCh) celebrated the 150th Ianniversary of the creation the older of its two predecessor organizations, the Deutsche Chemische Gesellschaft. The Beginning of a Chemical Society in Germany which is represented by its own society, the Deut- sche Bunsen-Gesellschaft für Physikalische Chemie, The Deutsche Chemische Gesellschaft (DChG) was founded in 1894). In the early years of the 20th centu- founded in Berlin on 11 November 1867 by Adolf Baey- ry, the German chemical societies also established the er, August Wilhelm Hofmann, and other distinguished first scientific wards.a These include the August-Wil- scientists. Hofmann became its first president. The helm-von-Hofmann-Denkmünze, established in 1903 society was largely modelled after the Chemical So- with Henri Moisson and Sir William Ramsay as first ciety of London which was founded 26 years earlier awardees, the Liebig-Denkmünze, first awarded in in 1841. Hofmann had been living and working in Lon- 1903 to Adolf von Baeyer, and the Emil-Fischer-Me- don since 1845 where he was the first director of the daille, introduced in 1910 with award winners such as Royal College of Chemistry. In 1861 Hofmann became Otto Hahn in 1919. All these awards are conferred by president of the Chemical Society of London of which the GDCh to outstanding chemists until this day. An- he was a member since his arrival in London. Thus, other important highlight was the joint foundation by Hofmann is presumably one of the very few, if not the DChG, VDCh and the predecessor of today’s Verband only person, who was president of two important na- der Chemischen Industrie (VCI, the German Chemical tional chemical societies. Industry Association) of a publishing house in 1921: In 1868 the Deutsche Chemische Gesellschaft pub- Verlag Chemie. This publishing house was later owned lished its first scientific journal,Berichte der Deutschen by the GDCh until it was sold to Wiley in 1996 and re- Chemischen Gesellschaft (Reports from the German named in Wiley-VCH. It still remains GDCh’s most im- Chemical Society). The journal was published under portant publishing partner. that name (or slight variations thereof) until 1997 when it merged with other journals to become the European From the DChG to the GDCh Journal of Inorganic Chemistry. The other more recent predecessor of today’s GDCh, the Verein Deutscher The National Socialist era in Germany did not leave the Chemiker (VDCh) (Association of German Chemists), GDCh’s predecessor organizations unscarred. Applica- was founded twenty years later, in 1887. While the tion of the so-called Führerprinzip, which suspended DChG drew its membership mostly from chemists in democratic election and decision-making processes academia, the VDCh’s focus was on chemists working became obligatory. Jewish employees lost their jobs in the chemical industry. The journal the VDCh pro- and Jewish members were partly expelled. The chemi- duced for its members is still published today by the cal organizations were incorporated into the NS-Bund GDCh and is one of the internationally most renowned Deutscher Technik (the National Socialist Federation chemistry journals: Angewandte Chemie (which liter- of German Technology). After the war, the DChG and ally translates into Applied Chemistry and hints to the the VDCh both ceased to exist (formal dissolution fol- industrial background of the VDCh members). lowed only many years later) and were merged to form The first job placement service for chemists was the Gesellschaft Deutscher Chemiker, first founded in launched under the aegis of the VDCh in the year the British zone in 1946 and then in West Germany as 1900. A few years later, the VDCh’s first technical di- a whole in 1949. The first president of the GDCh was visions (“Fachgruppen”) were created as a reaction Karl Ziegler, who in 1963 won the Nobel Prize in chem- to the increasing specialization of the field. Many of istry for his work on catalysis. In the early 1950s, mem- these divisions still exist today and are important pil- bership of the GDCh passed the 5000 mark and by lars of the GDCh. Currently the GDCh has a total of 1958, the GDCh had more than 10 000 members. As a 26 technical divisions covering all areas of modern comparison, the highest number of members of DChG chemistry (with the exception of physical chemistry and VDCh occurred in the year 1930 when the two Chemistry International January-March 2018 15 150 Years of Chemical Society in Germany organizations had around 4900 and 8800 members, respectively (with a significant number of members in both organizations). On the other side of the iron curtain, the Che- mische Gesellschaft was founded in the German Dem- ocratic Republic in 1953. The Chemische Gesellschaft had more than 4000 members in the late 1980s and merged with the GDCh after the German reunification. In 1962 the GDCh and its 50-some staff moved into its present home, the Carl-Bosch-Haus in Frank- furt am Main, named after the co-developer of the Haber-Bosch process for nitrogen fixation for which he received the Nobel prize for chemistry in 1931. In the 1970s and 1980s internationalization became a pri- ority, and ecological aspects increasingly moved on the agenda. In 1982 the establishment of an Adviso- ry Committee on Existing Chemicals of Environmental Relevance (Beratergremium für umweltrelevante Alt- stoffe, BUA) with members from industry, government and science was created under the roof of the GDCh; it was an important development in the direction of ecological awareness. At the time of its 125th anniver- sary in 1992, the integration of the former members of East Germany’s Chemische Gesellschaft raised the photo by Christian Augustin (GDCh) GDCh membership to over 25 000. In 2013 the number one of the most prominent and influential chemists of of GDCh’s members exceeded 30 000. the 19th century. Another important development in In the second half of the 1990s, the GDCh was an the new millennium in which the GDCh played a piv- important protagonist in the reformation of the land- otal role was the transformation of the former, rath- scape of the European chemical journals. Under GDCh er weak Federation of European Chemical Societies leadership, the national journals of many continental (FECS) into the European Association of Chemical and European chemical societies were merged into new, Molecular Sciences (EuCheMS). By now EuCheMS has pan-European journals. The first of these journals was successfully established the biennial European Chem- Chemistry - A European Journal, others such as the istry Congress, operates an office in Brussels and has European Journal of Organic Chemistry, the European become an important and visible player on the Euro- Journal of Inorganic Chemistry, ChemPhysChem, and pean chemistry stage. ChemBioChem soon followed. As of today, the number In all these European and international activities, of national chemical societies working together in the IUPAC always played an important role for the GDCh. publishing partnership ChemPubSoc Europe has risen The German National Adhering Organization (NAO) to to 16, with the Swiss Chemical Society as its most re- IUPAC is the Deutsche Zentralausschuss für Chemie cent member. The ChemPubSoc portfolio includes 13 (DZfCh, German Central Committee for Chemistry), an journals plus the online magazine ChemViews. Among organization consisting of the GDCh and a number of those journals co-owned by ChemPubSoc Europe is other German chemistry organizations including the also ChemistryOpen, which in 2011 was the first gold German Chemical Industry Association; DZfCh’s sole Open Access journal launched by chemical societies. purpose is being the NAO to IUPAC. The GDCh runs ChemPubSoc Europe’s journals are all published with the office of theZentralausschuss and the GDCh Exec- Wiley-VCH. utive Director holds the same position also in the DZ- Together with other chemical organizations and fCh. The IUPAC Congress and General Assembly were the German Federal Ministry of Education and Re- hosted by the GDCh in 1974 in Hamburg and most re- search, GDCh orchestrated the highly successful na- cently in 1999 in Berlin. In 2011 GDCh played a key role tional Year of Chemistry in 2003 on the occasion of in the organization of the International Year of Chemis- the 200th anniversary of the birth of Justus von Liebig, try launched by the United Nations and IUPAC. 16 Chemistry International January-March 2018 150 Years of Chemical Society in Germany GDCh today September 2016 GDCh was among the 36 societies Today, international cooperation is one of the main whose presidents or representatives signed a declara- topics of the GDCh. Since 2003, eleven bilateral coop- tion deploring the use of Chemical weapons in Syria eration alliances were signed with chemical societies and calling for the misusers of chlorine to be brought around the world, focusing on cooperation in organiz- to justice. ing scientific events and reciprocal bilateral name lec- In 2017 not only the GDCh, but also its youth or- tures, and enabling members to access conferences of ganization JungChemikerForum (JCF) celebrated an the partner society with reduced conference fees. The anniversary. The JCF was founded 20 years ago and latest Memorandum of Understanding was signed in consists of more than 10 000 members divided into February of this year with the Israel Chemical Society local groups (currently 54) of young chemists all over (ICS) on the occasion of the 82nd Annual Meeting of Germany. In addition to various local events, there are the ICS in Tel Aviv/Israel. also nationwide activities like job fairs, lecture tours, GDCh’s attention focuses also on the ethical com- workshops, national meetings and the main event: the mitment and responsibility that chemists should ad- “Frühjahrssymposium” (Spring Symposium) with par- here to.