Georg Wittig Biography

Organic chemist Georg Wittig's investigations led him to discover in 1953 a chemical process for synthesizing complex compounds such as vitamin A, vitamin D derivatives, steroids, and biological pesticides. Because of this process, known as the Wittig reaction , such compounds can now routinely be synthesized. For his work in organic synthesis, and especially for the Wittig reaction, he shared the 1979 Nobel Prize in chemistry with Herbert C. Brown.

Georg Friedrich Karl Wittig was born on June 16, 1897, in Berlin, Germany, to Gustav Wittig, a professor of fine arts at the University of Berlin, and Martha (Dombrowski) Wittig. He went to grade school at the Wilhelms-Gymnasium in Kassel. In 1916 he enrolled at the University of Tübingen, but interrupted his college years to serve in World War I. After moving to the University of Marburg in 1920, he began postgraduate studies in chemistry under the guidance of Karl von Auwers. After receiving his doctorate in 1923, Wittig stayed on at Marburg to teach and do research for many years. In 1932, he became associate professor at the technical university in Brunswick. He went to the University of Freiburg five years later in the capacity of associate professor. In 1944 he was appointed full professor and director of the University of Tübingen's Chemical Institute. After twelve years, he transferred to the University of Heidelberg, where he became emeritus professor in 1967. After retirement, he continued to work and publish with various students at the University of Heidelberg.

Among his peers, Wittig won renown as an original thinker and gifted deviser of experiments. During Wittig's tenure at Tübingen, he and his research team started working with a family of organic compounds called ylides. These compounds formed the basis of the Wittig reaction , which easily and predictably joins two carbon atoms from different molecules to form a double bond. The Wittig reaction's reliability enabled other chemists to pursue and publish findings on thousands of applications for linking large carbon molecules.

Prior to the Nobel Prize, Wittig received many accolades, including the Adolf von Baeyer Medal in 1953, the 1967 Otto Hahn Prize of the German Chemical Society, the 1972 Paul Karrer Medal in Chemistry from the University of Zurich and the 1975 Roger Adams Award from the American Chemical Society. He had also been granted honorary degrees from the universities of Hamburg, Tübingen, and Paris. Wittig married Waltraut Ernst in 1930. Together, they had two daughters. Wittig loved the out-of-doors and was an avid mountaineer. While young, he had shown considerable musical ability. Those who knew him often remarked that he could have had a career in music had his early inclinations led him away from chemistry. Wittig died on August 26, 1987, in Heidelberg at the age of ninety.