Ernst Otto Fischer

Fischer never married in his life.

He passed away on July 23, 2007, in Munich, Germany, at the age of 88 years.

He was born on November 10, 1918, in Solln near Munich, Germany, to Dr. Karl Tobias Fischer and his wife, Valentine Danzer as their third child. His father was a Professor of Physics at the ‘Technical College of Munich’.

He attended elementary school for four years and then enrolled at the ‘Theresiengymnasium’, the oldest grammar school in Munich in 1929 from where he completed his graduation in 1937 with Abitur.

While he was on his two years of compulsory military service, the ‘World War II’ started that saw him serving in France, Poland and Russia.

He started studying chemistry at the ‘Technical University of Munich’ during the later part of 1941 while he was on a military study leave. After the Americans released him in the autumn of 1945, he resumed his studies in 1946 following reopening of the ‘Technical University of Munich’ and completed BS in Chemistry from the university in 1949.

He was inducted in the Inorganic Chemistry Institute at the ‘Technical University of Munich’ as a scientific assistant of Professor Walter Hieber, who was considered father of metal carbonyl chemistry. Under the guidance of Hieber, Fischer worked on his doctoral thesis titled ‘The Mechanisms of Carbon Monoxide Reactions of Nickel (II) Salts in the Presence of Dithionites and Sulfoxylates’ and earned PhD in 1952.

In 1955 he was inducted as a Lecturer of Chemistry at the ‘Technical University of Munich’. The following year saw him completing a scientific sojourn of several months in the US.

He developed a new procedure of synthesizing metals and organic substances. In 1955 Fischer displayed that organometallic compounds, which at present are applied extensively in biological research works as also in industry, could be formed of molecules, a notion thought of to be impossible earlier.

He ascertained the structure of ferrocene, became successful in synthesizing dibenzolchrome from CrCl3 and C6H6 in presence of AlCl3 and came up with a procedure of synthesis of the arene derivatives.

The arenecyclopentadienyl, arenecarbonyl and other mixed π-complexes of the transition elements were first obtained by him. He displayed that when heated these compounds break up to form a ‘metallic mirror’ that can be applied to procure ultrapure metals.

Fischer was the first one to synthesize many organometallic compounds of the transuranium and technetium elements.

He received the ‘Nobel Prize in Chemistry’ in 1973 along with English chemist Geoffrey Wilkinson.