Karl Ziegler

Ziegler owned many patents, which made him very rich. Using part of his wealth (40 million deutsche marks), he later set up the Ziegler Fund with the aim of supporting the institute's research

He was also a collector of art and liked travelling around. He especially liked going on cruising.

Karl Ziegler was born on November 26, 1898, in Kassel, Germany, as the second son of Karl Ziegler, a Lutheran minister, and Caroline Helene Louise, née Rall.

Karl started his education at the Kassel-Bettenhausen elementary school in Helsa. In 1910, the family moved to Marburg and there he was admitted to the Real gymnasium.

While studying there, he came across an introductory textbook on physics. On reading it, he became very enthusiastic about science and began to read books outside his curriculum. He also started conducting experiments at home.

He was also encouraged in this by his father’s friends, many of whom were professors from the University of Marburg. By the time Karl reached his final year of the high school, he had gathered extensive knowledge in science and received the most outstanding student award.

In 1916, after passing out from school, Karl joined the University of Marburg with chemistry. However, because of his wide-ranging knowledge in the subject he was allowed to skip the first two semesters.

In December 1923, Karl Ziegler became Privatdozent at the University of Marburg. At the same time, he continued his research work on free radicals with Karl von Auwers.

In 1925, he shifted to University of Frankfurt am Main, remaining there until 1926. Sometime in 1925, he also prepared pentaphenyl-cyclopentadienyl. The compound was more stable than tri-valent carbon free radicals, such as triphenylmethyl.

In 1926, Ziegler joined the University of Heidelberg as an assistant professor, remaining there till 1936. Here he started his experiments on carbon compounds, investigating into the stability of radicals on trivalent carbons. The work led him to study organometallic chemistry.

In 1927, he became a full professor at the University of Heidelberg. This was also the year when he found that when the olefin stilbene was added to an ethyl ether solution of phenylisopropyl potassium, the color changes from red to yellow abruptly.

Working on it, he also found that if more olefinic hydrocarbon butadiene was added to a solution of phenylisopropyl potassium a long-chain hydrocarbon can be obtained with the reactive organopotassium end still intact.

He was intsrumental in expanding the scientific knowledge of and the technical development of new synthetic materials. His work on organometallic compounds which led to new polymerization reactions paved the way for new and highly useful industrial processes.