WALTER HUCKEL RALPH E. OESPER University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, Ohio
THE
name Walter Hiickell is known to organic chemists everywhere, not only for his many important researches hut also for his outstanding hooks. He was born a t Charlottenburg-Berlin on February 18, 1895; his father was a physician. The family moved to Gottingen in 1899. After completing the Gymnasium there, the young man took up the study of chemistry a t the University of Gottingen in 1913. He served in the field during most of World War I ; was wounded and placed in the reserves. Returning to the laboratory in 1918, the doctorate was attained in 1920; the dissertation, prepared under the direction of Adolf Windaus,> dealt with hydroaromatic compounds. After graduation, Dr. Hiickel stayed on a t Gottingen as assistant in the general chemistry laboratory. In 1922 he spent a semester on leave a t Munich, where he broadened his training in physical chemistry under Kasimir Fajans. He habilitated as Privatdo~entat Gottingen in 1923. His publications were of such high order that he was called as section chief of the organic division a t the University of Freiburg in 1927. He was called to head the chemistry department a t Greifswald in 1930, and in 1935 he went to Breslau in the same capacity a t the University and Technische Hochschule. By order of the military authorities, Professor Hiickel had to leave BresIau in January, 1945, and return to Gottingen, where facilities for research were available in the Pharmakologisches Institut. After the rollapse of the German resistance, the University could offer him no opportunity for teaching and scientific activity. He accordingly (October, 1945) entered the employ of the world-famous Sartorius balance manufacturers, whose factory is in Gottingen. After two years (1947) he was called as guest professor of theoretical organic chemistry a t the University of Tiihingen, where in 1948he was appointed to his present post: Head of the Pharmazeutisch-chemischesInstitut. Professor Huckel's publications are many and varied. He and his students have dealt with the stereoisomerism of decahydronaphthalene and other ring systems; the Walden inversion; molecular structure and reaction rates: the course of substitution-addition and cleav-
a g e a n d rearrangement reactions, especially in terpene chemistry; rotation of the plane of polarization; dielectric polarization and association: dipole moments. His widely read books include: "Katalyse mit Kolloiden Met,allenn (1927) ; "Theoretische Grundlagen der organischen Chemie" (1931), 6th edition, 1949; "Lehrbuch der Chemie" (1936), 4th edition, 1950; "Anorganische Strukturchemie" (1948) ; "Fiat Review ' H e should not be confused with the well-known physical of German Science, Theoretische-organische Chemie" chemist, Erieh Hdekel, whose biography will appear in THIS (vols. 34, 35); "Theoretische organische Chemie" JOURNAL, 27, 6Th (1950). "Studienfuhrer fur organische Chemie" OESPER,R.E., THISJOURNAL, 17, 453 (1940); H~~cKEI,, w., (1947); (1947). dngeul. Chem., A59,185 (1947).
