In 1890, an eighteen-year-old Richard Willstätter enrolled at the University of Munich, entering the Department of Chemistry under Adolf von Baeyer to begin fifteen years of continuous study and research. Born in Karlsruhe on August 13, 1872, Willstätter had attended school in his hometown and at the Technical School in Nuremberg before moving to Munich. According to the Nobel Foundation biography, he advanced to university lecturer in 1896 and became Extraordinary Professor in early 1902 as successor to J. Thiele.
Mastering the Synthetic Technique
During his early career in Munich, Willstätter focused his experiments on the chemical structure and synthesis of plant alkaloids, including atropine and cocaine, as well as quinone compounds used in dyestuffs. He deliberately selected these challenging organic substances to build practical expertise in chemical techniques, preparing himself for the more complex task of analyzing biological pigments. Finding the facilities at the Munich laboratory too limited for this broader ambition, he accepted a professorial chair at the Federal Technical College in Zurich in the summer of 1905, where he spent seven years expanding his experimental program.
Isolating Chlorophyll and Anthocyanins
In 1912, the newly established Kaiser Wilhelm Society opened an Institute of Chemistry in Berlin/Dahlem, offering Willstätter a dedicated research laboratory alongside an honorary professorship at the University of Berlin. Over the next two years, prior to the outbreak of World War I, Willstätter led a research team in purifying and characterizing the primary green leaf pigment, chlorophyll. His team determined its structural relationship to haemoglobin and proceeded to isolate anthocyanins, the pigments responsible for the vivid colors of flowers and fruits. These foundational discoveries earned Willstätter the 1915 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
Enzymes and Theoretical Synthesis
Willstätter returned to the University of Munich in 1915 to succeed his former teacher Baeyer, broadening his research into enzyme activity and theoretical organic chemistry. Because contemporary techniques could not yet crystallize enzymes, he developed methods to concentrate them through adsorption, conducting systematic studies on metal hydroxides, hydrogels, and silicic acids. In theoretical chemistry, he achieved the first synthesis of cyclo-octatetraene to compare its properties with benzene and carried out pioneering experiments aimed at synthesizing cyclobutadiene.
A Moral Stand and Exile in Switzerland
Willstätter's university career ended abruptly in 1924 when, at age fifty-three, he announced his retirement from the University of Munich as a formal protest against increasing antisemitism. Despite petitions from the faculty, students, and government ministers, he refused to withdraw his resignation. He lived on in retirement in Munich, maintaining academic contact primarily with his former pupil Arthur Stoll and his nominated successor, Heinrich Wieland. In 1938, facing persecution from the Gestapo, Willstätter fled Germany for Switzerland with Stoll's assistance, leaving behind most of his belongings.
Willstätter spent his final three years in Muralto near Locarno writing his autobiography, Aus meinem Leben, which Stoll edited for publication. He died of a heart attack on August 3, 1942. His systematic isolation of chlorophyll and plant pigments provided the chemical framework that enabled modern plant biochemistry, enzyme analysis, and photosynthesis research.
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Source: Nobel Prize
Richard Willstätter
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