History of the Faculty for Chemistry and Pharmacy

1472

Duke Ludwig IX, also known as Duke of Bavaria and Louis the Rich, founds the first "high school" in Bavaria, situated in Ingolstadt: The Ludwig Maximilians University of Munich (LMU) one of the Germany's oldest universities.

From the LMU arose amongst others 34 Nobel Prize Laureats.

The subject pharmacology (materia medica) is part of the medical faculty.

1760

Ingolstadt's pharmacist Georg Ludwig Claudius Rousseau teaches chemistry of animal, plant and mineral substances in the pharmacy's laboratory. In 1776 he is appointed ordinarius of chemistry and pharmacy and in 1789 he is appointed rector of the university. In 1794 Georg Augustin Bertele, a surgeon and the pharmacists of Amberg, becomes his successor.

1800

Prince-Elector Max IV Joseph of Bavaria (later on King Maximiliam the I) relocated the "high school" to Landshut.

1807

The Bavarian Academy of Science (Bayrische Akademie der Wissenschaften) establishes a section for chemistry in Munich. The physician and pharmacist Adolph Ferdinand Gehlen is appointed head. In 1815 the academy starts building a chemical laboratory. A. F. Gehlen dies of arsenic poisoning. The chemist Heinrich August Vogel, who was trained in Paris, becomes his successor.

1808

Due to an edict about the medical field in Bavaria, pharmacists have to attend university for two years.

1818

Johann Andreas Buchner, a Munich pharmacist, is appointed professor for pharmacy and pharmacology at the "high school" in Landshut.

1826

King Ludwig I of Bavaria orders the relocation of the university (which was later on named after Dutch Ludwig the Rich and King Maximilian I) from Landshut to Munich.

1826

Johann Andreas Buchner is transferred from Landshut to Munich. From 1830 on, he teaches pharmaceutical chemistry in a privately financed institute. In 1840 he moves to an institute with laboratory and auditorium in the main building of the university in the Ludwigstraße. In 1842 he was elected rector of the Ludwig Maximilians University.

1827

Heinrich August Vogel becomes full professor for chemistry in Munich. The chemical laboratory of the Bavarian Academy for Science has been used by the university ever since.

1852

Justus von Liebig, who was the most famous chemist at that time and who was formerly professor in Gießen, is appointed for the professorship of chemistry and receives a new building in the Sophienstraße and Arcisstaße.

Among his doctoral students where to name a few:

• Friedrich August Kekule von Stradonitz,
• August Wilhelm von Hofmann,
• Emil Erlenmeyer and
• Adolph Strecker.

1852

Ludwig Andreas Buchner, a pharmacist and apprentice of Liebig, is appointed successor of his father J. A. Buchner, who died in 1852.

1870

The "Chemical Laboratory" under the direction of Adolf von Baeyer.

1875

Two years after the death of Liebig, Adolf von Baeyer is appointed full professor of chemistry. The institute, which receives in addition to the organic department an inorganic department, becomes the best known school for chemistry in Germany after an expansion under Baeyers management. In 1885 Baeyer is ennobled and in 1905 he receives the Nobel Prize for Chemistry for research about organic dyestuffs.

1877

To Baeyers working group belong a lot of students who later on were honored as eminent scientists, for example

• Emil Fischer (Nobel Prize Laureate in Chemistry 1902),
• Eduard Buchner (Nobel Prize Laureate in Chemistry 1907),
• Richard Willstätter (Nobel Prize Laureate in Chemistry 1915) and
• Heinrich Wieland (Nobel Prize Laureate in Chemistry 1927).

1892

Chemistry and Pharmacy are shifted from the medical to the philosophical faculty.

1892

Albert Hilger from Erlangen, is appointed for the professorship for pharmaceutical chemistry and receives a new building for the institute in the Karlstraße. In 1894 an "Anstalt for Nahrungs- und Genussmittel" (institute for food and stimulates) is affiliated.

1893

Group picture of the members of the chemical institute. Besides the two Nobel Prize laureates Baeyer and Willstätter are pictured:

• Walter Dieckmann ("Dieckmann Condensation"),
• Johannes Thiele ("Thiele Hypothesis of Partial Valencies") und
• Victor Villiger ("Baeyer-Villiger Oxidation").

1897

On a basis of Baeyers proposals, the "Verbandsexamen" (federation exam) is introduced in the German Reich.

1905

Theodor Paul, student of Wilhelm Ostwald, overtakes the professorship for pharmaceutical chemistry. In 1916 a "Gerichtlich-Chemische Untersuchungsstelle"(judicial-chemical investigation department) and "Forschungsanstalt für Lebensmittelchemie" (research institute for food chemistry) are established.

1905

Adolf von Baeyer receives the Nobel Prize fo Chemistry.

1915

A. v. Baeyer resigns. Richard Willstätter, a student of Baeyer and head of the Kaiser-Willhelm-Institute for Chemistry in Berlin, is appointed full professor of chemistry of the "Chemical Laboratory of the State". In the same year, Willstätter receives the Nobel Prize for Chemistry 1915 for research about vegetable dyes. The chemical institute is extended and modernized.

1924

Due to anti-semitic tendencies in the university, Willstätter resigns and emigrates to Switzerland.

1926

Heinrich Wieland becomes Willstätters successor. He is a student of Baeyer and head of the chemical institute in Freiburg. In 1927 Wieland receives the Nobel Prize for Chemistry because of his research about bile acids.

1929

Benno Bleyer becomes head of the "institute for pharmaceutical chemistry and food chemistry”.

1932

Kasimir Fajans, born in Warshaw, becomes head of the Institute of Physical Chemistry at the Sophienstraße, which was built with the aid of the Rockefeller Foundation. As he is Jewish, he is dismissed and denaturalized in 1936.

1935

A pharmacognostic instiute ("Institute for pharmaceutical pharmacology”) is established in the Karlstraße.

1937

Chemistry and Pharmacy are shifted from philosophical faculty to the faculty of natural sciences.

1938

The management of the "Chemical Laboratory of the Academy of Sciences” is taken over by the university.

1939

Establishment of a diploma study course for chemistry.

1944

The chemical and pharmaceutical institutes are destroyed by bombs.

1946

Teaching and research are done provisionally.

1948

Eugen Baman, who was a student of Willstädter, becomes head of the institute for pharmacy and food chemistry in Munich. Research and teaching are placed makeshift in different parts of the city.

1950

Heinrich Wieland is given emeritus status. Until 1953, four professorships are established and staffed:

• Georg-Maria Schwab (physical chemistry),
• Egon Wiberg (inorganic chemistry),
• Rolf Huisgen (organic chemistry, Wieland student, later on most quoted german chemist) and
• Feodor Lynen (biochemistry, he won the Nobel Prize in 1964) who also overtakes the management of the Max-Planck Institute for Cell Chemistry.

1954 - 1958

Between Karlstraße and Sophiestraße four new institutes are built (organic, inorganic, physical chemistry and biochemistry).

1957 - 1959

New buildings for the "Institute for Pharmacy and Food Chemistry” and "Institute for Pharmacy” are erected.

1964

Feodor Lynen receives the Nobel Prize in Medicine

1973

Ernst Otto Fischer receives the Nobel Prize in Chemistry
Ernst Otto Fischer was as professor part of the LMU Chemistry faculty from 1959 - 1964.

1959 - 2014

Additional professorships are established and staffed:
for inorganic chemistry:

• Armin Weiß,
• Wolfgang Beck,
• Heinrich Nöth and
• Hanns-Peter Boehm;

• Rudolf Gompper,
• Gerhard Binsch and
• Wolfgang Steglich;

• Jürgen Voitländer and
• Gerhard Ertl (Nobel Prize laureate in Chemistry 2007),

• Guido Hartmann,
• Ernst-Ludwig Winnacker,
• Rudolf Grosschedl and
• Patrick Cramer;

• Karl Häusler and
• Heribert Rampf.

• Hans-Dietrich Stachel and
• Fritz Eiden;

• Ludwig Hörhammer,
• Hildebert Wagner and
• Meinhart H. Zenk;

• Theodor Severin;

• Karl Thoma;

• Martin Biel;

1999 - 2004

The faculty for chemistry and pharmacy moves to the "HighTech CampusLMU” at the western end of Munich.

• A Department for Chemistry and Biochemistry with the teaching fields anorganic, organic and physical chemistry and biochemistry is established.
• In addition, a Department for Pharmacy – Center for Pharmacy Research with the teaching fields pharmaceutical chemistry, pharmaceutical biology, pharmaceutical technology and biopharmacy as well as pharmacology for natural sciences is set up.

2002

A bachelor / master study course for chemistry and biochemistry is established instead of the diploma study course for chemistry.

2004

A bachelor / master study course for pharmaceutical sciences is established.

2007

Chemistry Nobel Prize for Gerhard Ertl (1973 - 1986 member of the Faculty of Chemistry and Pharmacy of the LMU)

2006 - 2017

New buildings at various sites at the HighTech CampusLMU

Video of the ongoing constructional activities