Margot Becke-Goehring (1914–2009): The first female rector of a West German university

Over the course of her Career, Margot Becke-Goehring held several positions that had previously only been held by men. She was the first female dean and rector in the history of Heidelberg University. After leaving the university, she headed the Gmelin Institute in Frankfurt am Main.

Margot Becke-Goehring was born on 10 June 1914 in Allenstein, East Prussia. She attended school in Gera and Erfurt, where she passed her Abitur in 1933. She subsequently studied chemistry in Halle and Munich – against her parents’ wishes. “Physically too demanding, no prospects for a woman,” was the opinion of her father, the career officer Albert Goehring. However, this assessment proved to be wrong. Just five years after passing her Abitur, his daughter gained her doctorate at the University of Halle as an academic student of the inorganic chemist Hellmuth Stamm (1901-1977). She continued her research in Halle and in 1944 completed her habilitation at the institute of the future Nobel laureate Karl Ziegler (1898-1973), with a thesis on sulfoxylic acid. “The period of my first independent work was so filled with science that, when I look back today, I almost forget that there was a war,” Becke-Goehring later said of the early years of her Career.
At Heidelberg University, she initially obtained a lectureship in 1946, but was appointed extraordinary professor of Inorganic and Analytical Chemistry as early as the following year. At a meeting of the Heidelberg Chemical Society in 1955, she met her future husband, the industrial chemist Friedrich Becke (1910-1972). After their marriage, Becke-Goehring continued her Career at Heidelberg University. In 1959 she became a full professor and in 1961 the first woman to become dean of its Faculty of Natural Sciences and Mathematics. But that was not all: in 1966 she crowned her academic Career by being elected rector of Heidelberg University. She was thus the first female rector of a West German university.

Her rectorship came during a period of upheaval, which Becke-Goehring helped to shape. Among other things, she initiated new curricula and campaigned for student support, from which the Federal Training Assistance Act (Bafög) later developed. The student unrest of the 1960s, which was particularly pronounced in Heidelberg, presented the chemist with a considerable challenge. Becke-Goehring described the “mass with raised fists, ready for violence” as oppressive, but looking back she also emphasised: “I was able to say what I had to say, to make my legal position clear. ... At that time, one could still prevail if one had just a little courage; one could stand up for the rule of law without the police.” However, when it became apparent that the university’s new constitution contradicted her ideas, she resigned from her post and shortly afterwards terminated her civil-service employment. She left Heidelberg University in 1969.

From 1969 until her retirement ten years later, Becke-Goehring headed the Gmelin Institute for Inorganic Chemistry and Related Fields in Frankfurt am Main. The institute, which belonged to the Max Planck Society, was primarily responsible for publishing Gmelin’s Handbook of Inorganic Chemistry. Until the institute was dissolved in 1997, the work compiled the entire body of knowledge in inorganic chemistry.
Becke-Goehring received several honours for her achievements. In 1961, she became the first woman to receive the Alfred-Stock Memorial Award from the GDCh, and in 1980 she was awarded the Gmelin-Beilstein commemorative coin. The University of Stuttgart awarded her an honorary doctorate.

Margot Becke-Goehring died in Heidelberg on 14 November 2009 at the age of 95. Her life’s work has been preserved for posterity in many books and in more than 300 scientific publications, chiefly on sulphur, phosphorus and nitrogen chemistry.

Literature

H. Eberle: Die Martin-Luther-Universität in der Zeit des Nationalsozialismus, Mdv, Halle, 2002, p. 412, ISBN 3-89812-150-X

E. Fluck: Margot Becke, obituary in the annual report of the Max Planck Society, 2009, supplement, pp. 18-19

M. Becke-Goehring, D. Mussgnug: Erinnerungen – fast vom Winde verweht. Universität Heidelberg zwischen 1933-1968, Verlag Dieter Winkler, Bochum, 2005

German Chemical Society (GDCh): Chemikerinnen – es gab und es gibt sie, brochure, 2003, p. 23