Marianne Baudler (1921–2003): an expert in phosphorus chemistry

Marianne Baudler’s passion lay with the non-metals. The former director of the Institute of Inorganic Chemistry at the University of Cologne was particularly interested in phosphorus compounds.

Marianne Baudler was born on 27 April 1921 in Stettin, West Pomerania, the daughter of the industrialist Fritz Baudler and his wife Clara. She passed her Abitur there at the age of 19 and subsequently moved to Dresden to study chemistry. Her diploma thesis, for which she was awarded the grade ‘Excellent’, laid a solid foundation for an academic career. For her doctoral thesis, the young scientist joined the working group led by the Hungarian-German chemist Franz Fehér (1903–1991) at the Georg-August University of Göttingen. He was a recognised expert in the chemistry of non-metals and had a decisive influence on Baudler’s life as a researcher.

After completing her doctoral thesis on polyhydrogen sulphides in 1946, Baudler worked as a research assistant to her supervisor in Göttingen until 1949. When Fehér accepted a chair in Inorganic Chemistry at the University of Cologne, she followed him there. At the University of Cologne, Baudler obtained her habilitation in 1959 with a thesis on diphosphoric acids and was appointed associate professor in 1963. A few years later, she turned down an appointment at the Technical University of Berlin. It was a decision she would not come to regret: in 1968, she was appointed full professor and director of the Institute of Inorganic Chemistry at the University of Cologne. Her final appointment as a full professor took place in 1969.

Baudler remained devoted to the non-metals, particularly phosphorus, until her retirement in 1986. She was particularly interested in phosphanes and other compounds containing at least one phosphorus–phosphorus bond. To characterise these substances, she utilised all available spectroscopic methods, ranging from IR and Raman spectroscopy through NMR measurements to mass spectrometry.

Baudler received numerous awards for her scientific work. She had been a full member of the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina since 1982. In the year of her retirement, the German Chemical Society (GDCh) awarded her the prestigious Alfred-Stock Memorial Award. She was only the second woman, after Margot Becke-Goehring (1914–2009), to receive this honour. Marianne Baudler died on 5 March 2003 in Davos at the age of 81.

In December 2022, the Board of Directors of the GDCh decided to name the GDCh Prize for Inorganic Chemistry (formerly the Alfred-Stock Memorial Award) after Marianne Baudler in future.

Sources

J. Hahn, Nachrichten aus der Chemie 51, 2003, p. 955
Cologne University Archives, Ref. 631, NL Prof. Dr Marianne Baudler