Edgar Leon Waldemar Otto Wedekind (31 January 1870 - 22 October 1938) was a German chemist and teacher at Hannoversch-Münden. He was one of the signatories for the '' Vow of allegiance of the Professors of the German Universities and High-Schools to Adolf Hitler and the National Socialistic State'' (1933). Wedekind was born in Altona (near Hamburg) and studied chemistry, receiving a doctorate from Munich in 1895 for studies on

Tetrazolium The formazans are compounds of the general formula -N=N-C(R')=N-NH-R" formally derivatives of formazan 2NN=CHN=NH unknown in free form. Formazan dyes are artificial chromogenic products obtained by reduction of tetrazolium salts by dehydrogenase ...

under Hans von Pechmann, He received a habilitation from the University of Leipzig in 1899. He then taught chemistry at the Universities of Tübingen, Strasbourg, Frankfurt, Göttingen as well as at the forestry university Hannoversch-Münden and from 1938, he was a member of the Erfurt academy. He worked with the mycologist

Richard Falck Richard Falck (7 May 1873 – 1 January 1955) was a German-American botanist and mycologist, who worked as a professor of mycology at the forest academy in Hannoversch Münden before he fled Nazi Germany and the persecution of Jews to finally set ...

and analyzed the antibiotic ''Sparassol''. He defended Falck against

anti-semitism Antisemitism (also spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism) is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who holds such positions is called an antisemite. Antisemitism is considered to be a form of racism. Antis ...

but was, in November 1933, a signatory to the ''Bekenntnis der Professoren an den Universitäten und Hochschulen zu Adolf Hitler und dem nationalsozialistischen Staat'' (or ''Vow of allegiance of professors at the German universities and colleges to Adolf Hitler and the National Socialist state''). Wedekind worked on stereochemistry and magnetochemistry and was close to identifying ketenes when he treated Ph₂CHCOCl with n-Pr₃N in 1901 at Tübingen. He suggested that it produced the intermediate Ph₂C-C=O but ketene was later isolated by

Hermann Staudinger Hermann Staudinger (; 23 March 1881 – 8 September 1965) was a German organic chemist who demonstrated the existence of macromolecules, which he characterized as polymers. For this work he received the 1953 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. He is also ...

in 1905. He died at Erfurt.

References

External links

Magnetochemie (1911)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wedekind, Edgar 20th-century German chemists People from Hann. Münden 1870 births 1938 deaths