Hans Finkelstein (17 May 1885,

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- December 1938) was a German

chemist A chemist (from Greek ''chēm(ía)'' alchemy; replacing ''chymist'' from Medieval Latin ''alchemist'') is a scientist trained in the study of chemistry. Chemists study the composition of matter and its properties. Chemists carefully describe t ...

. He is particularly known for the

Finkelstein reaction The Finkelstein reaction named after the German chemist Hans Finkelstein, is an SN2 reaction (Substitution Nucleophilic Bimolecular reaction) that involves the exchange of one halogen atom for another. It is an equilibrium reaction, but the react ...

developed by and named after him.

Biography

Hans Finkelstein came from a liberal

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

family and joined the

Protestant Church Protestantism is a branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century against what its followers perceived to b ...

when he was 10 years old. He studied chemistry like his father Berthold Finkelstein, one of

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's first chemists. After studying in

and

Dresden Dresden (, ; Upper Saxon: ''Dräsdn''; wen, label= Upper Sorbian, Drježdźany) is the capital city of the German state of Saxony and its second most populous city, after Leipzig. It is the 12th most populous city of Germany, the fourth ...

he worked on his doctoral thesis with Johannes Thiele in Strasbourg from 1906, submitting it in 1909. Finkelstein continued his scientific work as assistant to Prof. Thiele until 1912. During this time he also translated scientific books into German with his father. In 1912 Finkelstein transitioned from university to industry as head of the research department at

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Uerdingen Uerdingen () is a district of the city of Krefeld, Germany, with a population of 17,888 (2019). Originally a separate city in its own right, Uerdingen merged with the city of Krefeld in 1929. Today, Uerdingen is best known for a local distillery ...

. He filed some patents over the years. In 1912, Finkelstein married Annemarie Bruns. Together they had three children. In November 1938 shortly after the ''

Kristallnacht () or the Night of Broken Glass, also called the November pogrom(s) (german: Novemberpogrome, ), was a pogrom against Jews carried out by the Nazi Party's (SA) paramilitary and (SS) paramilitary forces along with some participation fro ...

'' and the subsequent ''Decree on the Exclusion of Jews from German Economic Life'', Finkelstein was forced to resign from his position in the company and to surrender his passport due to his Jewish descent. In December 1938 he did not see a future for himself and his life ended under tragic circumstances.

Work

Hans Finkelstein is well known in synthetic organic chemistry for the Finkelstein reaction, developed by him during his doctoral studies and published as a paper in 1910. The reaction describes the substitution of one type of halogen present in a halocarbon by another type of halogen. This process has been employed successfully in particular for the formation of organoiodine compounds among others.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Finkelstein, Hans 20th-century German chemists 19th-century German Jews German Protestants 1885 births 1938 deaths Scientists from Leipzig