20th-century German chemists

Fritz Georg Arndt (6 July 1885 – 8 December 1969) was a German chemist recognised for his contributions to synthetic methodology, who together with Bernd Eistert discovered the Arndt-Eistert synthesis.

Klaus Paul Alfred Clusius (19 March 1903 – 28 May 1963) was a German physical chemist from Breslau (Wrocław), Silesia. During World War II, he worked on the German nuclear energy project, also known as the Uranium Club; he worked on isotope separation techniques and heavy water production. After the war, he was a professor of physical chemistry at the University of Zurich. He died in Zurich.

Alfred Oppenheim (3 November 1878 in Berlin – 14 May 1943 in Berlin) was a German chemist and gas mantle manufacturer.

Karl Wilhelm Louis Rosenmund (15 December 1884 – 8 February 1965) was a German chemist. He was born in Berlin and died in Kiel.
Rosenmund studied chemistry and received his Ph.D. 1906 from University of Berlin for his work with Otto Diels. He discovered the Rosenmund reduction, which is the reduction of acid chlorides to aldehydes over palladium on barium sulfate as catalyst (Lindlar catalyst). The Rosenmund–von Braun reaction, the conversion of an aryl bromide to an aryl nitrile is also named after him. Rosenmund-Kuhnhenn method is suitable for the determination of iodine value in conjugated systems (ASTM D1541).

Carl Blumenreuter (16 November 1881 – 11 July 1969) was a German chemist and politician during the Nazi era. He served as SS Chief Pharmacist for the Nazi Party (NSDAP).Blumenreuter studied the Nahrungsmittelchemie. He received special training in World War I for gas warfare at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for physical chemistry and electrochemistry in Berlin. In 1935 he joined the paramilitary combat organization of the Nazi party, the SA, and in 1937 the Nazi party.
In 1936, he was in the Sanitätsabteilung of the SS death's head associations and built up the Sanitätsversorgung. In 1937, he was head of the chemical pharmacological service of the SS Sanitätsamtes. Most recently, he was promoted to SS-Gruppenführer. In August 1943, the department was placed under the Reich physician SS and he received the title of Sanitätszeugmeister. This agency supplied the concentration camps with poisons. After the second world war he was interned; He was released but already in 1946 from the Neuengamme camp again. He then lived in Grömitz in Holstein and afterwards led a hospital pharmacy.

Wilhelm Biltz (8 March 1877 – 13 November 1943) was a German chemist and scientific editor.
In addition to his scholarly work, Biltz is noted for commanding the principal German tank involved in the first ever tank-on-tank battle in history at the Second Battle of Villers-Bretonneux.

Hans Meerwein (May 20, 1879 in Hamburg, Germany – October 24, 1965 in Marburg, Germany) was a German chemist.
Several reactions and reagents bear his name, most notably the Meerwein–Ponndorf–Verley reduction, the Wagner–Meerwein rearrangement, the Meerwein arylation reaction, and Meerwein's salt.

Arthur von Weinberg (11 August 1860, in Frankfurt am Main – 20 March 1943, in the Theresienstadt Ghetto) was a German chemist and industrialist.
He was a co-owner of Cassella and later a co-founder, co-owner and member of the supervisory board and the administrative board of IG Farben. He was also a prominent philanthropist in Frankfurt. He founded the Arthur von Weinberg Foundation in 1909, was director of the Senckenberg Nature Research Society and was a co-founder of the Goethe University Frankfurt in 1914.
A member of a Jewish family of industrialists, he was a grandson of Ludwig Aaron Gans. In 1908 Arthur Weinberg and his brother Carl were ennobled by Emperor William II, and he received numerous other honours in Germany. In 1909 he married the Dutch widow Willemine Huygens. During the Nazi regime, Weinberg was forced out of his offices and for a time lived with his adopted daughters Marie and Charlotte, Countess Spreti in Bavaria. In 1942 he was arrested, and he died following a cholecystectomy in the Theresienstadt Ghetto at the age of 82. His ashes were scattered in the Eger river.

Daniel Vorländer (11 June 1867 – 8 June 1941) was a German chemist who synthesized most of the liquid crystals known until his retirement in 1935.
Vorländer was born in Eupen in Rhenish Prussia. He studied chemistry at Kiel, Munich, and Berlin, after which he became a professor at University of Halle-Wittenberg.
Vorländer applied his knowledge of molecular structure to select those exhibiting the crystalline liquid state. In particular a linear molecular geometry was conductive. "Over the years Vorländer and his students synthesized hundreds of liquid crystalline compounds. An interesting discovery was that amongst the slimy liquid crystals were many soap and soap-like compounds." (Dunmur & Sluckin p 48)
Vorländer served as a volunteer during World War I, during which he received the Iron Cross. He died in Halle.

Max Trautz (19 March 1880 – 19 August 1960) was a German chemist. He was very productive with over 190 scientific publications especially in the field of chemical kinetics. He was the first to investigate the activation energy of molecules by connecting Max Planck's new results concerning light with observations in chemistry.
He is also known as the founder of collision theory together with the British scientist William Lewis. While Trautz published his work in 1916, Lewis published it in 1918. However, they were unaware of each other's work due to World War I.