Hans Meerwein's Life and work

[lookchem2009]

Hans Meerwein's name is still present in the names of several reactions and reagents, for example the Meerwein's ester(You can find this in http://www.lookchem.com/cas-696/6966-22-9.html ),the Wagner-Meerwein rearrangement. and the Meerwein's salt.
After his training as chemotechnician from 1898 till 1900 at the Fresenius chemistry school he started studying chemistry at the University of Bonn. After finishing his PhD with Richard Anschütz he did some research at the University of Berlin before coming back to Bonn where he became professor in 1914. From 1922 till 1928 he was professor for organic chemistry at the University of Königsberg. The last change in his academic career was to the University of Marburg. The war devastated the Institute and Meerwein was planning the rebuilding which was finished in 1953, the year he retired from lecturing. He conducted experimental work with the help of two postdocs until his death in 1965.
His greatest impact upon organic chemistry was to propose the carbocation 2 as a reactive intermediate, originally as a rationalization of the racemization of isobornyl chloride 1 catalysed by a Lewis acid such as SnCl4. His proposed mechanism for racemization involved s subsequent a 2,6 hydride transfer in the cation; the alternative [1,2] methyl migration, now actually known as a Wagner-Meerwein shift, was in fact suggested for the first time by Houben and Pfankuch.