Wilhelm Karl Klemm (5 January 1896 – 24 October 1985) was an inorganic and physical chemist. Klemm did extensive work on intermetallic compounds, rare earth metals, transition elements and compounds involving oxygen and fluorine. He and Heinrich Bommer were the first to isolate elemental erbium (1934) and ytterbium (1936). Klemm refined Eduard Zintl's ideas about the structure of intermetallic compounds and their connections to develop the Zintl-Klemm concept. Klemm co-authored one of the ten most-cited papers in the history of the journal Zeitschrift für anorganische und allgemeine Chemie. His textbooks on inorganic chemistry became standard works for chemists. His Magnetochemie (c1936) is considered foundational to magnetochemistry. Anorganische Chemie (Inorganic Chemistry) by Klemm and Rudolf Hoppe has been described as a legendary work by two titans of solid state chemistry. Klemm was the second President of the Gesellschaft Deutscher Chemiker (GDCh), serving from 1952 to 1953. He was President of the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) from 1965 to 1967. Klemm co-edited the journal Zeitschrift für anorganische und allgemeine Chemie from 1939 to 1965. Since 1985, the GDCh has awarded the Wilhelm Klemm Prize in his honor.
Education Klemm was born on 5 January 1896 in Guhrau, Lower Silesia to Wilhelm and Ottilie (John) Klemm. His father was a master carpenter and furniture manufacturer. Klemm attended the Realgymnasium in Grünberg before serving in the German army from 1914 to 1919. He was an army liaison in Turkey, where he learned Turkish and Arabic. From 1919 to 1923 Klemm studied chemistry at University of Breslau. In 1923, Klemm received a doctor of philosophy degree. Heinrich Biltz supervised Klemm's dissertation on the chemistry of uric acid, entitled Aus der Chemie der Harnsäure (1923). In December 1924 Klemm married Lisabeth Herrmann, who had studied chemistry at Danzig (Gdańsk) and at Breslau University with Heinrich Biltz. She received her degree in 1921, completing a doctoral thesis magna cum laude on the methylation of uric acid and its methyl derivatives. Her father was a forestry scientist. The Klemms formed a community of which Lisbeth Klemm was the social center, and Wilhelm was the intellectual center. Heinrich Biltz recommended Klemm to his brother Wilhelm Biltz, who had begun teaching at the Technische Hochschule Hannover in 1921. Klemm habilitated there in the field of inorganic chemistry in 1927.
He was an enthusiastic, inspiring, hard worker, untiring, with unbelievable diligence and determination. – Rudolf Hoppe
Career
Technische Universität Hannover From 1927 to 1929 Klemm worked as a Privatdozent at the Technische Hochschule Hannover. In 1929 he was promoted to the position of associate professor.
Düsseldorf Klemm was reportedly a Professor for inorganic chemistry in Düsseldorf at some time between 1929 and 1933.
Technische Hochschule Danzig As of 1 April 1933, Klemm became a full professor and head of the Department of Inorganic Chemistry at the Technische Hochschule Danzig. Klemm replaced Hans Joachim von Wartenberg, who had taught at the Technische Hochschule Danzig from 1913 to 1932 and served in several senior positions including head of the Department of Inorganic Chemistry. Von Wartenberg left in August 1932 to become director of the Institute of Inorganic Chemistry at the University of Göttingen. The Technische Hochschule Danzig was at that time located in the Free City of Danzig (1920-1939). The population of the city was predominantly German and faculty and staff tended to align with National Socialism even before 1933. The attitudes of scientists at the university have been described in terms of "shades of gray". Klemm had some involvement with the National Socialists but his motives are not known. Klemm was not a signatory of the Bekenntnis der Professoren an den deutschen Universitäten (1933). He did sign the later Aufstellung zu den Unterzeichnern des Appells „An die Gebildeten der Welt“ (11. November 1933), a list of academics who professed support for Adolf Hitler and National Socialism. Klemm became a member of the NSDAP (Nazi Party) in 1938, rather later than contemporaries like Adolf Butenandt. Following the Invasion of Poland which began 1 September 1939, the Free City of Danzig was annexed by Germany, and anti-Jewish measures escalated. In a letter to the editorial staff of Chemische Berichte in June 1942 Klemm argued that contributions from chemist Georg-Maria Schwab and other "non-Aryan" authors should not appear in German chemical journals. Klemm served as head of the Inorganic Chemistry department of the Technische Hochschule Danzig from 1933 to 1945, and was its last vice-rector. He was responsible for the evacuation of equipment, books, files, and people in 1944–1945, in advance of Soviet troops. Approximately 500 books and pieces of equipment and 300 staff and family members sailed on the ship Deutschland on 27 January 1945 bound for Kiel. Much of the university including the chemistry building was destroyed in subsequent months. Following the war Gdańsk became part of Poland. On 24 March 1945, the university was re-established as a Polish institution.
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