Fresenius, Wilhelm Karl Achim Remigius

Chemist, Professor

Born: 04.07.1878 in Wiesbaden

Died: 25.04.1949 in Wiesbaden

Fresenius, son of Remigius Heinrich Fresenius, the eldest son of company founder Carl Remigius Fresenius, was trained at the Fresenius Chemical Laboratory and studied chemistry in Berlin and Bonn until he obtained his doctorate. From 1906, he worked as a lecturer in the family laboratory and took over its management in 1920 with his cousin Remigius Ludwig Fresenius.

From 1936-45, Fresenius was editor of the Zeitschrift für Analytische Chemie, in which he also published regularly, and wrote part of the "Handbuch für Lebensmittelchemie" (1941). Together with his cousin Ludwig Remigius, he worked on the expansion of the "Anleitung zur quantitativen chemischen Analyse" into the multi-volume Handbücher der Analytischen Chemie (published from 1940).

Fresenius and his cousin had taken over the Fresenius Chemical Laboratory after the end of the First World War, an economically difficult time for the company, partly because foreign orders largely failed to materialize. However, the number of students at the teaching laboratory had already returned to normal levels by 1920. In the years that followed, he succeeded in establishing the practical training of chemical technicians, which was recognized as a skilled occupation in 1931. From 1936, the year of his cousin's death, Fresenius managed the chemical laboratory alone.

During the Nazi era, the economic situation initially remained stable due to domestic demand. With the outbreak of war, a large number of trainees were called up. On the night of February 2 to 3, 1945, the laboratories at Kapellenstraße 13-15 were destroyed in bombing raids and the library burned down. After the Second World War, Fresenius supported the reconstruction of the laboratory through his cousin's children, Wilhelm Fresenius and Birgit Fresenius, who took over the company after his death. His own son, Remigius Heinrich Ludwig Wilhelm Erwin Fresenius, became a member of the company management a few years later.