In 1867, Adolf von Baeyer and others founded the German Chemical Society (DChG) in Berlin, with the renowned chemist August Wilhelm von Hofmann as its first president. The following year, the society published its first scientific journal, the "Reports of the German Chemical Society", which is now continued in the European Journal of Inorganic Chemistry and the European Journal of Organic Chemistry.
The second predecessor organization of today's GDCh, the Association of German Chemists (VDCh), was founded in 1887. Its membership magazine is Angewandte Chemie, which still exists today. While the DChG mainly unites members from universities, the VDCh focuses on employees in the chemical industry.
President of the German Chemical Society
Chair of the Association of German Chemists
The first job placement service for chemists was set up under the umbrella of the VDCh in 1900. Today, the GDCh's career service supports job seekers. At the same time, the first Divisions - sub-organizations that still shape the character of the GDCh today - were created in the VDCh. The 50th anniversary of the DChG on April 18, 1918 coincided with the 100th birthday of the founding president, August Wilhelm von Hofmann. The first years of the 20th century also saw the establishment of internationally recognized scientific awards, such as the Liebig commemorative coin or the Emil Fischer Medal, which are still awarded today. In 1921, DChG, VDCh and the predecessor organization of today's VCI jointly founded Verlag Chemie (VCH), now Wiley-VCH GmbH.
The era of National Socialism also left its mark on the GDCh's predecessor organizations. This was reflected in the so-called "Führer principle", the dismissal of Jewish employees and the integration into the NS-Bund Deutscher Technik.
The history of the GDCh's predecessor societies was later extensively researched by the GDCh. In 2015, the study " Chemists in the Third Reich " was published, written by the science historian Helmut Maier on behalf of the GDCh.
New beginning in 1949: The founding of the German Chemical Society (GDCh)
After the war, neither the DChG nor the VDCh were continued. Instead, both organizations were transferred to the German Chemical Society, which was founded in the British zone in 1946 and then in all of West Germany in 1949. The first Chair and president of the GDCh was the later Nobel Prize winner Karl Ziegler. By the 1950s, the number of members had already exceeded the 5,000 mark.
In 1953, the Chemical Society in the GDR (CG) was founded in the German Democratic Republic
Chair of the Chemical Society of the GDR
In 1958, the GDCh had over 10,000 members, and in 1962 the GDCh office moved to its current location in Frankfurt am Main. While the 1960s were characterized by a deepening of content and expertise, the 1970s and 1980s saw the advancement of ecological commitment (including the establishment of the Advisory Committee for Environmentally Relevant Existing Substances (BUA)) and internationalization.
As a result of reunification in 1990, the members of the Chemical Society decided to dissolve on December 31, 1990. About two thirds of the then approximately 4,500 members of the Chemical Society then joined the GDCh, whose membership rose to over 25,000 members by 1992.
In the second half of the 1990s, the GDCh initiated the reorganization of the continental European journal landscape in chemistry. Under the leadership of the GDCh, national journals of European chemical societies were merged into new, joint European journals under the umbrella of ChemPubSocEurope, now Chemistry Europe. As a result, Chemistry - A European Journal and many other very successful journals were created.
In 1997, the young members were given a structure within the GDCh with the Young Chemists' Forum (now Young Chemistry Forum; JCF).
Together with the Research Ministry and other chemistry organizations, the GDCh coordinates the national "Year of Chemistry" on the occasion of the 200th birthday of Justus von Liebig in 2003. The Senior Expert Chemists (SEC) start in 2006.
With the start of the new millennium, international networking activities are becoming increasingly important. The GDCh was one of the leading forces in the 2004 transfer of the former Federation of European Chemical Societies (FECS) to the European Association of Chemical and Molecular Sciences (EuCheMS, now the European Chemical Society ) and in 2010 hosted the 3rd EuCheMS Chemistry Congress in Nuremberg with around 2,500 visitors. In 2011, the GDCh played a key role in organizing the International Year of Chemistry proclaimed by the United Nations and the IUPAC.
The international focus continued in the following years. Additional European journals were created, including ChemistryOpen, the first purely open access society journal, in 2011. The cooperation with EuCheMS and IUPAC was expanded. In 2013, the GDCh had over 30,000 members for the first time.
In 2017, the GDCh will celebrate the 150th anniversary of the founding of the German Chemical Society, the older of the two predecessor societies, and in 2024 the German Chemical Society itself will be 75 years old.
In the 2020s, cooperation with friendly professional societies at home and abroad will be further expanded. The five major mathematical and scientific professional societies (in addition to the GDCh, the societies for geosciences (DVGeo), mathematics (DMV), physics (DPG) and biology (VBIO)) are joining forces under Science Connects. They publish joint press releases, statements and position papers and organize parliamentary evenings in Berlin. Topics such as climate change, sustainability and artificial intelligence are addressed.
