online lecture by Gisela Boeck on November 8th, 2022, 3-4 p.m

Moderator: Hans-Uwe von Grabowski

In the lectures on organic chemistry, first and second order nucleophilic substitution reactions are discussed. When the second-order substitution occurs at a carbon atom that is a stereogenic center, the configuration is reversed, which is often described as folding an umbrella. This phenomenon has entered the literature as Walden inversion because it was first described by the scholar Paul Walden. However, his main area of work was physical chemistry, and he is sometimes celebrated as the father of ionic liquids. But even in the history of chemistry one encounters the name of Walden, who concealed his origins from a Latvian peasant family and presented himself as a Baltic German. In addition to an appreciation of his achievements in chemistry and a critical examination of his historical contributions, the biography of this chemist is presented, who experienced tsarist Russia, briefly independent Latvia, Germany in the Weimar Republic and under National Socialism and finally the Federal Republic of Germany.