Nobel laureates
A number of personalities who have researched and taught at Justus Liebig University Giessen over the course of its history, and the institutions they founded, have been awarded Nobel Prizes.
Walther Bothe
Walther Bothe came to the University of Giessen in 1929 as an associate professor of physics after completing his habilitation in 1925 under Max Planck at the University of Berlin. In 1930, he was appointed full professor and director of the Institute of Physics in Giessen. It was here that he made the discovery of the excited atomic nucleus in 1930, making Giessen a highly topical research center. From 1932 to 1934, Bothe taught as a full professor of physics at the University of Heidelberg, and from April 1934 he was director of the Institute of Physics of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society for Medical Research in Heidelberg (part of this institution later became the Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics). In 1954, Bothe was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for the development of the coincidence method and the associated discoveries. Today, coincidence measurement is an important method for studying cosmic rays and all types of nuclear and elementary particle processes. Bothe received an honorary doctorate from the University of Giessen in 1956 for his outstanding achievements. Bothe's work was an important contribution to the foundation of modern nuclear and elementary particle physics.
Wangari Muta Maathai
After completing her veterinary studies in the USA, Wangari Muta Maathaikam spent a large part of her academic career as part of the university partnership between Giessen and Nairobi. In 1965, Maathai became an assistant to the former Giessen veterinarian Prof. Dr. Reinhold Hofmann in Nairobi. From 1967 to 1969, she spent time in Giessen and Munich on a doctoral scholarship from the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) and was the first woman to receive a doctorate from the University of Nairobi, Kenya, in 1971. Two years later, she took over the management of the Institute of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Nairobi, which Reinhold Hofmann had set up with German support, until 1981. Maathai was spokesperson for the Kenyan human rights and democracy movement "Forum of the Restitution of Democracy" and Deputy Minister of the Environment in Kenya. In 1992, she was awarded an honorary doctorate by the Department of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Giessen. She has received numerous honors and awards for her services to environmental protection, human rights and democracy, including the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004, the first African woman to receive this award. Maathai had already received the Alternative Nobel Prize in 1985, the Petra Kelly Prize from the Heinrich Böll Foundation in 2004 and the Nelson Mandela Award for Health and Human Rights in 2007.
Ilja Iljitsch Metschnikow
Ilya Iyich Mechnikov studied at the University of Giessen in 1864/65 under Rudolf Leuckart, the founder of parasitology, at the Zoological Institute. He discovered the immune defense mechanisms against bacteria through white blood cells and researched the cure and control of cholera. During his two semesters in Giessen, Metschnikow made the groundbreaking discovery of intracellular digestion by phagocytes ("phagocytes"). It happened rather by chance during the microscopic examination of a free-living flatworm, the European land planarian. This discovery would later form the basis of his "phagocyte theory", which stated that "phagocytes" also ingest living, active pathogens and not just dispose of the dead ones. For this discovery, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine together with Paul Ehrlich in 1908. The role of phagocytes in the reaction to pathogens, bacteria, viruses and cancer cells and in autoimmune diseases is now generally accepted basic knowledge in immunology and molecular biology. It is one of the current fields of research in which Metschnikow's pioneering work is recognized. Metschnikow has received around 80 awards from numerous countries, including honorary doctorates from Cambridge and St. Petersburg.
Horst-Eberhard Richter
Horst-Eberhard Richter was appointed to the new Chair of Psychosomatics in Giessen in 1962. Here he established a tripartite
interdisciplinary center for psychosomatic medicine with a psychosomatic clinic and the departments of medical psychology and medical sociology, of which he became director. Richter was one of the pioneers of group and family therapy and psychosomatic medicine. His work, even after his retirement in 1991, extended far beyond the boundaries of his discipline and into society. For example, he was involved in social hotspot projects in which he successfully combined his scientific findings with social district work. As part of the Eulenkopf initiative group, for example, he provided psychoanalytical support to families living in a deprived housing estate. He was a founding member of the German section of the "International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War / Physicians in Social Responsibility e.V.". In 1984, the organization received the UNESCO Prize for Peace Education and in 1985 the Nobel Peace Prize. Richter himself received numerous honors, awards and appointments to foreign universities. A bust on the grounds in front of the New Palace on Brandplatz commemorates him in Giessen. In 2007, he was made an honorary citizen of Giessen and received the first ever Medal of Honor from the Faculty of Medicine at Justus Liebig University.
Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen
Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen was a full professor of physics at the University of Giessen from 1879 to 1888. He later taught as a professor at the universities of Würzburg and Munich. He was the first person to receive the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1901 for the discovery of the X-rays named after him at the Physics Institute of the University of Würzburg on November 8, 1895. Röntgen himself called his discovery "x-rays", which is how they are still referred to in English today. During his time in Giessen, Röntgen brought about the relocation of the Institute of Physics from Frankfurter Strasse to the new main university building. He published around twenty scientific papers during this time, including work on the "X-ray tone", in which he showed that gases absorb heat radiation, and work on the detection of the magnetic field generated by a displacement current ("X-ray current"). Numerous honors and prizes are still awarded in Röntgen's honor today, including the Röntgen Plaque of the city of Remscheid, the Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen Prize of the University of Würzburg and the Röntgen Prize of the University of Giessen for outstanding work in basic research in the fields of radiation physics and radiobiology. In addition, he is commemorated by a monument in many German cities, including Giessen.
Wilhelm Wien
After his habilitation at the University of Berlin in 1892, Wilhelm Wien worked at the Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hochschule Aachen and was appointed full professor of physics at the University of Giessen in 1899, where he inaugurated the new building of the Institute of Physics. On April 1, 1900, he succeeded Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen at the University of Würzburg. In 1919, Wien accepted an appointment at the University of Munich, again as Röntgen's successor. The German physicist mainly researched the laws of thermal radiation and was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1911. In 1893 and 1894 he developed Wien's displacement law and in 1896 Wien's radiation law. Wien was a convinced supporter of an electromagnetic view of the world and therefore also dealt intensively with the problems of the ether theories of the time. In 1904, he developed "Differential equations for the electrodynamics of moving bodies" and is therefore one of the precursors of the special theory of relativity. From 1910 to 1928, Wien was a member of the Royal Prussian Academy of Sciences.