Hantzsch, Arthur Rudolf

Born Mar. 7, 1857, in Dresden; died there Mar. 14, 1935. German organic chemist. In 1882 he became a professor at Zurich; beginning in 1893 he was at Würzburg and from 1903 to 1927, at Leipzig.

In 1881-83, Hantzsch developed methods of synthesizing pyridine and its derivatives from acetoacetic esters and aldehyde ammonia; later he prepared a number of thiazole derivatives and similar compounds. In 1890, together with A. Werner, he laid the foundations of nitrogen stereochemistry. Hantzsch was the first to use physical methods to establish the structure of organic compounds.