Peter Adolf Thiessen

Born Apr. 6, 1899, in Schweidnitz, now Świdnica, Poland. German physical chemist. Member of the Berlin Academy of Sciences (1957).

After graduating from the University of Göttingen in 1923, Thiessen taught at that institution; he later became director of several chemical institutes in Germany. He conducted research in the USSR from 1945 to 1956. He was a professor of physical chemistry at the Humboldt University of Berlin from 1956 to 1964, and in 1956 he became director of the Physicochemical Institute of the Berlin Academy of Sciences. He served as chairman of the Research Council of the German Democratic Republic from 1957 to 1965 and became the council’s honorary chairman in 1965.

Thiessen’s works deal mainly with inorganic, physical, and colloid chemistry and with the development of chemical methods of research. Thiessen received the State Prize of the USSR in 1951 and 1956. He has been awarded the Order of Lenin and the Order of the Red Banner of Labor. He was made a foreign member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR in 1966.