The Collision of Kolbe and Hofmann

Kolbe and Hofmann viewed this new movement in very different ways. After his return from England, Hofmann energetically pursued his own agenda in Berlin, which after the Austro-Prussian war became the leading center of political and military power, not only in Germany but in Europe as a whole. With his scientific brilliance, his rock-solid health, and his remarkable natural eloquence, poise, and diplomacy, Hofmann inevitably became the universally acknowledged dean of Berliner, and indeed of German, chemists. Hofmann was benevolent and broad-minded, but also savvy and ambitious. In the years after 1866, all sorts of pan-German associations began to spring up in Berlin, including the Deutsche Chemische Gesellschaft. Hofmann became the first president of the DCG and served as either president or vice-president the last twenty-five years of his life. In his own estimation, as well as in everyone else's, Hofmann was the German Chemical Society. From modest beginnings, within a handful of years, the DCG became a large and extremely successful organization, its Berichte sur-

passing Liebig's venerable Annalen as the leading European chemical journal.

Kolbe was not alone in having mixed feelings regarding Prussia after the founding of the Reich. Ardent in his support of Bismarck and Kaiser Wilhelm and immoderately proud of his powerful and newly unified country, he was at the same time suspicious of domestic Prussian imperialism. Hofmann's decision to name the new society "German" rather than "of Berlin" revealed to him an ugly element of hubris and overreaching ambition, as we shall see later. Hofmann's relative neglect of his old friend (probably a result of Kolbe's increasingly intemperate attacks) did not help; Kolbe's visits to Berlin were not reciprocated, and their correspondence became spotty and stiff. Privately and orally Hofmann began to refer to Kolbe's periodical as the "Journal für polizeiliche Chemie."^[42] It was perhaps partly to quiet his obstreperous friend that Hofmann added Kolbe's name to those of the elder spokesmen Liebig, Wöhler, and Bunsen as charter Honorary Members of the society.

Matters came to a head after Wurtz' nationalist dictum was published. However much Wurtz tried subsequently to exonerate himself by claiming only to have indicated the birthplace of chemistry, the chauvinist implications drew fire, especially from across the Rhine. In 1870, Kolbe wrote a blistering and highly insulting critique of contemporary French chemistry, and his former student Volhard published an interesting historical essay whose premise was that Lavoisier was more a physicist than a chemist. Thereupon four prominent Russian chemists published a declaration in the St. Petersburger Zeitung castigating Kolbe and Volhard for further inflaming nationalist sentiments during wartime.^[43]

With Liebig's assistance, Volhard wrote a temperate response to the Russians, which Kolbe published in his journal. There the matter might have rested, had a second protest by the entire Russian Chemical Society not been translated and printed in the Berichte as part of a correspondent's report on chemical news from Russia.^[44] Kolbe's fury—against the Russians, against the DCG, against Hofmann, and against Hofmann's "henchmen"—knew no limits. His reaction to this incident revealed a burning hatred for Berlin Jewry. Kolbe wrote Baeyer, then president of the Deutsche Chemische Gesellschaft,

I won't say anything about the fact that the [German] Chemical Society uttered not a word of disapproval or rejection of the shameless insolent statement by Wurtz that "chemistry is a French science," or against his book that begins with these words, because it is well known that the international tendencies within the pale of the Society are too great. But that . . . this inappropriate communication [by the Russian Chemical

Society] was ultimately accepted even into the reports of the Berlin Chemical Society testifies truly to a great disrespect to its Honorary Members, which understandably makes it impossible for me to continue any further relationship with it. . . . Moreover, I regret the fact, as an indication of the ever apparent lack of self-confidence and self-respect among us Germans, that the Berlin Chemical Society has given its approval to the Petersburg declaration by accepting it in silence, and has thereby further expressed the view that it finds nothing worthy of reproach in Wurtz' book.^[45]

Baeyer replied with a tactful letter, pointing out that the Society per se never takes responsibility for authors' views and commenting that most members disagreed with the Russian statement.^[46]

But Kolbe could not be mollified. The Society had insulted not only him but also Liebig, since he understood that the Society was considering a plan either to purchase Liebig's Annalen outright or to found a new companion journal for the Berichte that would be devoted to longer articles and would therefore compete directly with the Annalen . Baeyer replied that such an objection sounded odd coming from the editor of another journal that already competed with the Annalen .^[47] Kolbe shot back a letter claiming (quite disingenuously, as surviving correspondence documents^[48] ) that he had only accepted the editorship of Journal für praktische Chemie under the prior express approval of Liebig. Moreover,

If the Chemical Society has really founded a new journal, it will soon no longer be Hofmann and Wichelhaus who decide the direction and orientation of the journal, but the masses, the rabble of young chemists preparing themselves in the Chemical Society. The Chemical Society is after all already known as a hotbed of Jewry in chemistry.^[49]

It was just at this time that Hofmann returned to Berlin from London, where he had been visiting his seriously ill wife. Brought up to date by Baeyer, he wrote his friend, feigning astonishment that Kolbe had taken offense:

You expressed your views on French chemists, this was not to the taste of the Russians, they expressed themselves in the Chemical Society in St. Petersburg, and our correspondent, who reports regularly on the meetings of the society, mentions this announcement as well. How could this constitute an insult to our valued honorary members? I must confess I have a different view. To me it seems only fair that, after one has expressed himself on a question concerning which (it cannot be denied) very different views are possible, others be permitted to express their opinions as well.^[50]

Kolbe could not be swayed. "Don't tell me that I am judging the matter falsely," he retorted with anger. "I am no child, forming my judgment without mature reflection."^[51] He demanded that the DCG publish an expression of regret over the incident; Baeyer and the Executive Committee refused. Kolbe then resigned. The incident was discussed in the Society's annual report, printed in the Berichte , with the final comment by President Baeyer that the editor (Wichelhaus) had acted fully within the Society's bylaws in publishing the Russian declaration. Kolbe described the affair in a letter to Liebig, saying that he felt he had gotten the better of "die Berliner Herren," that they had never expected he would actually resign.^[52] To Volhard he wrote,

Let us stick closely together, that the (this between us) fraudulent spirit of the Berlin Chemical Society and the Jewry that flourishes there not take root in Germany. The editor of a journal has a good weapon, and should indeed use it for defense.^[53]

He did use this weapon, with all the skill of a dedicated polemicist, especially in his annual retrospectives. The DCG came in for repeated criticism: for having the arrogance and imperialist ambition to call itself "German," for its internationalist and social-democratic tendencies, and for electing Cahours and then (even worse!) Wurtz himself as honorary members. The Berliners, he suggested, were trying to grab power and centralize the discipline in their city; but this was a mistake that the overly centralized French had committed, to their sorrow. He even lambasted the Society for its mode of organization and the style of editing the Berichte .^[54] In their annual meetings, Hofmann and other officers of the Society defended themselves in the pages of the Berichte against these attacks.^[55] To various correspondents, Kolbe complained of Hofmann's towering ambition and vanity. He would openly challenge Hofmann, he suggested, were it not for his old friendship; moreover, Hofmann habitually used any of a number of lackeys to do his dirty work, Kolbe thought.^[56]

Kolbe was by no means alone in his dismay over the events in Berlin. He succeeded in eliciting sympathetic comments against the DCG from Bunsen, Liebig, Kekulé, Lothar Meyer, Franz Varrentrapp, and Volhard, although neither Bunsen nor Liebig would allow his name to be used openly.^[57] Friedrich Beilstein needed no prompting; he despised Hofmann, as well as his obsequious "personal footman," Wichelhaus, and detailed his outrage at their conduct in letters to Erlenmeyer.^[58] But Kolbe pushed his position too strongly, and some of his language, especially in published pieces, exceeded the bounds of decency. Lother Meyer wrote Baeyer,

You can imagine that I really had to laugh over Kolbe's silly exit from the society of cultured chemists. But the matter also has its serious side. K. now writes so much strange noise in the style of infallibility that I begin to fear for his health. I have given his new piece against Virchow to a number of impartial people, and every one used the expression, "This man is certainly crazy." Indeed, I am beginning to believe that K. is suffering softening of the brain, whose symptom is of course megalomania. A pity on the man, who deserves something better.^[59]

In his correspondence with good friends such as Volhard, Varrentrapp, and Kopp, Kolbe's language was even cruder. He was disgusted, he said, over the actions of the "Berlin Chemical Jew-Society"; moreover, the "Jew-boys" seemed to have Hofmann under their control as much as the other way around. But they would not succeed; once Baeyer leaves, Kolbe predicted, Hofmann would be the only chemist of note left in Berlin, and the Society would collapse of its own weight.^[60] "It's sad," he wrote Varrentrapp, "that he was so long in England and forgot the customs [Sitte] of German scholars. . . . Hofmann unfortunately lost the fatherland in England."^[61] In fact, he said he feared for Hofmann, for the Jews might well want to discard him after using him for their own purposes. He told Hofmann this directly in a letter of February 1873.^[62] Hofmann never answered this letter. On Kolbe's next visit to Berlin four months later, Hofmann managed to avoid him.^[63] Their relationship was essentially over.