The Life of László Zechmeister

Abstract

László Zechmeister was born on May 14th, 1889 in the city of Györ, a town in the north-west of Hungary. At a time when the majority of the population was working as artisans, merchants, and farmers, his father Karl Zechmeister held the position of mayor and crown counsel of the city of Györ [2]. During his time of mayoralty, the town developed to the third most important industrial center in the country [3]. With the intention to acquire the best possible education, László attended grammar school and earned his “Maturitätszeugnis” in June 1906. He was recruited to serve in the Hungarian military for 1 year from October 1906 onwards [2]. In 1907, Zechmeister commenced his studies in chemistry at the highly reputable Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich. In the following 5 years, he followed the lectures and enjoyed the guidance of Richard Willstätter. After 7 semesters of studies, László received his degree as technical chemist on March 20, 1911. When Willstätter left for Berlin in 1912, Zechmeister followed and worked as his assistant from 1912 to 1914. During this period, he wrote his doctorate thesis Zur Kenntnis der Cellulose und des Lignins in order to attain the Dr. Ing. degree. Experiments were conducted both at the analytical-chemical laboratories at the ETH Zurich until July 1912 and the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Chemistry in Berlin-Dahlem until July 1913 [2].