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Walter Hieber was an inorganic chemist, known as the father of metal carbonyl chemistry. He was born 18 December, 1895 and died 29 November, 1976. Hieber was the son of Johannes Hieber, an influential evangelical minister and politician.

Hieber was educated at Tübingen, Würzburg, and Heidelberg. In 1935 he was appointed Director of the Inorganic Chemical Institute at the Technical University in Münich. He discovered metal carbonyl hydrides such as H₂Fe(CO)₄ and HMn(CO)₅. He developed that metal carbonyls undergo nucleophilic attack by hydroxide, the “Hieber base reaction.” He and his students discovered several metal carbonyl compounds such as Re₂(CO)₁₀ and Os₃(CO)₁₂ He pioneered the development of metal carbonyl sulfides.

Hieber was highly decorated for his work, including in 1951 the Alfred Stock Prize. One of his most famous students was Nobel prize winner Ernst Otto Fischer.

References

1. Über Komplexverbindungen des dreiwertigen Eisens mit unterphosphoriger Säure, Dissertation, Tübingen 1919.
2. Zur Kenntnis der chemischen Reaktionen des Eisencarbonyls, Habil.-Schrift, Würzburg 1929.
3. Hieber, W. and Stallmann, H., "Über Osmiumcarbonyle", Zeitschrifft fur Elektrochemie, 1943, volume 49, page 288-292.
4. Hieber, W. and Scharfenberg, C., "Einwirkung organischer Schwefelverbindungen auf die Carbonyls des Eisens", Chemische Berichte, 1940, volume 73, pages 1012-1021.

• Chemists