Albert Fredrick Ottomar Germann

Albert Fredrick Ottomar Germann (February 18, 1886 – December 22, 1976) was an American physical chemist, university professor, and chemical entrepreneur.

Germann was born in Peru, Miami County, Indiana, eldest child of Mary Fredericke Mueller (1864–1942) and Gustave Adolph Germann (1860–1940). His only sibling was Frank Erhart Emmanuel Germann (1887–1974), who also became a physical chemist. Albert Germann graduated from Peru High School in 1904. Germann taught in Miami County rural schools while working his way through a chemistry major at Indiana University in Bloomington. He received the A.B. in chemistry in 1909 and the A.M. in chemistry in 1910, both from Indiana University, and the M.Sc. degree in chemistry from the University of Wisconsin in Madison, also in 1910. He received the Sc.D. degree (doctorat ès sciences physiques et chimiques) from the University of Geneva (Geneva, Switzerland) in 1914 under the guidance of Philippe-Auguste Guye (1862–1922).

Germann’s first scholarly publications reported his undergraduate electrochemistry research under the direction of Frank Curry Mathers (1881–1973). His M.Sc. research at Wisconsin was with Joseph Howard Mathews (1881–1970). His Sc.D. thesis was published as Albert-F.-O. Germann, Révision de la densité de l’oxygène, contribution à la détermination de la densité l’air à Genève, thèse no. 514 (Genève: Imprimerie Albert Κündig, 1913, 63 pp.); Journal de Chimie physique, vol. 12 (1914), pp. 66–108.

Germann was on the chemistry faculties of Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio (1913–1921), Stanford University, Palo Alto, California (1921–1925), and Valparaiso University, Valparaiso, Indiana (1926–1927).

At Western Reserve, he extended his doctoral research, and then began cryoscopic studies of non-aqueous systems involving boron trifluoride or phosgene. Five students conducted these experiments. Harold Simmons Booth (1891–1953) had already completed his doctoral program at Cornell University. In September 1920, Booth became a member of the Western Reserve chemistry faculty, and was to have a distinguished career as an inorganic chemist at Western Reserve. He served as Department Chair. He was Editor-in-Chief of the inaugural volume (in 1939) of Inorganic Syntheses, a prestigious series that continues. He was promoted to Hurlbut Professor of Chemistry in 1947. Vernon Jersey (1898–1984) had received the A.B. in chemistry from Western Reserve in 1920, and had begun graduate research with Germann on phosgene. He studied solutions of phosgene and chlorine, obtaining cryoscopic evidence for ten different compounds, including chlorine octaphosgenate. Jersey's interests evolved into biochemistry, and he earned a Ph.D. in 1935 from Western Reserve. He then joined with Germann to form Nutritional Research Associates, Inc. Wendell Phillips was beginning his senior year, and would be awarded the A.B. degree in 1921. Leland Roy Smith had received the A.B. degree in 1920, and was beginning graduate studies at Western Reserve; he received the A.M. in 1921, and received the A.M. degree from Harvard University in 1923. Marion Cleaveland (1898–1975) had received the B.A. in chemistry in 1920, and would be awarded the M.A. in 1921. She pursued doctoral studies at Columbia University from 1926 to 1928, receiving the Ph.D. Except for her time at Columbia, she taught at Western Reserve from 1921 to 1946.

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