Markus Stoeppler — Impressions of his Life with Science

Abstract

Markus Stoeppler was born on May 22nd 1927 in a Swabian parsonage at Stuttgart. He spent his childhood in several places in the southwest of Germany — in the Palatinate, in the Saarland, and in Württemberg — according to the parishes where his father had been transferred. Before he could finish the secondary school, it was in 1944, the last year of World War II, the pupil was conscripted as “Flakhelfer” Into the German army. Therefore, he passed the high school, examination in Calw (Württemberg) only in 1947. Obviously, at that time he had already aspired to become a chemist, but after the war it was nearly impossible to get a place at one of the German universities. Some of them were totally destroyed, many were bombed, and thousands of soldiers coming back from war and captivity also wanted to attend university. Thus, Markus Stoeppler entered the Badische Anilin- und Sodafabrik, now BASF, in Ludwigs-hafen/Rhein and became a laboratory worker in order to pursue a career in chemistry.