Kurt Alder was recognized for his contribution to synthetic organic chemistry, especially for the reaction which has been called the diene reaction, or the Diels-Alder reaction, after Alder and his mentor-colleague, Otto Diels. This reaction, discovered in 1928, was so useful in the synthesis of every type of organic compound that Diels and Alder were awarded the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 1950 for their development of the method. It was Alder who explored the reaction deeply, and wrote many papers on the nature of the reactants and products, including the stereochemistry, or geometric consequences, of the reaction.

Alder was born on July 10, 1902, in Königshütte, Germany. His father, Joseph Alder, was a schoolteacher in the nearby town of Kattowitz. Kurt attended the local schools, but at the end of World War I, the region in which the Alders lived became part of Poland, and Joseph Alder...