The field of organometallic chemistry--the study of compounds of metal and carbon--is tremendously important not only for the understanding of such basic structures as the B vitamins, but also of the chemical industry as a whole. The growth of plastics as well as the refining of petroleum hydrocarbons all involve at some stage the metal-to-carbon bond which is at the heart of organometallic chemistry, and Ernst Otto Fischer has played a crucial role in furthering this science. A co-recipient of the 1973 Nobel Prize for chemistry for his X-ray analysis of the structure of a particular iron-to- carbon bond in so-called "sandwich compounds," Fischer, working with members of his research laboratory in Munich, was also on the cutting edge of transition-metal research, synthesizing totally new classes of compounds.

Fischer was born on November 10, 1918, in the Munich suburb of Solln. The third child of Valentine Danzer Fischer and Karl Tobias...