Ernst Otto Fischer was born on November 10, 1918, in the Munich suburb of Solln. The third child of Valentine Danzer Fischer and Karl Tobias Fischer, a physics professor at Munich's Technische Hochschule, Fischer attended the Theresien Gymnasium (high school), graduating in 1937. Following this, Fischer spent two years compulsory service in the German army, a stint which was extended with the outbreak of World War II in 1939. In between serving in Poland, France, and Russia, Fischer was able, in the winter of 1941-42, to begin his studies in chemistry at the Technische Hochschule in Munich. Captured by the Americans, he was held in a prisoner of war camp until repatriation in the fall of 1945. He renewed his chemistry studies in Munich in 1946. Fischer earned his Ph.D. degree in 1952 for research on carbon-to-nickel bonds.

While working as an assistant researcher at the Technische Hochschule, Fischer and his first research students...