A skillful organic chemist, Otto Diels is known primarily for the Diels-Alder reaction, which he and his student Kurt Alder developed in 1928, and for which they received the Nobel Prize for chemistry in 1950. This reaction involves a synthesis between a molecule containing a double bond and a second molecule containing two adjacent double bonds. Diels's work in determining the structure of compounds led to the discovery of carbon suboxide , and helped other scientists determine the structure of cholesterol. As a professor, he was a masterful lecturer and produced a popular organic chemistry textbook.

Otto Paul Hermann Diels was born to Hermann and Bertha (née Dübell) Diels on January 23, 1876, in Hamburg, Germany. The second of three sons, he grew up in an atmosphere of learning and culture. His father was a noted classical philologist and professor at the Friedrich Wilhelm University in Berlin. In later...