Otto Diels

Chemist, born in Hamburg, N Germany. He studied at Berlin and became professor of chemistry at Kiel University (1916–48). With his pupil Kurt Alder he demonstrated in 1928 the ‘diene synthesis’ (Diels–Alder reaction), which is of far-reaching importance, especially in the plastics and petrochemicals industry. They shared the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1950.

Otto Paul Hermann Diels (January 23, 1876 – March 7, 1954) was a German chemist. He was the son of a professor of philology at the University of Berlin, where he himself earned his doctorate in chemistry, in the group of Emil Fischer.

Diels taught till 1916 at the University of Berlin and from 1916 till 1945 at the University of Kiel.

In 1950 he was awarded (with Kurt Alder, his student) the Nobel Prize in Chemistry "for their discovery and development of the diene synthesis," known also as the Diels-Alder Reaction.