Bernhard Heymann

Heymann was the son of a merchant, completed a commercial apprenticeship and studied, after he completed the Abitur, in Munich chemistry. He received his doctorate under Wilhelm Koenigs and joined in 1889 in the scientific laboratory of Farbenwerke formerly Friedrich Bayer in Elberfeld. From 1895 to 1929 he was head of the laboratory. From 1913 the laboratory was in Leverkusen. In 1900 he received procuration . He was from 1912 and a deputy from 1921 board member of Bayer's works and 1926-1929 board member of IG Farben [2] , when the Bayer works went up in this.

He carried out research on dyestuffs ( thiazines , oxazines , indigo ) and directed the expansion of Bayer's research into crop protection, rubber additives, catalysis, textile auxiliaries and from 1913 on chemotherapy. Instead of tackling the dyes of chemo-therapeutics like Paul Ehrlich, dyeing the tissues, he started on intermediates. With Oskar Dressel and Richard Kothe he developed the remedy for sleeping sickness Suramin (Germanin) in collaboration with the physician Wilhelm Roehl .

In 1926 he was elected a member of the Leopoldina . In 1933 he received the Adolf von Baeyer Medal with Dressel and Kothe for the Suramin development .

In 1923 he became an honorary doctor in medicine in Bonn and 1928 honorary doctorate as an engineer in Dresden.

A street in Leverkusen is named after him. [4]

He married in 1901 in Hamm Johanna Ransohoff, with whom he had 2 sons and a daughter. His son Hans Heymann (* 1915) was Professor of Organic Chemistry.