1919-1939: The First Life of the Union

The German Question

The embarrassing but haunting question was that of the return of Germany among the represented nations [1]. The question was discussed in all scientific unions; inside IUPAC, it was raised in particular by Dutch colleagues as early as 1922. Some days before the third ICC in Lyon in June, Ernst Cohen (1869-1944) invited the German chemists at Utrecht who were clearly contemplating joining the Union. At that time vice-president, Cohen’s involvement became key as he was elected president in absentia at the sixth ICC in Bucharest in 1925; he initiated internal discussions on the German question as well as informal contacts with German chemists [8]. The last step was to convince the IRC to modify its statutes [1].

From then on, the Union established a more open correspondence with the German chemists, and the international celebration surrounding Marcellin Berthelot’s centennial provided the opportunity for France to officially invite German and Austrian delegations to Paris in 1927 [9]. Exchange between chemical societies from France and Germany started again as if they had never been interrupted. At the ninth ICC in The Hague, in 1928, German chemists participated actively in the discussions.

The necessity of reforming the statutes had been put forward in Copenhagen in 1924, and the changes were accepted in The Hague in 1928. The conferences would from then on be biennial, and commissions that had accomplished their tasks were terminated. The regulation was deeply modified. The Advisory Council disappeared, and its job transferred to the future IX congress. With the Council, several technical commissions dealing with industrial products, including patents and industrial ceramics, also disappeared, as well as two commissions on combustible products. The commission for documentation had been ended in 1927; the Office International de Chimie, finally created in 1927, would continue its work [7].

The Union thus had a completely new face at the conference in Liège in 1930. The German delegation received a standing ovation from all the delegates. The session also started with a simple, yet significant, modification: a change of name [10]. The Union was now the International Union of Chemistry (IUC). At the core of its activities were nomenclature, atomic weights, radioactive constants, and thermochemical data. The Bureau des étalons physico-chimiques (Bureau for Physico-Chemical Standards) was confirmed and the affiliated commission of the Tables of constants remained attached to the Union. The “applied” component had disappeared from the structure though, and it was left to the Congress to carry that dimension of chemistry.

The problem with the Congress

According to Cohen, while the commissions were working productively, the dust was accumulating on their publications. It was thus necessary to reflect on connecting to the world at large, and revising the workings of the Union, which had been achieved with the reform of the statutes. The next issue was the holding of a congress. The Advisory Council had been asked to provide a recommendation, but in 1926, nothing had yet been decided, two years after this Advisory Council was terminated. Several groups demanded insistently that the IX congress be held as soon as possible (the XIII and former Congress took place in Washington in 1912). In Cohen’s opinion, the prestige of the Union depended on it: “Coming events cast their shadows before them!” he said at the ICC meeting [11, p.11]

The Spanish proposal for hosting the 1932 Congress in Madrid was thus enthusiastically accepted. The minutes of the Liège ICC reveal a feeling of hope, and a breath of fresh air. Reconciled at last, all chemists were fully members of a truly international community. The nomination of Fritz Haber as vice-president was the most visible symbol of this new momentum.

The financial crisis

The 1929 financial crisis and its economical aftermaths reached Europe in the following years. Until mid-December 1931, the holding of a congress in 1932 seemed assured, but then the financial situation deteriorated in several countries. It became hard to acquire foreign currencies, and thus to travel, and the governments were no longer securing funding. Correspondence exchanged between members of the Bureau and Spanish colleagues display the worries of holding a meeting to which few chemists had registered. At an extraordinary meeting of the Bureau and Spanish organizers, held in Paris on 22 January 1932, it was decided to adjourn the congress and the conference, and to ask for the full power of the Council to be transferred to the Bureau until the situation would allow for a plenary meeting of the Union [12, p. 11-12].

During eleven days (from Wednesday 9^th to Sunday 20^th August 1933) a meeting to prepare the eleventh ICC (or General assembly) and the IX IUPAC Congress (Madrid, 5-11 April 1934) took place in the “Universidad Internacional de verano de Santander”. The participants pictured in the front of The Magdalena were: (from left to right), seated: Fritz Haber (NP 1918), Richard Willstätter (NP 1915), Hans von Euler-Chelpin (NP 1929), Einar Biilmann (IUPAC President), E. Cohen, Nicola Parravano, Camille Matignon, E. Hauser, Fritz Fichter; first row: Mrs Cohen, Mrs Ribas, Mrs Seidel, Mrs del Campo, Mrs Calvet, George Barger, Mrs del Fesno, Jean Gérard (IUPAC Secretary General), Paulo E. de Berrédo Carneiro; second row: Fernando Calvet, Angel del Campo Cerdán, Augusto Pérez Vitoria, Enrique Moles, Carlos del Fresno, Antonio Madinaveitia, Ignacio Ribas, and Atherton Seidell. (reproduced from Chem Int Nov-Dec 2008, ref. 13)

In summer 1933, the Spanish committee was allowed to commit to 1934, and a meeting was held in Santander (Spain) in August to prepare the congress [13]. Commissions were moving slowly, some of them even encountered problems. For instance the Commission for the Nomenclature of Biological Chemistry was in conflict with the Commission of Organic Chemistry. And the Inorganic Chemistry Commission had not been able to meet in Berlin as planned.

In fear of a massive devaluation, financial decisions were made to secure the Union’s reserves [12, p. 19]. In April 1934 in Madrid, the Italian Nicola Parravano (1883-1938) succeeded the Dane Einar Biilmann (1873-1946), president since 1928. Switzerland hosted the conference in 1936, and while dues were still payed with delay, the financial situation was improving.

The question of scientific terminologies

A new tension had appeared as early as 1932 on the subject of scientific terminology. The IIIC connected to the International Committee for Intellectual Cooperation (ICIC), and thus to the League of Nations, insisted on taking charge of scientific terminology, its underlying methodology, and the accommodation to different languages. The Bureau of the Union sent observers to the meetings, but remained skeptical, and even opposed to the project of the IIIC. How would an international general organization pretend to achieve a consensus whereas specialists in each discipline had difficulty to reach an agreement? Also this incursion in what the Union considered to be its purview raised concerns in the Union, despite the necessity to adapt. A mode of collaboration was established in 1936, that protected the Union’s authority, and the merging of the two commissions of physico-chemical symbols and terminology reinforced the liaison with IIIC [12, p. 14 and 14, p. 20].

The successes of the Union: the productive years 1930-1938

The scientific commissions—which had been reduced to 5 or 6 since the Liège Conference—worked more effectively. Publications followed at a regular pace between 1931 and 1938: Tables annuelles des poids atomiques (on annual tables of atomic weights), Rapports sur les isotopes stables (Report on the stable isotopes), Etalons physico-chimiques organiques (on organic physico-chemical standards), Tableaux des réactifs pour l’analyse minérale (on tables of reactants for mineral analysis). The latter publication, in three languages, was the first report of a new commission, created in 1934, Réactions et réactifs analytiques nouveaux (Reactions and new analytical reactants), a wish that the analytical section had expressed at the Madrid Congress.

This wasn’t the only innovation elicited by the Congress, and it demonstrated that limiting the Union’s activities to the scientific commissions was untenable. Several international organizations representing applied chemical activities requested the Union’s approval of analytical methods, or specific nomenclature, and the Union could not refuse. This is how other commissions were created and international commissions affiliated, among others, one devoted to fats. Gathering a meeting under the auspices of the Union was a way to secure international authority.

The 1938 activity report appeared very encouraging, showcasing the achievements of a very successfully operating Union. In between conferences, commissions met, often at the new head office of the Union, located at the Maison de la Chimie managed by Jean Gérard, in Paris, since 1934 [7].

But shadows were on the horizon. In 1936, Austria had committed to host the fourteenth conference in 1940 [14, p. 30]. But in Rome, in May 1938, it became clear this was out of the question, after Austria had been annexed by Germany in March of that year. Both Germany and Great Britain volunteered, and the diplomatic resolution was to approve both invitations, with two successive meetings; one in London in spring 1941 and one in Berlin in the fall of 1942 [15]. During the Rome meeting, the Bureau elected its first American president, Marsten Taylor Bogert (1868-1954) for a 1938-1942 term. But his task was to be eventually achieved in the difficult time of the political turmoil that culminated with the outbreak of the Second World War.