The German Chemical Society (German: Gesellschaft Deutscher Chemiker, GDCh) is a learned society and professional association founded in 1949 to represent the interests of German chemists in local, national and international contexts. GDCh "brings together people working in chemistry and the molecular sciences and supports their striving for positive, sustainable scientific advance – for the good of humankind and the environment, and a future worth living for."[1]
The earliest precursor of today's GDCh was the German Chemical Society (Deutsche Chemische Gesellschaft zu Berlin, DChG). Adolf von Baeyer was prominent among the German chemists who established DChG in 1867; and August Wilhelm von Hofmann was the first president.[1] This society was modeled after the British Chemical Society, which was the precursor of the Royal Society of Chemistry. Like its British counterpart, DChG sought to foster the communication of new ideas and facts throughout Germany and across international borders.[2]
In 1946, the current organization was created by a merger of the German Chemical Society (DChG) and the Association of German Chemists (Verein Deutscher Chemiker, VDCh).
In the 21st century, the society has become a member of ChemPubSoc Europe, which is an organization of 16 European chemical societies. This European consortium was established in the late 1990s as many chemical journals owned by national chemical societies were amalgamated.[6]
The society acknowledges individual achievement with prizes and awards, including medals originally conferred by the predecessor organizations DChG and VDCh:
