Paul Knochel at 70

Long time ago, two of us, Lutz and Martin, attended the 2005 Bürgenstock Conference where Paul had been invited to speak. We clearly remember that, after his talk full of enthusiasm and energy, Paul was named the “Zn-ing Mg-ician” of organometallic chemistry. This really captures what Paul has always been for us and the chemical community, a true giant and a creative mind in his field. Now, twenty years later, we celebrate Paul’s 70th birthday, and the three of us decided to do a “birthday issue” in SYNTHESIS in his honor.

We had the pleasure to work with Paul at different stages of his career while we had also been at different levels of our acdemic training. Martin earned his diploma with Paul still in Marburg, Lutz was an assistant professor (Habilitand) with him, and Guillaume a postdoctoral fellow with Herbert Mayr and him in Munich. We therefore cover a large span of the Knochel era, and this made it easy for us to approach former coworkers, colleagues, companions, and friends for a contribution of this special issue. The response to our invitation was overwhelming as documented by an absolutely impressive number of 10 reviews and short reviews as well as 36 original papers. This alone reflects how influential Paul and his work were and still are today. Slightly more than 200 postdoctoral fellows and almost 150 PhD students emerged from his laboratory, not to forget countless bachelor and master candidates. No doubt, Paul’s training of the next generation of synthetic chemists left a landmark in chemical industry and academia alike. All of us will never forget his ‘infectious’ excitement for chemistry. Ideas would always come out immediately after starting to discuss, showing his incredible ‘feeling’ for chemistry. Not many of us possess such chemical intuition.

Paul had an almost 25-year-long close connection to Thieme Chemistry and its flagship journal SYNTHESIS. After 15+ years as a member of the editorial board, Paul was eventually appointed as editor-in-chief. He retired from this leading role after eight years of service four years ago. Without him, SYNTHESIS would not be where it is today. He is part of its history. Paul was an active ambassador for the journal, attracting a substantial number of manuscript submissions with and without personal invitation. Leading by example, Paul published an incredible number of 75+ papers and reviews in SYNTHESIS himself, making him an all-time top-five author of the journal. We initially tried to attract as many manuscripts as he had published himself for “his issue” and did not even get close to that number!

Happy Birthday, Paul! We wish you many more years in good health!

Guillaume, Lutz, and Martin

Publication History

Article published online:
16 October 2025