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Rudolf Criegee (23 May 1902 — 7 November 1975) was a German organic chemist.
After the post-war period, he matriculated at the University of Tübingen in chemistry in 1920. After four semesters of study and moderate success, his experience in student fraternity Germania and twelve duels, Criegee changed to the University of Greifswald. He remained there for three semesters and passed his first examination. He moved to the University of Würzburg and received his PhD in December 1925 at Otto Dimroth with a thesis on acridinium salts. His father died in 1926 and his mother suffered from a serious illness, before she died in 1932. Criegee remained in Würzburg and in 1930 he received his habilitation with a thesis on the "Oxydation ungesättigter Kohlenwasserstoffe mit Blei(IV)-Salzen“.
In 1928, Rudolf Criegee married his former fellow student Marianne Henze.
In the summer of 1942, he was seriously wounded on the Eastern Front. His wife died on 10 February. Criegee was released to conduct research, but his institute was destroyed by bombs in the summer of 1944. In December he remarried.
After the war, he declined calls from other universities and was appointed a full professor in 1947. From 1949 he led the Institute of Organic Chemistry. His leadership led to a new building for the institute in 1966. He retired in 1969, although he continued research until his death on 7 November 1975.Rolf Huisgen: Das Porträt: Rudolf Criegee (1902-1975), Chemie in unserer Zeit, 12. Jahrg. 1978, S. 49-55, Maier, G.: Rudolf Criegee. 1902–1975. (1977) Chem. Ber., 110: XXVII–XLVI.
In his scientific work he was primarily involved with oxidation processes of organic compounds, where he used Lead(IV) acetate Oxydation ungesättigter Kohlenwasserstoffe mit Blei(4)salzen, Liebigs Ann. Chem. 481,263 (1930) and Osmium tetroxide as . A focus was the investigation on the autoxidation of unsaturated Cyclic compound to .
One of his great achievements was the elucidation of the reaction mechanism for ozonolysis to form Ozonides The Criegee intermediate (or Criegee biradical) and the Criegee rearrangement are named after him. In this context, his research on cyclic reactions and cyclic rearrangement mechanisms led him, independently of the Nobel Prize–winning work of R.B.Woodward and R.Hoffmann (Woodward–Hoffmann rules), to the same conclusions as theirs, but he failed to publish his findings in time. In his last years, he investigated the chemistry of small carbon rings, especially Cyclobutadiene and its Derivatives.
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