Almuth Klemer was the first woman to complete her habilitation in chemistry at the University of Münster. Grateful for her successful university career, she set up a foundation in her old age to support chemistry students and needy schoolchildren.

Almuth Klemer was born on 12 February 1924 in the small town of Bassum in Lower Saxony. Even as a girl, she was interested in science - an inclination that her parents encouraged. Klemer passed her A-levels in February 1942, but two months later she had to do a year's labour service. Only then was she able to begin her chemistry studies at Justus Liebig University in Giessen.

An orderly teaching and study programme was soon out of the question in Giessen. The city was almost completely destroyed by heavy air raids in 1944 and the university was disbanded at the end of the war. Klemer managed to return home in the turmoil of the last days of the war. To earn a living, she initially worked in a steelworks. At the same time, she attended the courses offered to war returnees to improve her knowledge of physics and maths. In the winter semester of 1945/46, she received the longed-for decision to enrol in physics, mathematics and chemistry at the Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität (WWU) Münster - but according to the criteria of the professional supervision for women, only for a teaching degree.

Klemer is described by her fellow students as a comrade, enthusiastic and a team player. She got on well with the modest, almost poor equipment in the laboratories and in the evening discussions she convinced her academic teachers of her scientific talent. Soon the professors were in favour of her transfer from the teaching degree course to the "full chemistry" course at the WWU. After graduating in 1950, she immediately began work on her doctoral thesis entitled "On the synthesis of sugar-amino acid compounds and a new process for the synthesis of sugar anhydrides". Klemer was awarded her doctorate in 1952. Her doctoral supervisor was Fritz Micheel (1900-1982), who headed the Institute of Organic Chemistry at Münster University from 1937 to 1968 and played a key role in the reconstruction of organic chemistry in Münster after the war.

From then on, Klemer's research focussed on the synthesis and degradation of sugar molecules. In 1958, she was the first woman to habilitate in chemistry at the WWU. She published extracts from her habilitation thesis under the title "Synthesis of a trisaccharide with a branched structure (4-α,6-β-bis-D-glucosido-D-glucose)". She remained loyal to the University of Münster throughout her life as a researcher: in 1963 she was appointed a scientific counsellor, a year later an associate professor and finally, in 1980, a full professor of organic chemistry. Klemer taught and researched as a professor at the WWU for almost thirty years, until 1986. During this time, she supervised 54 doctoral students.

In addition to almost 100 scientific publications, Klemer authored and co-authored numerous textbooks and research reports on the chemistry of carbohydrates. She also worked intensively on the position of women in science and wrote a monograph on this subject in the late 1960s that is well worth reading. She herself learnt about the downsides of a life in the service of science: She remained unmarried and childless.

In 1970, Klemer was honoured with the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany for her scientific and social commitment. Since 2014, she has supported education, science and research in her subject with the Almuth Klemer Foundation, including by awarding the Almuth Klemer Scholarship to chemistry students at the WWU. Klemer also supported needy schoolchildren from the Göttingen district with her private assets. "I am grateful for a successful professional life, which would not have been possible without a scholarship and the support of the Chemical Industry Fund," she emphasised. By setting up her foundation, she wanted to give something back: "I think it's important that talent is encouraged through performance incentives."

Almuth Klemer died in November 2022 at the age of 98.

December 2014: Presentation of the certificate of recognition to the founder (2nd from left) by the District President Prof. Dr Reinhard Klenke (right) in the presence of the Rector of the WWU Prof. Dr Ursula Nelles (3rd from left) and the member of the Foundation's Board of Directors Prof. Dr Armido Studer (left).