Professor Victor Moritz Goldschmidt, c mid-20th century

Victor Moritz Goldschmidt, born 27th January 1888, in Zurich, Switzerland, and died 20th March 1947, was a Norwegian mineralogist who is considered to be one of the founders of modern geochemistry and crystal chemistry, and developer of the Goldschmidt Classification of elements. Goldschmidt was born to a Jewish family. He studied at the University of Kristiania (later Oslo) in 1906, and studied chemistry, geology, physics, mathematics, zoology and botany. He worked on his doctorate from 1909, aged 21, and obtained his PhD in 1911, aged 23. He was awarded the Fridtjof Nansen award in 1912 for his doctoral thesis. He was then made Associate Professor of Mineralogy and Petrography of the University of Kristiania in 1912 as well. Then, in 1914, Goldschmidt was given an institute and a professorship. In 1929, he was appointed to University of Göttingen. After the rise of the Nazis, he resigned in 1935 and returned to Oslo. In 1940, the Nazis invaded Norway, and Goldschmidt was arrested in 1942 as part of the persecution of Jewish people in Norway. He was taken to Berg concentration camp, and became ill and was released on 8 November, but rearrested on 25 November, and was going to be deported to Auschwitz. As he was about to be sent to Auschwitz, his colleagues persuaded the chief of police that his knowledge and brain were vital to the State and he was freed. He fled to Sweden after. He was then flown to the UK in 1943 by British intelligence, and he then worked in Aberdeen for the Macaulay Institute for Soil Research. He helped provide information on the use of raw materials and heavy water by the Nazis. He moved back to Oslo on 1946, but died in 1947, aged 59. He was awarded Foreign Member of the Royal Society, the Elliott Cresson Medal (1903) and Wollaston Medal (1904).