[Maximilian Ehrenstein (1899-1968)--life and work]

The pharmacist, chemist and food analyst Maximilian Ehrenstein prepared his doctoral thesis at the Georg-August-University Göttingen under the supervision of the later Nobel Prize winner Adolf Windaus. He has been a postdoctoral fellow with the two later Nobel Prize winners Paul Karrer at Zurich and Heinrich Wieland at Munich and worked in Berlin with Carl Mannich to obtain his habilitation for pharmaceutical chemistry. After his emigration to the United States he prepared the ground for the development of oral active progestational hormones, which finally led to the anti-baby pill by Carl Djerassi. He received the honorary doctorates from the Free University of Berlin (Dr. rer. nat. h. c.) and the University of Hamburg (Dr. med. h. c.).