Pschorr, Robert

Pschorr, R. Ber. Dtsch. Chem. Ges. 1896, 29, 496. Robert Pschorr (1868—1930), born in Munich, Germany, studied under von Baeyer, Bamberger, Knorr, and Fischer. He became an assistant professor in 1899 at Berlin where he discovered the phenanthrene synthesis. During WWl, Pschorr served as a major in the German Army. 

Ludwig Knorr, Robert Pschorr, Heinrich Otto 5,53 Bottle with heroin in Wieland and also Robinson himself, finally powder form. 

In 1910 Robert Pschorr and Gerhard Hoppe reported the synthesis of indole via the reaction of o-nitrophenylace-tonitrile with tin foil and concentrated hydrochloric acid to give initially o-aminophenylacetonitrile. Subsequent treatment with sodium in boiling ethanol afforded indole (Scheme 1, equation 1) [1], The starting o-nitrophenylace-tonitrile was synthesized from o-nitrophenylacetic acid in a few steps. Although this simple synthesis of indole is first attributed to Pschorr and Hoppe, it was Makosza who greatly extended it by means of his vicarious nucleophilic substitution (VNS) of hydrogen as an efficient route to the prerequisite o-nitrophenylacetonitriles, as presented in Chapter 43. 

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