Background on German scientists Lommel and Steinkopf?

Answer 1

Considering your question I suppose you already know that Lommel and Steinkopf were two German chemists who developed a method for large-scale production of mustard gas for use as a chemical weapon during World War I. You probably also know that mustard gas was assigned the acronym LOST (LOmmel/STeinkopf) by the German military. Regarding further information, few English-language sources could be found.

However, I just finished a Wikipedia article on Steinkopf, see here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm_Steinkopf

Briefly, Steinkopf (1879-1949) was a German chemistry professor teaching mostly organic chemistry at the University of Karlsruhe and later Dresden. Aside from his academic research on arsenic and thiopene compunds, he was (most of the time secretly) involved in chemical weapons research and development.

Curiously enough, he also wrote poems and books, guessing from the titles mostly about quaint rural life in Germany. Maybe he needed some contrast to his work...

If you speak German you might also want to visit this biography, which together with the German Wikipedia entry was my primary source for the article:

http://saebi.isgv.de/biografie/Wilhelm_Steinkopf_%281879-1949%29

It is a reliable source written by a German historian citing various primary sources.

Regarding Lommel, I did not find much information except that his first name was also Wilhelm, that he was a chemical engineer, and that he worked with Steinkopf in his team at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physical Chemistry and Electrochemistryin Berlin during 1916.