Degussa

Company History: The history of former Degussa began in the half of the 19th century, when the head of the Frankfurt Mint, Friedrich Ernst Roessler, established a gold and silver separation factory at the city’s request in 1843. Furthermore, Roessler initiated the construction of a chemical-technical laboratory close to the Mint, on the premises of today’s Evonik site. This laboratory processed the byproducts of sulfuric acid separation, namely silver nitrate and cyanide salts. When Frankfurt lost its political independence in 1866 as a consequence of the Prussian-Austrian War, Friedrich Ernst Roessler became a Prussian civil servant and withdrew from the separation business. His eldest sons, Hector and Heinrich, both chemists, took over operations. They transferred the separation factory to the chemical-technical laboratory and continued both activities as the company Friedrich Roessler Söhne.

Brief History: Germany is a Western European country with a landscape of forests, rivers, mountain ranges and North Sea beaches. It has over 2 millennia of history. Berlin, its capital, is home to art and nightlife scenes, the Brandenburg Gate and many sites relating to WWII. Munich is known for its Oktoberfest and beer halls, including the 16th-century Hofbräuhaus. Frankfurt, with its skyscrapers, houses the European Central Bank.