Georg Zundel

Who was Georg Zundel?

Georg Zundel was a German physical chemist, tenured professor of biophysics at University of Munich, peace activist, environmentalist and philanthropist.

His father Georg was a painter and his mother was the daughter of the German industrialist Robert Bosch.

As a scientist, a physicist, he achieved a worldwide reputation for hydrogen bond research. He worked closely with colleagues from both the East and the West during the Cold War. He published 313 scientific papers during his academic career. A number of scientific discoveries in the area of hydrogen bonds carry Zundel's name, most notably:

the Zundel cation which is an important structure for the solvated hydrogen ion in water

Zundel polarizability, the property of hydrogen bonds to have hydrogen protons shifted by means of an electric field

Zundel continuity, the property of hydrogen bonds to absorb a wide range of ions

As an entrepreneur he founded the Berghof Laboratory of Physics and Technology in 1966, re-organised in 2003 as Zundel Holding GmbH + Co with four companies in different locations throughout Germany, active in the automation and environmental sectors.

As a philanthropist he established the Berghof Foundation for Conflict Studies in 1971, which soon came to play a defining role in the then-emerging field of peace research. The Foundation's main establishments are: