Albert Eschenmoser (1925–2023) Autobiography Chapter 3: Professor at ETH—Reaction Mechanisms and Syntheses

[...] With the completion of the synthesis of colchicine, the volume of my lecturing activities — at home and abroad — swelled sharply. I had hardly returned from the Gordon Conference when I spoke on this subject at the Chemical Society of Basel on November 12, 1959, and at the Natural Research Society of Berne on December 4, 1959. Around that time, I also received my first invitation to give a lecture at a university of a neighboring European country. The “spell was broken” by the then powerful Hans Herloff Inhoffen of the (then) Technische Hochschule Braunschweig, the man who, at that time, had just synthesized vitamin D3. I talked about the synthesis of colchicine. From that meeting at Inhoffen’s institute and a memorable evening party at Inhoffen’s house dates my acquaintance with Gerhard ↗Quinkert and the former Brockmann doctoral students Hans ↗Muxfeldt and Hans ↗Musso, who had come from Göttingen for the occasion. When Hans Musso invited me to give a lecture in Göttingen a little later, I declined, saying that I had “nothing new to tell.” Musso’s reaction was highly unexpected: Instead of a regretful answer, I received a harsh letter. “How can you refuse an invitation to a lecture at a German university at your youthful age?” Contrite, I  promised to mend my ways. [...] Note: This is a quoted excerpt from the beginning of the chapter.