Late Years
In his late years, Walden focused on history of chemistry and collected a unique library of over 10,000 volumes. The library and his house were destroyed during the British bombing of Rostock in 1942. Walden moved to Berlin and then to Frankfurt am Main where he became a visiting professor of the history of chemistry at the local university. He met the end of the World War II in the French Occupation Zone, cut off the Rostock University, which was located in the Soviet Zone, and thus left without any source of income. He survived on a modest pension arranged by German chemists, giving occasional lectures in Tübingen and writing memoirs. In 1949, he published his most well known book on "History of Chemistry". He died in Gammertingen in 1957 at the age of 93. His memoirs were published only in 1974.
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Famous quotes containing the words late years, late and/or years:
“What else has been English news for so long a season? What else, of late years, has been England to us,—to us who read books, we mean?... Carlyle alone, since the death of Coleridge, has kept the promise of England. It is the best apology for all the bustle and the sin of commerce, that it has made us acquainted with the thoughts of this man.”
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