His parents were Karl T. Fischer, Professor of Physics at the Technical University of Munich (TU), and Valentine née Danzer.

Before the completion of two years' compulsory military service, the Second World War broke out, and he served in Poland, France, and Russia.

[3] Near the same time, he focused also on the then baffling chemistry resulting from Hein's reactions of chromium(III) chloride with phenylmagnesium bromide.

In 1969 he was appointed a member of the German Academy of Natural Scientists, Leopoldina and in 1972 was given an honorary doctorate by the Faculty of Chemistry and Pharmacy of the University of Munich.

He has received many awards including, in 1973 with Geoffrey Wilkinson, the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work on organometallic compounds.