Rudolf Hugo Nietzki (9 March 1847 – 28 September 1917) was a German chemist who specialized in industrial dyes derived from coal tar.

Rudolf Hugo Nietzki was born on 9 March 1847 in Heilsberg, East Prussia (now Lidzbark Warmiński, Poland) to a Protestant family.

[2] He attended the Königsberg gymnasium (secondary school), which he left before graduating, then began training as a pharmacist.

[1] He studied pharmacy in Zinten (now Kornevo, Kaliningrad, Russia) and Kreuzburg, Silesia (now Kluczbork, Poland).

Nietzki sat the Staatsexamen to qualify as a pharmacist in 1871, and served as the private assistant of the chemist August Wilhelm von Hofmann (1818–92).

[1] After graduating Nietzki worked as an analyst in the sulfuric acid and soda factory of Matthes & Weber in Düsseldorf.

[1] Nietzki played a leading role in the development of a new class of synthetic dyes derived from coal tar.