Born in Tiegenhof, near Danzig, and was educated at Heidelburg, Munich, Strassburg and Leipzig, finally switching to chemistry under the influence of Johannes Wislicenus. He became Professor of Organic Chemistry at Leipzig in 1904, after the death of Wislicenus. Stobbe was not only one of the founders of physical organic chemistry, but also a pioneer of polymer chemistry, and he investigated the polymerisation of styrene as early as 1909. Between 1928 and 1938, Stobbe was an editor of "Poggendorff" (properly speaking the Biographisch-Literarisches Handwörterbuch). His name is associated with the Stobbe condensation of diethyl succinate (1893).