This review article is based on a lecture presented by the author when the renewal of the doctorate degree to Professor Dieter Seebach, who had graduated from the Technische Hochschule Karlsruhe in 1964, was celebrated by the Faculty of Chemistry and Biosciences at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) in 2014.

Lithium enolates are well-known, reactive intermediates in organic chemistry with innumerable applications for the synthesis of natural products and preparation of drugs like Captopril, Methylphenidat and Atorvastatin in enantiomerically pure form. After a short overview of the elucidation of enolate structures achieved during the past decades, the article treats more recent developments that are aimed at combining the chemistry of lithium enolates with palladium-catalyzed asymmetric syntheses.