Translation of a 1971 paper by Otto Rössler with added margin notes and a commentary

Some time ago we came across a rather unknown and, in our opinion, intriguing paper by Otto Rössler on autocatalysis. That the paper is written in German might be one reason for having spent 50 years below the radar despite being of potential interest to many people in the field (as we found anecdotally). We felt it is time to translate it. We provide some margin notes and a commentary/introduction that has been solicited for a book project aimed at a general scientific audience.