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An Inconvenient History: the Nuclear-Fission Display in the Deutsches Museum

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Abstract

One of the longstanding attractions of the Deutsches Museum in Munich, Germany, has been its display of the apparatus associated with the discovery of nuclear fission. Although the discovery involved three scientists, Otto Hahn, Lise Meitner, and Fritz Strassmann, the fission display was designated for over 30 years as the Arbeitstisch von Otto Hahn (Otto Hahn’s Worktable), with Strassmann mentioned peripherally and Meitner not at all, and it was not until the early 1990s that the display was revised to include all three codiscoverers more equitably. I examine the creation of the fission display in the context of the postwar German culture of silencing the National Socialist past, and trace the eventual transformation of the display into a contemporary exhibit that more accurately represents the scientific history of the fission discovery.

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Notes

  1. According to Erich Merz, a chemistry laboratory apprentice and then technician in the KWI/MPI for Chemistry from 1945 to 1950, “The Arbeitstisch was built by the institute’s workshop under the supervision of [Wilfried] Herr and the direction of Strassmann und [Hans] Götte.” Herr and Götte were radiochemists who worked in the institute for many years; Strassmann was de facto head of the KWI/MPI for Chemistry during this period. Merz to Siegfried and Ulla Niese, August 31, 2006. I am grateful to Drs. Siegfried and Ulla Niese (Rossendorf) for sharing this letter with me.

  2. Mitarbeiterin is the feminine of Mitarbeiter, a subordinate coworker.

  3. Meitner was recognized more equitably outside Germany. She received some forty nominations for the Nobel Prize, with and without Hahn and Otto Robert Frisch, mostly for her work on fission. In 1966 the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission awarded its Enrico Fermi Prize to Hahn, Meitner, and Strassmann.

  4. I thank Dr. Brenda Winnewisser for calling the postcard to my attention.

References

  1. Website <http://www.deutsches-museum.de/sammlungen/ausgewaehlte-objekte/meisterwerke-i/uranspaltung>.

  2. Fritz Krafft, Im Schatten der Sensation: Leben und Werken von Fritz Strassmann (Weinheim, Deerfield Beach, Florida, and Basel: Verlag Chemie, 1981), pp. 222–227; Rudolf Sachtleben to Hans Götte, July 1, 1952; Götte to Sachtleben, July 3, 1952, Deutsches Museum Archive (hereafter DMA), VA 1308, Chemie 1952 A-O.

  3. Arnold Flammersfeld, “Erinnerungen an Lise Meitner 1935–1938,” in K.E. Boeters and Jost Lemmerich, ed., Gedächtnisausstellung zum 100. Geburtstag von Albert Einstein, Otto Hahn, Max von Laue, Lise Meitner, Ausstellungskatalog (Bad Honnef: Physik Kongress-Ausstellungs- und Verwaltungs mbH, 1979), pp. 117–120.

  4. Arnold Flammersfeld to Rudolf Sachtleben, July 12, 1952, DMA, VA 1308, Chemie 1952 A-O (emphasis in original). Unless otherwise indicated, all quotations are translated from the German by the author. For Sachtleben, see Michael Eckert, “Die ‘Deutsche Physik’ und das Deutsche Museum,” Physikalische Blätter 41 (1985), 87–92.

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  5. R. Sachtleben to A. Flammersfeld, July 15, 1952, DMA, VA 1308, Chemie 1952 A-O.

  6. “Originalapparatur von Otto Hahn (Erste Spaltung des Uran-Atoms),” List of apparatus received from the MPI for Chemistry, Mainz, October 12, 1952, DMA, VA 4051 (Handakt der Konservatorin für Chemie am Deutchen Museum, Elisabeth Vaupel).

  7. R. Sachtleben to Otto Hahn, October 7, 1955, Archiv zur Geschichte der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft (hereafter MPGA), Abt. III, Rep. 14, Nr. 5287:31.

  8. Fritz Strassmann, “Zum Bericht des ‘Observer’ über ‘Birthplace of the Split Atom’,” March 19, 1973, MPGA, Abt. V, Rep.13 (Fritz Strassmann Papers); Fritz Strassmann, Kernspaltung Berlin Dezember 1938 (Mainz: private printing, 1978), p. 27, reprinted in Krafft, Strassmann (ref. 2), p. 227.

  9. Horst Kant, “Vom KWI für Chemie zum KWI für Radioactivität. Die Abteilung(en) Hahn/Meitner am Kaiser-Wilhelm-Institut für Chemie,” in Eckart Henning, ed., Dahlemer Archivgespräche. Band 8 (Berlin: Archiv zur Geschichte der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft, 2002), pp. 57–92.

  10. Strassmann, Kernspaltung (ref. 8), pp. 25–26; Krafft, Strassmann (ref. 2), p. 225.

  11. The Museum did ask Hans Götte, a radiochemist and former student of Hahn’s, to demonstrate uranium fission for the Museum. See correspondence Sachtleben-Götte, July 3 and 7 and December 17 and 24, 1952, DMA, VA 1308, Chemie 1952 A-O, and January 21, February 5, March 16, 18, 31, 1953, DMA, VA 1311, Chemie 1953.

  12. Sachtleben to Götte, July 7, 1952, DMA, VA 1308, Chemie 1952 A-O.

  13. Sachtleben to Flammersfeld, July 15 and 23 and October 2, 1952; DMA, VA 1308, Chemie 1952 A-O.

  14. For the Graceland museum, see for example website <http://www.soultones.com/elvis.html>.

  15. Krafft, Strassmann (ref. 2), p. 224.

  16. Josef Mattauch, then Director of the MPI für Chemie, gave his permission to transfer the material, Götte demonstrated an experiment and formulated the texts, and Jonathan Zenneck then asked Hahn for his approval. See Zenneck to Mattauch, September 30, 1952, DMA, VA 4051; Zenneck to Hahn, March 31 and June 19, 1953, DMA, VA 1311, Chemie 1953, L-Z; Zenneck to Hahn, March 31, 1953 (with text for display), MPGA, Abt. III, Rep. 14, Nr. 5287. Erich Merz (see footnote on the fourth page of the text above) also remembers, “Professor Hahn inspected the reconstruction before it was shipped off and approved it as authentic.”

  17. Ruth Lewin Sime, “‘Die Uranspaltung hat da die ganze Situation gerettet’: Otto Hahn und das Kaiser-Wilhelm-Institut für Chemie während des Zweiten Weltkriegs,” in Helmut Maier, ed., Gemeinschaftsforschung, Bevollmächtigte und der Wissenstransfer: Die Rolle der Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gesellschaft im System kriegsrelevanter Forschung des Nationsozialismus (Göttingen: Wallstein, 2007), pp. 268–304.

  18. Ruth Lewin Sime, “The Politics of Memory: Otto Hahn and the Third Reich,” Physics in Perspective 8 (2006), 3–51; on 35–36.

  19. Stefan L. Wolff, “Die Ausgrenzung und Vertreibung der Physiker im Nationalsozialismus,” in Dieter Hoffmann und Mark Walker, ed., Physiker zwischen Autonomie und Anpassung: Die Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft im Dritten Reich (Weinheim: Wiley-VCH Verlag, 2007), pp. 91–138.

  20. Stefan Wolff, “Jonathan Zenneck als Vorstand des Deutschen Museums,” in Elisabeth Vaupel and Stefan Wolff, ed., Das Deutsche Museum im Nationalsozialismus, Eine Bestandsaufnahme (Göttingen: Wallstein, 2010); Otto Mayr, Wiederaufbau: Das Deutsche Museum 1945–1970 (München: Deutsches Museum, 2003), pp. 51–52.

  21. Jonathan Zenneck, Fünfzig Jahre Deutsches Museum München (München: Deutsches Museum, 1953), pp. 14–15.

  22. Karen Siebert, “Zwischen Anpassung und Verweigerung: Das Deutsche Museum und der Nazionalsozialismus,” Master’s Thesis, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, 1997, pp. 39–40, 51–54; Hans Diebow, ed., Der Ewige Jude, Ausstellungskatalog (München: Verlag Franz Eher, 1937); photograph, “Schlusskundgebung im Festsaal des Deutschen Museums am 18. Oktober 1942,” in Die Erste Kulturwoche: Der Hauptstadt der Bewegung (München: Kulturamt der Hauptstadt der Bewegung, 1942). I thank Elisabeth Vaupel of the Deutsches Museum for these sources.

  23. Wolff, “Zenneck” (ref. 20).

  24. Zenneck, Fünfzig Jahre (ref. 21), p. 15. See also J. Zenneck, “50 Jahre Deutsches Museum,” Deutsches Museum Abhandlungen und Berichte 21, No. 3 (1953), 12.

  25. Verwaltungsbericht 1952/53, p. 29, DMA, VA, Verwaltungsberichte 1932/33 – 1970/71; Siebert, “Anpassung” (ref. 22), p. 111.

  26. Norbert Frei, “Vergangenheitspolitik in den fünfiziger Jahren,” in Wilfried Loth and Bernd-A. Rusinek, ed., Verwandlungspolitik: NS-Eliten in der westdeutschen Nachkriegsgesellschaft (Frankfurt/Main: Campus, 1998), pp. 79–92; on p. 79; see also Klaus Hentschel, The Mental Aftermath: The Mentality of German Physicists 1945–1949. Translated by Ann M. Hentschel (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007).

  27. Jonathan Zenneck to Otto Hahn, April 22, 1946, MPGA, Abt. III, Rep. 14, Nr. 4822: 1a. The award of the 1944 Chemistry Prize to Hahn was announced in November 1945.

  28. Zenneck to Hahn, April 12, 1948, and June 6, 1951, MPGA, Abt. III, Rep. 14, Nr. 5284: 4, 5, 24; Zenneck, Fünfzig Jahre (ref. 21), p. 30. Hahn was elected to the Museum’s board of governors in 1948 and again in 1951 for a second three-year term.

  29. Ruth Lewin Sime, Lise Meitner: A Life in Physics (Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London: University of California Press, 1996), chapters 7, 9, 10.

  30. Mark Walker, German National Socialism and the Quest for Nuclear Power 1939–1949 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), chapter 7; Sime, “Otto Hahn” (ref. 18), pp. 27–28.

  31. Film: “50 Jahre Deutsches Museum 1903–1953,” Bayerischer Rundfunk 1953, Filmarchiv Deutsches Museum, AV-F 0870.

  32. The program was expected to serve American business and Cold War interests. See Michael Eckert, “US-Dokumente enthüllen: ‘Atoms for Peace’ – eine Waffe im Kalten Krieg,” Bild der Wissenschaft 5 (1987), 64–74; Michael Eckert, personal communication, November 8, 2005.

  33. Sitzungsberichte September 21, 1955, p. 5, items VI and VII, DMA, Sitzungsberichte 1951–1957. The opening celebration for the Museum’s new chemistry section took place on September 16, 1955; the Atomkraft exhibit opened on October 17, 1955.

  34. K. Beckurts to Sachtleben, May 28 and March 25, 1957; DMA, VA 4051.

  35. L. Heuwing to Herr Schmelzer, April 23, 1963; DMA, VA 4051.

  36. Hamburgische Electricitäts-Werke correspondence, October 13 and November 28, 1966, DMA, VA 2107, Chemie 1962–1966. This is one of the few instances where the display is referred to as the “Arbeitstisch … at which Professors Hahn and Strassmann discovered nuclear fission,” probably in deference to Strassmann, who was building a research reactor in Mainz and was an invited speaker at the exposition. See Krafft, Strassmann (ref. 2), pp. 437–438.

  37. Memorandum, Stahl, February 5, 1974; F. Heilbronner to Deutsche Atomforum, February 11, 1974; Leihvertrag, Deutsches Atomforum, October 14, 1977; DMA, VA 4051.

  38. Haigerloch; DMA, VA 2108, Wissenschaftliche Chemie 1967–68 A-Z. The Haigerloch museum opened in 1980 and acquired a replica of the Arbeitstisch display in 1986; see Atomkeller-Museum Haigerloch (Stadt Haigerloch. no date), p. 17.

  39. Deutsches Museum, Kurzer Rundgang durch die Sammlungen (München: Deutsches Museum, 1956), p. 33. In the 1960 guide (p. 55) the language is identical.

  40. Heinz Haber (producer), Otto Hahn – 25 Jahre Atomzeitalter, Erstsendung January 6, 1964. Filmarchiv Deutsches Museum, AV-F 0275; Corrrespondence Deutsches Museum with Heinz Haber, DMA, VA 2107, Chemie 1962-1966; personal reminiscence of the making of the film by Siegfried Kronester, “Begegnung mit Otto Hahn,” no date, DMA, VA 4051.

  41. Deutsches Museum, “Kurzer Rundgang durch die Sammlungen des Deutschen Museums,” 1966; Filmarchiv Deutsches Museum AV-F 0294.

  42. Rudolf von Miller to Hahn, October 22, 1965, DMA, VA 2107, Chemie 1962–1966; Text: “Zum Otto – Hahn – Tisch,” May 13, 1966, DMA, VA 2234, Chem. Techn. H-O 1963-67 (also in VA 3932).

  43. Hahn to M. Kneissl, September 23, 1965 (“my Arbeitstisch displayed in the Deutsches Museum”), DMA, VA 2107, Chemie 1962-1966; Hahn to Rudolf von Miller, February 16, 1968 (“my Arbeitstisch”), DMA, VA 2108, Wissenschaftliche Chemie 1967–1968 A-Z.

  44. Meitner to Hahn, June 22, 1953, Churchill Archives Centre, Meitner Collection.

  45. Fritz Krafft has noted that Hahn was known for his modesty but gave a remarkable number of autobiographical speeches and wrote two autobiographies; Krafft, “Otto Hahn und die Kernchemie: Der Sprung ins Atomzeitalter,” Vortrag, Museumsverein für Technik und Arbeit e.V. Mannheim 1991, p. 6. For audio recordings of Hahn’s speeches, Stand #116, Filmarchiv Deutsches Museum.

  46. Most recently in Konrad Lindner, Carl Friedrich von Weizsäckers Wanderung ins Atomzeitalter: Ein dialogisches Selbstporträt (Paderborn: Mentis, 2002), pp. 80–81.

  47. See Sime, Meitner (ref. 29), pp. 370–374.

  48. For example, F. Strassmann, “Experimente, die zur Entdeckung der Uranspaltung führten,” in Epoche Atom und Automation. Band 3 (Frankfurt/Main: Limpert, 1958), pp. 8–12; Strassmann, “Birthplace of the Split Atom” (ref. 8).

  49. Fritz Strassmann, Statement October 1977; Strassmann to Dr. Reimar Lüst, July 15, 1979, MPGA, Abt II, Rep. 1A (Personalakt Strassmann, Band 1); Strassmann, Kernspaltung (ref. 8).

  50. Boeters and Lemmerich, Gedächtnisausstellung (ref. 3).

  51. Joachim Rasch to Deutsches Museum Geschäftsleitung, March 5, 1978, DMA, VA 4051.

  52. Ernst H. Berninger to F. Heilbronner, March 9, 1978, DMA, VA 4051.

  53. F. Heilbronner to Joachim Rasch, March 13, 1978, DMA, VA 4051.

  54. Charlotte Kerner, Lise, Atomphysikerin: Die Lebengeschichte der Lise Meitner (Weinheim: Beltz, 1986); Barbara Friess to Berninger, December 30, 1987, DMA, VA 4051.

  55. Otto Krätz to Helmut Wende, January 11, 1989, DMA, VA 4051.

  56. Otto Mayr, personal communication, March 17, 2006.

  57. G. Probeck to Mayr, June 24, 1988; Mayr to J. Teichmann, June 27, 1988; Mayr to Peter Brix, October 4, 1989; DMA, VA 4051.

  58. Poster, Deutsches Museum, Kernspaltung – Geschichte einer Entdeckung, 21.2–31.8.1989; Jost Lemmerich, ed., Die Geschichte der Entdeckung der Kernspaltung, Ausstellungskatalog (Berlin: Technische Universität Berlin, 1988).

  59. Elisabeth Vaupel, personal communication, March 20, 2006.

  60. “Entdeckung der Kernspaltung,” An Herrn Clemens, from Rieker (?), February 23, 1989. The note indicates a deadline of March 3, 1989; DMA, VA 4051.

  61. “Women and Science in Germany,” XVIIIth International Congress of History of Science, Hamburg and Munich, August 1–9,1989, Filmsaal, Deutsches Museum, August 7, 1989; Ruth Lewin Sime, “Lise Meitner und die Kernspaltung: Fallout der Entdeckung,” Angewandte Chemie 103 (1991), 956–967; Sime, “Lise Meitner and Fission: Fallout from the Discovery,” Angewandte Chemie International Edition [in English] 30 (1991), 942–953.

  62. Barbara Orland and Elvira Scheich to Otto Mayr, August 7, 1989; Orland to Mayr, no date but August 1989; “Resolution on the ‘Arbeitstisch von Otto Hahn’”; Orland to Vaupel, August 29, 1989; DMA, VA 4051.

  63. “Ruth Lewin Sime, ‘Lise-Meitner-Forscherin,’” Süddeutsche Zeitung (August 16, 1989); Steven Dickman, “Meitner receives her due,” Nature 340 (August 17, 1989), 497.

  64. In a letter to Brix, Mayr writes that he intends to nominate Meitner for the Ehrensaal and expects it to be approved; Mayr to Brix, October 4, 1989; DMA, VA 4051.

  65. Vaupel-Sime correspondence, August to October 1989; DMA, VA 4051.

  66. Brix to Mayr, October 27, 1989; DMA, VA 4051.

  67. Karl Rötel to Mayr, September 5, 1989; DMA, VA 4051; Vaupel to Irmgard Strassmann, September 22, 1989; Jost Lemmerich to Günter Herrmann, January 18, 1990. I am grateful to the late Irmgard Strassmann for copies of these letters.

  68. Rudolf Fleischmann to Mayr, October 5, 1989; Berninger to Mayr, November 27, 1989; DMA, VA 4051. See also Rudolf Fleischmann, “Erinnerungen eines ‘Zeitzeugen’,” in Ulrich Albrecht, Ulrike Beisiegel, Reiner Braun, and Werner Buckel., ed., Der Griff nach dem atomaren Feuer (Frankfurt am Main, Berline, Bern, New York, Paris, Wien: Peter Lang, 1996), pp. 47–49, and “‘An eine Bombe wurde in Deutschland überhaupt nicht gedacht’. Ein Gespräch mit Rudolf Fleischmann,” in Michael Schaaf, Heisenberg, Hitler, und die Bombe: Gespräche mit Zeitzeugen (Berlin: GNT Verlag, 2001), pp. 44–80; on pp. 54–55.

  69. Karl-Erik Zimen to Vaupel, January 22, 1990; DMA, VA 4051.

  70. Mayr to Fleischmann, December 13, 1989; DMA, VA 4051.

  71. Vaupel to Mayr, “Tonband am Hahntisch,” September 18, 1989, DMA, VA 4051.

  72. Elisabeth Vaupel, Deutsches Museum Jahresbericht 1989, DMA, Verwaltungsberichte 1988–2002.

  73. DMA, VA 3934 (“Büsten”): Walter Rathjen to Chrysille Schmitthenner, October 26, 1990; Peter Kunze, “Neu im Ehrensaal: Büsten von Lise Meitner und Werner Heisenberg,” Deutsches Museum Jahresbericht 1991 (München: 1992).

  74. Website <http://www.deutsches-museum.de/en/exhibitions/museum-island/hall-of-fame/>.

  75. Mayr to C. F. von Weizsäcker, March 18, 1991; DMA, VA 3934.

  76. Ivo Schneider, personal communication, November 9, 2005.

  77. Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker, “Rede zur Enthüllung der Büsten von Lise Meitner und Werner Heisenberg im Ehrensaal,” Deutsches Museum Jahresbericht 1991 (München: 1992), pp. 16–22; on p. 21. In Weizsäcker’s talk, as in many of his publications, he portrayed himself as a participant, speaking from memory without checking for historical accuracy. His claims that he was close to the fission discovery are not substantiated by the documentary record.

  78. Schneider, March 1991; DMA, VA 3934.

  79. “Die erste Frau in der Galerie der Gelehrten,” Münchener Abendzeitung (July 6, 1991).

  80. “Ehrenfrau,” Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (July 8, 1991).

  81. Giacomo Grasso, Carlo Oppici, Federico Rocchi, and Marco Sumini, “A Neutronics Study of the 1945 Haigerloch B-VIII Nuclear Reactor,” Phys. in Perspec. 11 (2009), 318–335.

  82. Atom-Museum Haigerloch (Stadtverwaltung Haigerloch, 1. Auflage 1982, 2. Auflage 1990), p. 32.

  83. Brenda Winnewisser, personal communication, November 2005; Egidius Fechter, personal communications, March 6, 2007, and November 3, 2009.

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Acknowledgments

I am grateful to Elisabeth Vaupel of the Deutsches Museum for her longstanding interest and generous help, to Wilhelm Füssl and Eva Mayring for their kind help in the Museum Archive, and to Herbert Studtrucker for his guidance in the Museum’s Film Archive. I thank Michael Eckert, Otto Mayr, Siegfried and Ulla Niese, Brenda Winnewisser, and Stefan Wolff for their helpful comments and discussions, and Roger H. Stuewer for his careful editorial attention to my paper.

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Ruth Lewin Sime is the author of Lise Meitner: A Life in Physics. She is currently writing a biographical study of Otto Hahn.

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Sime, R.L. An Inconvenient History: the Nuclear-Fission Display in the Deutsches Museum. Phys. Perspect. 12, 190–218 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00016-009-0013-x

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