Abstract.
The role that Otto Hahn (1879–1968) played in the discovery of nuclear fission and whether Lise Meitner (1878–1968) should have shared the Nobel Prize for that discovery have been subjects of earlier studies, but there is more to the story. I examine what Hahn and the scientists in his Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Chemistry in Berlin-Dahlem did during the Third Reich, in particular, the significant contributions they made to the German uranium project during the Second World War. I then use this as a basis for judging Hahn’s postwar apologia as the last president of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society and first president of its successor, the Max Planck Society.
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Walker, M. Otto Hahn: Responsibility and Repression. Phys. perspect. 8, 116–163 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00016-006-0277-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00016-006-0277-3
Keywords.
- Otto Hahn
- Lise Meitner
- Fritz Strassmann
- Otto Robert Frisch
- Gottfried von Droste
- Albert Einstein
- Siegfried Flügge
- Samuel Goudsmit
- Fritz Haber
- Werner Heisenberg
- Heinrich Hörlein
- Max von Laue
- Ernst Telschow
- Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker
- Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Chemistry
- Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physical Chemistry
- Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physics
- Kaiser Wilhelm Society
- Max Planck Society
- National Socialism
- National Socialist institutions
- Nazi Germany
- Nobel Prizes
- Second World War
- German uranium project
- Alsos Mission
- Farm Hall
- FIAT reports
- atomic bomb
- nuclear energy
- nuclear fission
- nuclear reactor