Cohn Institute Seminar 15.12.2025 - Dieter Hoffmann: How Did Physicists Deal with the Nazis?

Dieter Hoffmann

Fritz Haber Institute of the Max Planck Society, Berlin

How Did Physicists Deal with the Nazis?

This lecture will examine the relationship between German physicists and the Nazi regime. I will begin by discussing the National Socialist policy of racial and political exclusion, using the Berlin Imperial Institute for Physics and Technology, one of the most important and internationally renowned institutions for non-university physics research in Germany, as an example. Subsequently, I will address the changing significance of the so-called “German Physics” during the Third Reich and its struggle against modern physics. In this regard, the engagements of Philipp Lenard and Johannes Stark on the one hand and Werner Heisenberg on the other, will be discussed, the last also in his capacity as the head of the German Uranium research. Finally, the self-mobilization of the German Physical Society – the leading German professional organization of physicists – will be described and exemplified by the cases of physicists who actively resisted the Nazi tyranny. Unfortunately, none of the above will be presented in a systematic and comprehensive manner, but only as a (limited) tour d’horizon.  

Gathering for coffee and refreshments at 16:00

Chair: Ori Belkind

The public is invited