Johannes Stark, Jews, and Nature
Mar. 9th, 2021 07:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
leblonIn 1938, after Johannes Stark (the discoverer of the "Stark effect", Nobel Prize 1919) published an article about Jews in physics in the official SS newspaper "Das Schwarze Korps", the editors of the journal "Nature" invited him to write an opinion column. This resulted in one of the most amazing articles ever published in "Nature": "The Pragmatic and Dogmatic Spirit in Physics", Nature 141, p. 770 (138). One can read it here.
Although this article was published before Kristallnacht took place, April 1938 was already after all Jews were fired from government jobs in Germany (including all university jobs), after Jews were prohibited from attending universities in Germany, and after Jews were prohibited from having sexual relationship with "Aryans". And Stark was the person in charge of cleansing German physics from Jews. I cannot imagine what the editors of "Nature" were thinking.
After World War II, Johannes Stark was convicted by a denazification court to four years in prison, but his sentence was suspended.
Although this article was published before Kristallnacht took place, April 1938 was already after all Jews were fired from government jobs in Germany (including all university jobs), after Jews were prohibited from attending universities in Germany, and after Jews were prohibited from having sexual relationship with "Aryans". And Stark was the person in charge of cleansing German physics from Jews. I cannot imagine what the editors of "Nature" were thinking.
After World War II, Johannes Stark was convicted by a denazification court to four years in prison, but his sentence was suspended.
