RE-DEDICATION OF SCIENCE IN GERMANY

Abstract

THE first victims of Nazi anti-Semitism in Germany were news or persons of Jewish descent in official positions, for example at the universities ; with a small class of exceptions, they were dismissed by a decree issued within six weeks of Hitler's final accession to power. The great chemist Fritz Haber, director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institut fur Physikalische chemie in Berlin-Dahlem, though by birth a Jew, did not himself fall under the decree, but a number of junior members of his staff did. Haber decided to resign in protest against this decree, and a few months later (in the summer of 1933) he left Germany. In his absence false accusations were levelled against him which rendered a return dangerous. He became an exile and died in exile on January 29, 1934 (see Nature, 133, 349 ; 1934).