Otto Hahn: Difference between revisions

| birth_place = [[Frankfurt am Main]], Hesse-Nassau,[[Kingdom of Prussia]], [[German Empire {{awrap|(nowEmpire]] Germany)}}

| death_date = {{nowrap|{{death date and age|df=y|1968|077|28|1879|033|08|df=yes}}8}}

| death_place = [[Göttingen]], [[Lower Saxony]], [[West Germany]]

* [[Ionium]] (²³⁰Th, 1907)
* [[Atomic recoil|Radioactive recoil]] (1909)

* [[Fajans–Paneth–Hahn Law]]|
* [[Protactinium]] (Pa, 1917)

During [[World War I]] he served with a ''[[Landwehr]]'' regiment on the [[Western Front (World War I)|Western Front]], and with the [[chemical warfare]] unit headed by [[Fritz Haber]] on the Western, [[Eastern Front (World War I)|Eastern]] and [[Italian front (World War I)|Italian]] fronts, earning the [[Iron Cross]] (2nd Class) for his part in the [[First Battle of Ypres]]. After the war he became the head of the KWIC, while remaining in charge of his own department. Between 1934 and 1938, he worked with Strassmann and Meitner on the study of isotopes created by neutron bombardment of uranium and thorium, which led to the discovery of nuclear fission. He was an opponent of [[national socialismNazism]] and the [[The Holocaust|persecution of Jews]] by the [[Nazi Party]] that caused the removal of many of his colleagues, including Meitner, who was forced to flee Germany in 1938. During [[World War II]], he worked on the [[German nuclear weapons program]], cataloguing the [[fission product]]s of uranium. At the end of the war he was arrested by the Allied forces and detained in [[Farm Hall]] with nine other German scientists, from July 1945 to January 1946.

Like most KWS institute directors, Haber had accrued a large discretionary fund. It was his wish that it be distributed to the dismissed staff to facilitate their emigration. Hahn brokered a deal whereby 10 per cent of the funds would be allocated to Haber's people and the rest to KWS, but the [[Rockefeller Foundation]] insisted that the funds be used for their original scientific research or else be returned. In August 1933 the administrators of the KWS were alerted that several boxes of Rockefeller Foundation-funded equipment were about to be shipped to [[Herbert Freundlich]], one of the department heads that Hahn had dismissed, who was now working in England. {{ill|Ernst Telschow|de}}, a Nazi Party member, was in charge while Planck, the president of the KWS since 1930, was on vacation, and he ordered the shipment halted. Hahn complied, but he disgreed with the decision on the grounds that funds from aboardabroad should not be diverted to military research, which the KWS was increasingly undertaking. When Planck returned from vacation, he ordered Hahn to expedite the shipment.{{sfn|Sime|2006|pp=10–12}}<ref>{{cite web |title=Max Planck Becomes President of the KWS |publisher=Max-Planck Gesellschaft |url=https://www.mpg.de/947146/28_person6-1930 |access-date=23 June 2020}}</ref>

[[File:EdithForschungsschiff andOTTO OttoHAHN Hahn,(Kiel 195933.305).jpg|thumb|left|Otto Hahn with(fourth from the left) at the [[Howaldtswerke-Deutsche Werft]] hisplant wifein Edith,June 19591964]]

Hahn is considered the father of radiochemistry and nuclear chemistry.{{sfn|Hahn|1966|p=ix}} He is chiefly remembered for the discovery of nuclear fission, the basis of nuclear power and nuclear weapons.{{sfn|Hahn|1966|pp=x–xi}} Glenn Seaborg wrote that "it has been given to very few men to make contributions to science and to humanity of the magnitude of those made by Otto Hahn".{{sfn|Hahn|1966|p=ix}} His award of the 1944 Nobel Prize for Chemistry was in recognition of this discovery but was attainted by sexism and antisemitism in Meitner being overlooked.<ref name="Antisemitism">{{cite magazine|title=How Antisemitism and Professional Betrayal Marred Lise Meitner's Scientific Legacy |first1=Katie |last1=Hafner |first2=Ashraya |last2=Gupta |magazine=Scientific American |date=14 September 2023 |url=https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-antisemitism-and-professional-betrayal-marred-lise-meitners-scientific-legacy/ |access-date=4 November 2024}}</ref> Conflict between chemists and physicists and the theorists and experimentalists also played a role.{{sfn|Crawford|Sime|Walker|1997|pp=27–32}} Hahn's efforts to rehabilitate the image of Germany after the war also became probklematicproblematic. He was no Nazi, but tolerated those who were.{{sfn|Walker|2006|p=124}}{{sfn|Sime|2004|p=48}} He was not culpable, but was complicit.<ref name="Antisemitism" /> In a letter to [[James Franck]] dated 22 February 1946, Meitner wrote:{{blockquote|Hahn is without doubt a decent man with many good traits. He only lacks thoughtfulness and perhaps also a certain strength of character, things that in normal times are minor flaws, but in the complicated times of today have deeper implications.<ref name="Antisemitism" />}}