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Deutsche Physik (literally: "German Physics") or Aryan Physics was the name given to a nationalist movement in the German physics community in the early 1930s against the work of Albert Einstein, labeled "Jewish Physics" (German: Jüdische Physik). The term was taken from the title of a 4-volume physics textbook by Philipp Lenard in the 1930s. Image File history File links Emblem-important. ... Nationalism is an ideology that creates and sustains a nation as a concept of a common identity for groups of humans. ... A magnet levitating above a high-temperature superconductor demonstrates the Meissner effect. ... The 1930s were described as an abrupt shift to more radical and conservative lifestyles, as countries were struggling to find a solution to the Great Depression, also known as the [[. In East Asia, the rise of militarism occurred. ... “Einstein” redirects here. ... Philipp Eduard Anton von Lénárd, (June 7, 1862 in Preßburg, Austria-Hungary (today Bratislava, Slovakia)–May 20, 1947 in Messelhausen, Germany) was a Hungarian-German physicist and the winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1905 for his research on cathode rays and the discovery of...

Origins

Philipp Lenard, one of the early architects of the Deutsche Physik movement.

This movement began as an extension of a German nationalistic movement in the physics community which went back as far as World War I. During fighting between the German army and Belgian resistance fighters after the German invasion in Belgium, the library of the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven caught fire. Probably because this old European university calls itself "Catholic", in contemporary war propaganda it was not only quickly asserted that this had been done on purpose, but in addition that German soldiers had nailed nuns to the doors of Belgian churches and, moreover, that they had chopped off the arms of little children. The incident of the burning of the library led to a protest note by British scientists, which was signed also by eight distinguished British physicists, namely Bragg, Crookes, Fleming, Lamb, Lodge, Ramsey, Rayleigh and J.J. Thomson, and in which it was assumed that the war propaganda mentioned corresponded to real behavior of German soldiers. In the year of 1915 this led to a counter-reaction in the form of an "appeal" formulated by Wilhelm Wien and addressed to German physicists and scientific publishers, which was signed by sixteen German physicists, including Arnold Sommerfeld and Johannes Stark. They claimed that German character had been misinterpreted and that attempts made over many years to reach an understanding between the two countries had obviously failed, so that conclusions had now to be drawn, in regard to the use of the English language by German scientific authors, editors of books and translators^[1]. A number of German physicists, including Max Planck and the especially passionate Philipp Lenard, a scientific rival of J.J. Thomson, had then signed further "declarations", so that gradually a "war of the minds" ^[2] broke out. On the German side it was suggested to avoid an unnecessary use of English language in scientific texts (concerning, e.g., the renaming of German-discovered phenomena with perceived English-derived names, such as "X-ray" instead of "Röntgen ray"). It was stressed, however, that this measure should not be misunderstood as a rejection of British scientific thought ideas and stimulations. Image File history File links Philipp_Lenard. ... Philipp Eduard Anton von Lénárd, (June 7, 1862 in Preßburg, Austria-Hungary (today Bratislava, Slovakia)–May 20, 1947 in Messelhausen, Germany) was a Hungarian-German physicist and the winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1905 for his research on cathode rays and the discovery of... Eugène Delacroixs Liberty Leading the People, symbolising French nationalism during the July Revolution 1830. ... “The Great War ” redirects here. ... Arnold Johannes Wilhelm Sommerfeld (December 5, 1868 in Königsberg, East Prussia – April 26, 1951 in Munich, Germany) was a German physicist who introduced the fine-structure constant in 1919. ... Johannes Stark (April 15, 1874 – June 21, 1957) was a prominent 20th century physicist, and a Physics Nobel Prize laureate. ... A magnet levitating above a high-temperature superconductor demonstrates the Meissner effect. ... “Planck” redirects here. ... Philipp Eduard Anton von Lénárd, (June 7, 1862 in Preßburg, Austria-Hungary (today Bratislava, Slovakia)–May 20, 1947 in Messelhausen, Germany) was a Hungarian-German physicist and the winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1905 for his research on cathode rays and the discovery of... In the NATO phonetic alphabet, X-ray represents the letter X. An X-ray picture (radiograph) taken by Röntgen An X-ray is a form of electromagnetic radiation with a wavelength approximately in the range of 5 pm to 10 nanometers (corresponding to frequencies in the range 30 PHz... Wilhelm Röntgen Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen (March 27, 1845 – February 10, 1923) was a German physicist, of the University of Würzburg, who, on November 8, 1895, produced wavelengths of electromagnetic radiation that are now known as x-rays or Röntgen Rays. ...

After the war, the affronts of the Treaty of Versailles kept some of these nationalistic feelings running high, especially in Lenard, who in a small pamphlet^[3] had already complained at the beginning of the war about England. When on January 26, 1920, an attempt had been made by the young soldier Oltwig von Hirschfelde to assassinate Matthias Erzberger, the German Chancellor, Lenard had sent a telegram of congratulation to Hirschfelde^[4]. When on June 24, 1922, the politician Walther Rathenau had been assassinated and the government had ordered to fly the flags at half mast at the day of his funeral, Lenard ignored the order at his institute in Heidelberg. Socialistic students organized a demonstration against Lenard, who at the occasion was taken into protective custody by the Jewish prosecutor of state Hugo Marx^[5]. This was not a sentiment unique to physics or physicists— this blend of nationalism and perceived affront from foreign and internal forces formed a key part of the popularity of the newly forming National Socialist Party (Nazis) in the late 1920s. This article is about the Treaty of Versailles of June 28, 1919, which ended World War I. For other uses, see Treaty of Versailles (disambiguation) . The Treaty of Versailles (1919) was a peace treaty that officially ended World War I between the Allied and Associated Powers and Germany. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... Walter Rathenau Walther Rathenau (September 29, 1867–June 24, 1922) was a German industrialist and politician who served as Foreign Minister of Germany. ... Nazism in history Nazi ideology Nazism and race Outside Germany Related subjects Lists Politics Portal         Nazism or National Socialism (German: Nationalsozialismus), refers primarily to the ideology and practices of the Nazi Party (National Socialist German Workers Party, German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP) under Adolf Hitler. ... The Nazi party used a right-facing swastika as their symbol and the red and black colors were said to represent Blut und Boden (blood and soil). ... The 1920s they were sexy referred to as the Jazz Age or the Roaring Twenties, usually applied to America. ...

During the early years of the twentieth century, Albert Einstein's Theory of Relativity was met with much bitter controversy within the physics communities of the world. There were many physicists, especially the "old guard," who were suspicious of the intuitive meanings of Einstein's theories. The leading theoretician of the Deutsche Physik type of movement was Rudolf Tomaschek who had re-edited the famous physics textbook Grimsehl's Lehrbuch der Physik. In that book, which consists of several volumes, the Lorentz transformation was accepted as well as quantum theory. However, Einstein's interpretation of the Lorentz transformation was not mentioned, and also Einstein's name was completely ignored. Many of these classical physicists resented Einstein's dismissal of the notion of a luminiferous aether, which had been a mainstay of their work for the majority of their productive lives. They were not convinced by the empirical evidences for Relativity: the measurements of the perihelion of Mercury and the null result of the Michelson-Morley experiment might be explained in other ways, they thought, and the results of the Eddington eclipse experiment (the first observed instance of gravitational lensing, a key prediction of Einstein's) were experimentally problematic enough to be dismissed as meaningless by the hardcore doubters. Many of these doubters were very distinguished experimental physicists—Lenard was himself a Nobel laureate in Physics. (19th century - 20th century - 21st century - more centuries) Decades: 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s The 20th century lasted from 1901 to 2000 in the Gregorian calendar (often from (1900 to 1999 in common usage). ... “Einstein” redirects here. ... Two-dimensional analogy of space-time curvature described in General Relativity. ... In physics, the Lorentz transformation converts between two different observers measurements of space and time, where one observer is in constant motion with respect to the other. ... Classical physics is physics based on principles developed before the rise of quantum theory, usually including the special theory of relativity and general theory of relativity. ... The luminiferous aether: it was hypothesised that the Earth moves through a medium of aether that carries light In the late 19th century luminiferous aether (light-bearing aether) was the term used to describe a medium for the propagation of light. ... Tests of Einsteins general theory of relativity did not provide an experimental foundation for the theory until well after it was introduced in 1915. ... This article is about several astronomical terms (apogee & perigee, aphelion & perihelion, generic equivalents based on apsis, and related but rarer terms. ... This article is about the planet. ... The Michelson-Morley experiment, one of the most important and famous experiments in the history of physics, was performed in 1887 by Albert Michelson and Edward Morley at what is now Case Western Reserve University, and is considered by some to be the first strong evidence against the theory of... One of Sir Arthur Stanley Eddingtons papers announced Einsteins theory of general relativity to the English-speaking world. ... This article is about astronomical eclipses. ... A gravitational lens is formed when the light from a very distant, bright source (such as a quasar) is bent around a massive object (such as a massive galaxy) between the source object and the observer. ... Look up Nobel in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...

Philipp Lenard claimed that the mass–energy equivalence formula needed to be credited to Friedrich Hasenöhrl, and he and others had felt puzzled because in his famous paper of 1905 Einstein had apparently "forgotten" to mention Hasenöhrl. In the propaganda of religious groups it is currently asserted that the true purpose of Lenard's critics had been to claim that the pertinent relation is a purely aryan creation.^[6]. However, also Max Born, who emigrated to England during the Nazi regime, pointed out Hasenöhrl's priority ^[7]. With the help of a thought experiment in the year 1904 Hasenöhrl had shown that a box filled with electromagnetic radiation of total energy E behaves as having inertial mass proportional to E / c², where c is the speed of light. However, Hasenöhrl did not arrive at determining the correct factor for the equation, which he could only have done using relativist mechanics. Friedrich Hasenöhrl (November 30, 1874 - October 7, 1915), was an Austrian scientist. ... The Aryan race is a concept in European culture that was influential in the period of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. ...

National Socialism

Johannes Stark attempted to become the Führer of German physics.

When the Nazis entered the political scene, Lenard quickly attempted to ally himself with them, joining the party long before it was fashionable to do so. With another Nobel Prize in Physics laureate, Johannes Stark, Lenard began a core campaign to label Einstein's Relativity as Jewish Physics. Image File history File links Johannes_Stark. ... Johannes Stark (April 15, 1874 – June 21, 1957) was a prominent 20th century physicist, and a Physics Nobel Prize laureate. ... Nazi propaganda poster. ... The Nazi party used a right-facing swastika as their symbol and the red and black colors were said to represent Blut und Boden (blood and soil). ... Hannes Alfvén (1908–1995) accepting the Nobel Prize for his work on magnetohydrodynamics [1]. List of Nobel Prize laureates in Physics from 1901 to the present day. ... Johannes Stark (April 15, 1874 – June 21, 1957) was a prominent 20th century physicist, and a Physics Nobel Prize laureate. ...

For a few years in the early 1930s, this found strong support from Nazi leadership, as it played upon a number of Nazi ideological themes, and gave yet another method to harass and delegitimize Jewish citizens and institutions. Lenard^[8] and Stark enjoyed the Nazi support because it allowed them to undertake a professional coup for their preferred scientific theory; an example of using heavy-handed politics to resist an ideologically unwelcome scientific "paradigm shift". Under the rallying cry that physics should be more "German" and "Aryan," Lenard and Stark, with backing from the Nazi leadership, entered on a plan to pressure and replace physicist positions at German universities with people teaching their preferred theories. By this time, the early 1930s, there were no longer any Jewish physicist professorships in Germany, since under the Nuremberg Laws Jews were not allowed to work in universities. Stark in particular was also trying to get himself installed as the Führer of physics—not an entirely fanciful goal, given the Gleichschaltung (literally, "coordination") principle applied to other professional disciplines, such as medicine, under the Nazi regime, whereby a strict linear hierarchy was created along ideological lines. For other uses, see Politics (disambiguation). ... Paradigm shift is the term first used by Thomas Kuhn in his 1962 book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions to describe a change in basic assumptions within the ruling theory of science. ... The Nuremberg Laws of 1935 were denaturalization laws passed in Nazi Germany. ... Nazi propaganda poster. ... The German word Gleichschaltung â’½ â’¾ (literally synchronising, synchronization) is used in a political sense to describe the process by which the Nazi regime successively established a system of totalitarian control over the individual, and tight coordination over all aspects of society and commerce. ... For the chemical substances known as medicines, see medication. ...

They met with moderate success, but the support from the Nazi party was not as great as Lenard and Stark would have preferred. After a long period of harassment of the quantum physicist Werner Heisenberg, including getting him labeled a "White Jew" in the SS's weekly, Das Schwarze Korps (The Black Corps), they began to fall from influence. Heisenberg was not only a pre-eminent physicist whom even the Nazis realised they were better off with than without, however "Jewish" his theory might be in the eyes of Stark and Lenard, but Heisenberg had, as a young boy, attended school with SS chief Heinrich Himmler. In a moment of historical strangeness, Heisenberg's mother actually contacted Himmler's mother and asked her if she would please tell the SS to give "Werner" a break. After beginning a full character evaluation, which Heisenberg both instigated and passed, Himmler forbade further attack on the physicist. Heisenberg would later employ his "Jewish physics," in the German project to develop nuclear fission for the purposes of nuclear weapons or nuclear energy use. Werner Karl Heisenberg (December 5, 1901 – February 1, 1976) was a celebrated German physicist and Nobel laureate, one of the founders of quantum mechanics and acknowledged to be one of the most important physicists of the twentieth century. ... SS or ss or Ss may be: The Schutzstaffel, a Nazi paramilitary force Steamship (SS) (ship prefix) The United States Secret Service A submarine not powered by nuclear energy (SS) (United States Navy designator), see SSN A Soviet/Russian surface-to-surface missile, as listed by NATO reporting name Shortstop... Himmler redirects here. ... The German nuclear energy project was an endeavor by scientists during World War II in Nazi Germany to develop nuclear energy and an atomic bomb for practical use. ... The mushroom cloud of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, Japan, 1945, rose some 18 km (11 mi) above the epicenter. ... Core of a small nuclear reactor used for research. ...

Lenard began to play less and less of a role, and soon Stark ran into even more difficulty, as other scientists and industrialists known for being exceptionally "Aryan" came to the defense of Relativity and quantum mechanics. As historian Mark Walker puts it, "despite his best efforts, in the end his science was not accepted, supported, or used by the Third Reich. Stark spent a great deal of his time during the Third Reich fighting with bureaucrats within the National Socialist state. Most of the National Socialist leadership either never supported Lenard and Stark, or abandoned them in the course of the Third Reich." For a generally accessible and less technical introduction to the topic, see Introduction to quantum mechanics. ...

Effect on the German nuclear program

It is occasionally put forth that there is a great irony in the Nazis' labeling modern physics as "Jewish science," since it was exactly modern physics—and the work of many European exiles—which was used to create the war-ending atomic bomb. However, the exodus of German Jewish intellectuals and scientists happened far earlier than the popularisations of the notions of Deutsche Physik and "Jewish physics". Even if the German government had not embraced Lenard and Stark's ideas, the anti-Semitic content of the Nazi regime was enough by itself to destroy the Jewish scientific community in Germany. Furthermore, the German nuclear energy project was never pursued with anywhere near the vigor of the Manhattan Project in the United States, and for that reason would likely not have succeeded in any case. The mushroom cloud of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, Japan, 1945, rose some 18 km (11 mi) above the epicenter. ... Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. ... The German nuclear energy project was an endeavor by scientists during World War II in Nazi Germany to develop nuclear energy and an atomic bomb for practical use. ... This article is about the World War II nuclear project. ...

Comparisons to Postmodernism

Deutsche Physik has been compared to some contemporary postmodern positions, particularly the idea that science is somehow influenced by a scientist's gender, ethnicity or cultural background. For example, Noam Chomsky has said of postmodern attempts to criticise science: Avram Noam Chomsky (born December 7, 1928) is an American linguist, philosopher, political activist, author, and lecturer. ...

In fact, the entire idea of "white male science" reminds me, I'm afraid, of "Jewish physics". Perhaps it is another inadequacy of mine, but when I read a scientific paper, I can't tell whether the author is white or is male. The same is true of discussion of work in class, the office, or somewhere else. I rather doubt that the non-white, non-male students, friends, and colleagues with whom I work would be much impressed with the doctrine that their thinking and understanding differ from "white male science" because of their "culture or gender and race." I suspect that "surprise" would not be quite the proper word for their reaction. Cultural bias is the phenomenon of interpreting and judging phenomena by standards inherent to ones own culture. ... Deutsche Physik or Aryan Physics (literally: German Physics) was the name given to a reactionary movement in the German physics community in the early 1930s against the work of Albert Einstein, labeled Jewish Physics. ...

See also

• Lysenkoism

Please wikify (format) this article as suggested in the Guide to layout and the Manual of Style. ...

References

1. ^ For the full German text of Wilhelm Wien's appeal see: The Oxford Companion to the History of Science (J. L. Heilbron, ed.), Oxford University Press, New York 2003, p. 419. The appeal states:

   "Because of the war the relations of scientific circles to the hostile foreign countries will experience a novel regulation. It will in particular concern our relation to England, after the anti-German declaration formulated without any understanding of German character by English scientists has been signed by eight well-known physicists too (Bragg, Crookes, Fleming, Lamb, Lodge, Ramsey, Rayleigh, J.J. Thomson).

   It is herewith proven that the attempts made over many years to reach a better mutual understanding with the English have failed and cannot be taken up again within a foreseeable future. The regards which we have taken in the interest of a greater familiarity of the scientific circles of both peoples are no longer justified. Therefore, it is advisable to remove again the unjustified English influence which has penetrated German physics.

   Of course, the purpose cannot be to reject English scientific ideas and stimulations. But the currently criticized predilection for things foreign has influenced also our science so much that it seems required to point this out.

   After this hint we constrain ourselves above all to propose that all physicists should ensure

   1. that the mentioning of literature of the English should not, as has currently been the case, find stronger consideration than that of our fellow country men;
   2. that German physicists publish their treatises no longer in English journals, with the exception of cases where replies are required;
   3. that publishers accept solely scientific works and translations written in German language, and only then if according to the judgment of scientific experts the literature is really outstanding;
   4. that public money is not spent in order to sponsor translations.

   E.Dorn. F. Exner. W. Hallwachs. F. Himstedt. W. König. E. Lecher. O. Lummer. G. Mie. F. Richarz. E. Rieke. E. v. Schweidler. A. Sommerfeld. J. Stark. M. Wien. W. Wien. O. Wiener."

2. ^ Stephan L. Wolff: Physiker im Krieg der Geister, Zentrum für Wissenschafts- und Technikgeschichte, München 2001, [1].
3. ^ Philipp Lenard, England und Deutschland zur Zeit des großen Krieges - Geschrieben Mitte August 1914, publiziert im Winter 1914, Heidelberg.
4. ^ Heinz Eisgruber: Völkische und deutsch-nationale Führer, 1925.
5. ^ Der Fall Philipp Lenard - Mensch und "Politiker", Physikalische Blätter 23, No. 6, 262 - 267 (1967).
6. ^ [2] [3] [4]
7. ^ Max Born: Atomic Physics, 5th edition, London 1951, p. 53.
8. ^ Philipp Lenard: Ideelle Kontinentalsperre, München 1940.

Arnold Johannes Wilhelm Sommerfeld (December 5, 1868 in Königsberg, East Prussia – April 26, 1951 in Munich, Germany) was a German physicist who introduced the fine-structure constant in 1919. ...

Further literature

• Beyerchen, Alan, Scientists under Hitler: Politics and the physics community in the Third Reich (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1977).
• Hentschel, Klaus, ed. Physics and National Socialism: An anthology of primary sources (Basel: Birkhaeuser, 1996).
• Walker, Mark, Nazi science: Myth, truth, and the German atomic bomb (New York: Harper Collins, 1995).
• Philipp Lenard: Wissenschaftliche Abhandlungen Band IV. Herausgegeben und kritisch kommentiert von Charlotte Schönbeck. [Posthumously, German Language.] Berlin: GNT-Verlag, 2003. ISBN 978-3-928186-35-3. Introduction, Content.