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<strong>atw</strong> Vol. 64 (2019) | Issue 4 ı April<br />

Immediately after the war, Hahn<br />

and Strassmann were put on a<br />

pe destal: Look, here are two German<br />

scientists who have discovered<br />

something significant! The Deutsches<br />

Museum proudly presented an object<br />

that was saved under certainly difficult<br />

circumstances and moved three<br />

times through post-war Germany.<br />

Whether the instruments were original<br />

ones or the arrangement made<br />

sense was not examined. One did not<br />

bother to describe the components<br />

and the experiments exactly. The<br />

presentation aroused the feeling that<br />

one stood at the desk of a Nobel Prize<br />

winner and could almost look over his<br />

shoulder.<br />

That the contribution of Lise<br />

Meitner was not mentioned is beyond<br />

understanding: one glance into the<br />

original literature would have been<br />

enough to get a more complete picture.<br />

Everyone involved was alive and<br />

well, detailed first-hand documentation<br />

would have been achievable.<br />

However, the fact that nothing was<br />

changed after Hahn’s rather unsatisfied<br />

comment on the first text panel<br />

suggests that it was already hanging<br />

in the exhibition and the text was<br />

literally carved into stone. There<strong>for</strong>e,<br />

the label of the exhibit was created:<br />

“workbench of Otto Hahn”. Possibly, it<br />

was also the glory of the Nobel Prize,<br />

which put Meitner in the shade after<br />

the war. In any case, there was no<br />

ef<strong>for</strong>t to tell the whole story. General<br />

Director Zenneck would have had to<br />

question the exhibition more critically.<br />

Judging from the friendlysubmissive<br />

tone of his letters to Hahn,<br />

however, this is completely unthinkable.<br />

Hahn was the sole contact <strong>for</strong><br />

nuclear fission <strong>for</strong> Zenneck.<br />

It must be stressed at this point<br />

that Hahn and Meitner, both during<br />

their direct cooperation and after the<br />

war, communicated in an extremely<br />

friendly and professional tone and<br />

spoke with great appreciation of each<br />

other and the scientific achievements<br />

of each other. Surely they saw in the<br />

other an equal scientific partner.<br />

The post-war generation of exhibition<br />

curators saw no need to change<br />

anything in the presentation, and so<br />

Meitner really fell into oblivion. She<br />

lived abroad, was certainly not as<br />

present at events in the Deutsches<br />

Museum and on the German science<br />

stage as Hahn. And it is precisely this<br />

constellation that leads to the allegation<br />

that Hahn had made his mark as a<br />

leading figure in German science,<br />

as a “good German” at the expense<br />

of his colleagues and especially his<br />

colleague with Jewish roots after<br />

the war. [38] The ignorance of the<br />

Museum concerning Meitner implied<br />

that Hahn had built a memorial <strong>for</strong><br />

himself in the museum with “his”<br />

object. Parts of today’s history of<br />

science draw a strong picture, according<br />

to which Hahn later “refused<br />

to let Meitner participate in the<br />

discovery.” [39] The fact that Hahn<br />

collected the Nobel Prize alone is<br />

often mentioned in this context, too.<br />

The impression remains Hahn would<br />

be personally responsible <strong>for</strong> that as<br />

well.<br />

Since the 1990s, the museum has<br />

sought a differentiated and more<br />

detailed presentation. If this had<br />

happened 40 years earlier, Hahn’s<br />

reputation would probably be dif ferent<br />

today. We can assume that Hahn<br />

certainly would not have objected to<br />

such a representation.<br />

The curator’s dream may serve as<br />

a last prospect, who would like to cut<br />

the object – purely virtually, of course,<br />

not in reality – in order to present the<br />

individual parts of the experimental<br />

set-up finally in a scientifically correct<br />

way.<br />

Footnotes<br />

1. This is a revised copy of: Rehn, The <strong>Nuclear</strong> Fission Table in the<br />

Deutsches Museum: A Special Piece of Science History on the<br />

Eve of World War II. In: M. Kaji, Y. Furukawa (Hg.): Proceedings<br />

of the <strong>International</strong> Workshop on the History of Chemistry:<br />

Trans<strong>for</strong>mation of Chemistry from the 1920s to the 1960s<br />

(IWHC 2015, Tokyo). Tokio 2016, p. 20-27<br />

See also: a) S. Rehn: Der Kernspaltungstisch im Deutschen<br />

Museum. In: Keiser, V. (Hg.): Radiochemie, Fleiß und Intuition.<br />

Neue Forschungen zu Otto Hahn. GNT-Verlag, Berlin, 2018,<br />

p. 63 – 82 b) S. Rehn, Kultur und Technik 3/2013, p. 18-25<br />

2. For milestones in Ruther<strong>for</strong>d’s scientific life, see (last viewed<br />

3.3.2019): http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/<br />

chemistry/laureates/1908/ruther<strong>for</strong>d-bio.html<br />

3. J. Chadwick, Nature 129, 1932, S. 312; J. Chadwick, Proc. Roy.<br />

Soc. 136, 1932, p. 692-708<br />

4. N. Bohr, Nature 137, 1936, p. 344-348<br />

5. N. Bohr, Science, 80, 1937, p. 161-165<br />

6. E. Fermi, Nature 133, 1934, p. 757; E. Fermi, ibid., p. 898-899<br />

7. Lise Meitner: Wege und Irrwege zur Kernenergie (1963).<br />

In: L. Meitner, D. Hahn (Ed.), Erinnerungen an Otto Hahn.<br />

Hirzel Verlag Stuttgart, 2005, p. 69 – 73<br />

8. F. Krafft, Otto Hahn und die Kernchemie, Museumsverein für<br />

Technik und Arbeit, Mannheim, 1991, p. 14 - 15<br />

9. Otto Hahn – 25 Jahre Atomzeitalter. Television movie<br />

produced by the German television network NDR, 1963.<br />

In German, Hahn uses the term “Glückszufall”, which is a<br />

mixture of the words “luck” and “chance”. Deutsches Museum<br />

archive, AV-F 0026 & 1743. (All translations of original<br />

German quotes by S. Rehn-Taube.)<br />

10. a) L. Meitner, O. Hahn, F. Straßmann, Z. f. Physik 106, 1937,<br />

p. 249 - 270; b) O. Hahn, L. Meitner, F. Straßmann, Chem.<br />

Ber. 70, 1937, p. 1374-1392<br />

11. O. Hahn, Mein Leben. Bruckmann, München,1968, p. 150<br />

12. O. Hahn, F. Straßmann, Naturwissenschaften 46, 1938,<br />

p. 755 - 756<br />

13. A very detailed description of the experiments is given in:<br />

F. Krafft, Im Schatten der Sensation. Leben und Wirken von<br />

Fritz Straßmann. Verl. Chemie, Weinheim 1981, p. 212 and<br />

following pages<br />

14. Quote by O. Hahn, note 9<br />

15. Letter quoted in: a) J. Lemmerich, Die Geschichte der Entdeckung<br />

der Kernspaltung. Catalogue of the exhibition by the<br />

Deutsches Museum and the Hahn-Meitner-Institute of the<br />

Technical University, Berlin, 1989, p. 166 - 170; b) W. Gerlach:<br />

Otto Hahn, Ein Forscherleben in unserer Zeit. Deutsches<br />

Museum Abhandlungen & Berichte, 37, 1969, p. 52 - 53<br />

16. A modern essay about the finding of nuclear fission and the<br />

liquid-drop model is found in: H. J. Krappe, K. Pomorski,<br />

„ Theory of <strong>Nuclear</strong> Fission“. Springer Verlag Heidelberg, 2012<br />

17. J. Lemmerich (Ed.), Gedächtnisausstellung zum 100.<br />

Geburts tag von Albert Einstein, Otto Hahn, Max von Laue,<br />

Lise Meitner 1.3. – 12.4. 1979. Catalogue oft he exhibition<br />

held in the Staatsbibliothek Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin.<br />

Berlin, 1979, p. 122<br />

18. O. Hahn, F. Straßmann, Naturwiss. 27, 1939, p. 11 - 15<br />

19. O. Hahn, F. Straßmann, Naturwiss. 27, 1939, p. 89 - 95<br />

20. L. Meitner, O. R. Frisch, Nature 143, 1939, p. 239<br />

21. O. R. Frisch, Nature 143, 1939, p. 276<br />

22. L. Meitner, O. R. Frisch, Nature 143, 1939, p. 471 - 472<br />

23. H. v. Halban, F. Joliot, L. Kowarski, Nature 143, 1939,<br />

p. 470 - 471<br />

24. N. Bohr, J. A. Wheeler, Phys. Rev. 56, 1939, p. 426 - 450<br />

25. N. Bohr, Phys. Rev. 55, 1939, p. 418-419<br />

26. E. McMillan, P. H. Abelson, Phys. Rev. 57, 1940, p. 1185-1186<br />

27. F. Straßmann, O. Hahn, Naturwissenschaften 30, 1942,<br />

p. 256-260<br />

28. The results were not published until 1946. In the publications<br />

it was mentioned that the corresponding experiments took<br />

place in 1941.<br />

29. a) G. T. Seaborg, E. M. McMillan, J. W. Kennedy, A. C. Wahl,<br />

Phys. Rev. 69, 1946, p. 366 - 367; b) G. T. Seaborg, A. C. Wahl,<br />

J. W. Kennedy, Phys. Rev. 69, 1946, p. 367; c) J. W. Kennedy,<br />

A. C. Wahl, Phys. Rev. 69, 1946, p. 367 - 368; d) J. W. Kennedy,<br />

G. T. Seaborg, E. Segrè, A. C. Wahl, Phys. Rev. 70, 1946,<br />

p. 555 - 556<br />

30. Uranium was discovered in 1789 and named after the recently<br />

discovered planet Uranus.<br />

31. Radio interview with Otto Hahn (1967), Deutsches Museum<br />

archive, AV-T 0457<br />

32. http://www.ctbto.org<br />

33. DMVA (Deutsches Museum administration archives) 1286/1;<br />

DMVA 1290/2, DMVA 1291/1<br />

34. „Otto Hahn entdeckte 1938 zusammen mit Fritz Straßmann<br />

die Spaltung des Urans durch Neutronen und schuf damit<br />

die Grundlage für die technische Verwertung der Atomkern-<br />

Energie.“<br />

35. Hahn to Zenneck, 8.4.1953, Archive of the Max-Planck-<br />

Gesellschaft, Abt. III, Rep. 14, Nr. 5287, Bl. 14<br />

36. The author thanks Jost Lemmerich <strong>for</strong> this special note.<br />

Personal message (16.4.2013)<br />

37. This can be found in various publications, e.g. (both published<br />

by employees of the museum): T. Brandlmeir, Arbeitstisch zur<br />

Uranspaltung. In: Meisterwerke aus dem Deutschen Museum<br />

Band 1, Deutsches Museum, München (2004). In this paper,<br />

Heinz Haber was even cut off the picture. The caption: Fritz<br />

Straßmann and Otto Hahn during the installation of the<br />

workbench <strong>for</strong> uranium fission; J. Teichmann, Das Deutsche<br />

Museum. Ein Plädoyer für den Mythos von Objekt und<br />

Experiment. In: G. Bayerl, W. Weber (Hrsg.), Sozialgeschichte<br />

der Technik, Waxmann, Münster (1998), p. 199 – 208<br />

38. R. L. Sime, Phys. Perspect, 12 (2010), p. 190 - 218<br />

39. R. L. Sime, Angew. Chem. 103, 1991, p. 956 – 967<br />

Author<br />

Dr. Susanne Rehn-Taube<br />

Deutsches Museum<br />

Museumsinsel 1<br />

80538 München, Germany<br />

ENERGY POLICY, ECONOMY AND LAW 207<br />

Energy Policy, Economy and Law<br />

The <strong>Nuclear</strong> Fission Table in the Deutsches Museum: A Fundamental Discovery on Display ı Susanne Rehn-Taube

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