Letters: August 2021

The Noddacks’ Nazi links

The article about Ida Noddack is important, not so much for covering her scientific contributions, but for raising the question of what exactly she and her husband Walter were involved in during the pre- and war years.

Walter was, at the least, a willing beneficiary of the Nazi Party’s antisemitism and racism laws, taking a chair in 1935 at the University of Freiburg from the distinguished Hungarian-Jewish physical chemist George von Hevesy (awarded the 1943 Nobel prize in chemistry for pioneering the use of radioactive tracers in chemistry and medicine), who had fled Germany. The Noddacks moved to the Reichsuniversität Strassburg (RUS; the University of Strasbourg had gone into exile) in 1941, which at the time was the showcase Nazi university with over 80% of the professors being members of the Nazi party. Ida Noddack had her first paid position at the RUS.

We also know that Ludwig Franz Holleck, a confirmed Nazi party member, became Walter Noddack’s research assistant and close collaborator soon after Noddack was appointed to the University of Freiburg. During 1940–41 Holleck managed the treasury of the Nazi lecturers’ association in Freiburg and then went with the Noddacks to the RUS, as an adjunct professor of physical chemistry. This suggests that the Noddacks and Holleck were close over an extended period and shared Nazi views, as suggested by a biographer of the Noddacks.

Unfortunately, information on what they were working on during 1941–45 is not readily available, but it is reasonable to speculate that they were involved in some way with the German war effort, not least since they did not publish any scientific papers between 1940 and 1951. The RUS was then a centre for nuclear weapons research, with Rudolf Fleischmann conducting research on isotope separation. The notorious war criminal August Hirt was also dean of the medical school, where he set up the ‘Jewish Skeleton Collection’ from murdered victims of Auschwitz and the nearby Natzweiler-Struthof extermination camp.

All this raises the important moral issue of whether we should ignore any Nazi/antisemitism/racism issues and instead focus on Ida’s published work and her struggles as a woman scientist. The article concludes with a quotation from one of her biographers, that she should be remembered ‘for her bold thinking’, and the version of the article published online is headed ‘Celebrating science’s forgotten heroes.’ Others will disagree with this blinkered assessment of a Nazi-era scientist who never denounced Nazism. Her and her husband’s complicity in the working of the Nazi regime and its horrors far outweigh her personal scientific contributions. And that is what she should be remembered for.

Stephen Neidle FRSC
University College London, UK

Editor’s note: The article on Ida Noddack has been removed from under the heading ‘Celebrating science’s forgotten heroes’ on the Chemistry World website. We apologise for this oversight.