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Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives, King's College London

HAHN, Professor Dr Otto (1879-1968)


IDENTITY STATEMENT

Reference code(s): GB 0099 KCLMA Hahn

Held at: Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives, King's College London

Title: HAHN, Professor Dr Otto (1879-1968)

Date(s): Created 1945

Level of description: Collection (fonds)

Extent: 1 file and 1 volume

Name of creator(s): Hahn | Otto | 1879-1968 | chemist

CONTEXT

Administrative/Biographical history:

Born 1879; educated at Klinger Oberrealschule, Frankfurt, University of Marburg an der Lahn andUniversity of Munich, Germany; Doctor of Philosophy in organic chemistry, 1901; military service with 81 Infantry Regt, Frankfurt, Germany, 1901-1902; Assistant to Professor Theodor Zincke, 1902-1904; Sir William Ramsay's Institute, University College London, 1904-1905; discovered Radiothorium, 1905; works with Professor Ernest Rutherford, McGill University, Montreal, Canada, 1905-1906; discovered Radioactinium, 1906; joins Emil Fischer's Institute, Berlin, Germany, 1906-1907; discovered Mesothorium, 1907; Lecturer in Chemistry, University of Berlin, Germany, 1907; Professor, 1910; Member of Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Chemistry, 1912; served in German Army Engineering Corps, Western Front, World War One, 1914-1918; discovered, with Lise Meitner, radioactive metallic element Protactinium, 1918; discovered Uranium-Z, the first nuclear isomer, 1922; awarded Emil Fischer Medal by Society of German Chemists, 1922; Direktor, Kaiser Wilhelm Institut für Chemie, Berlin-Dahlem, 1928; Visiting Professor, Cornell University, Ithaca, NewYork, USA, 1933; awarded Canizzaro Prize by Royal Academy of Science, Rome, Italy, 1938; announcement, with Fritz Strassman, of fission of Uranium, 1939; awarded Copernicus Prize by the University of Königsberg, 1941; awarded Cothenius Medal by German Academy of Naturalists, 1943; arrested by Allied forces and interned in UK, 1945; awarded 1944 Nobel Prize for Chemistry, 1945;President, Max-Planck-Gesellschaft (formerly Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gesellschaft), 1946-1960; awarded Golden Paracelsus Medal from the Swiss Chemical Society, 1953; awarded Faraday Medal by the British Chemical Society, 1956; Hon President, Max-Planck-Gesellschaft, Göttingen, 1960-1968; Hon Fellow, University College London, 1968; died 1968.Publications: Was lehrt uns die Radioaktivität über die Geschichte der Erde? (Springer Verlag, Berlin, Germany, 1926); Applied Radiochemistry (Cornell University Press, Ithaca, New York, USA, 1936); Natürliche und künstliche Umwandlungen der Atomkerne (Kulturwissenschaftliches Institut, Rome, 1941); Umwandlungen der chemischen Elemente und die Zerspaltung des Urans (Chalmerstekniska Högskola Handlingar, Göteborg, Sweden, 1944); Künstliche Atomumwandlungen und die Spaltung schwerer Kerne (German Scientific Institute, Stockholm, Sweden, 1944); Die Kettenreaktion des Urans und ihre Bedeutung (Deutscher Ingenieur-Verlag, Düsseldorf, Germany, 1948); New atoms. Progress and some memories (Elsevier, New York, USA, 1950); Nutzbarmachung der Energieder Atomkerne (Deutsches Museum, Munich, Germany, 1950); Atomenergie und Frieden by Lise Meitner and Hahn (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), Vienna, Austria, 1954); Cobalt 60. Gefahr oder Segen für die Menschheit (Musterschmidt Wissenschaftlicher Verlag, Göttingen, Germany, 1955); Vom Radiothor zur Uranspaltung (Friedrich Vieweg and Son, Braunschweig, Germany, 1962); Otto Hahn: a scientific autobiography (MacGibbon and Kee, London, 1967); Mein Leben (Bruckmann, Munich, Germany, 1968); My life, translated by Ernst Kaiser and Eithne Wilkins (Macdonald, London, 1970).

CONTENT

Scope and content/abstract:

Typescript text in German entitled 'Beziehungen zu Nichtariern' ('Relationships with non-Aryans'), dated Jul 1945, relating to the treatment of Otto Hahn's Jewish friends and colleagues in Germany, 1933-1945. Also a copy of his biography, Mein Leben (Bruckmann, Munich, Germany, 1968).

ACCESS AND USE

Language/scripts of material: German

System of arrangement:

2 items

Conditions governing access:

Open, subject to signature of reader's undertaking form.

Conditions governing reproduction:

Copies, subject to the condition of the original, may be supplied for research use only. Requests to publish original material should be submitted to the Trustees of the Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives, attention of the Director of Archive Services.

Physical characteristics:

Finding aids:

Summary guide entry on-line at http://www.kcl.ac.uk/lhcma/top.htm,and published in hard copy in the Centre's reading room.

ARCHIVAL INFORMATION

Appraisal, destruction and scheduling information:

Accruals:

Archival history:

Immediate source of acquisition:

Presented to the Centre by Jean Loudon in 1999 and 2001

ALLIED MATERIALS

Existence and location of originals:

Existence and location of copies:

Related material:

Publication note:

DESCRIPTION NOTES

Note:

Archivist's note: Revised by Kate O'Brien, July 2003.

Rules or conventions: ISAD (G) second edition; NCA rules for the construction of personal, place and corporate names, 1997.

Date(s) of descriptions: Aug 1999 and July 2003


INDEX ENTRIES
Subjects
Antisemitism | Racial discrimination
Jews | Religious groups
Scientists | Scientific personnel | Personnel | People by occupation | People
War | International conflicts
World War Two (1939-1945) | World wars (events) | Wars (events)
International relations
Religion

Personal names

Corporate names

Places
Germany | Western Europe | Europe