James, Steinhauser, Hoffmann, Friedrich One Hundred Years at The
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James, Steinhauser, Hoffmann, Friedrich One Hundred Years at the Intersection of Chemistry and Physics Published under the auspices of the Board of Directors of the Fritz Haber Institute of the Max Planck Society: Hans-Joachim Freund Gerard Meijer Matthias Scheffler Robert Schlögl Martin Wolf Jeremiah James · Thomas Steinhauser · Dieter Hoffmann · Bretislav Friedrich One Hundred Years at the Intersection of Chemistry and Physics The Fritz Haber Institute of the Max Planck Society 1911–2011 De Gruyter An electronic version of this book is freely available, thanks to the support of libra- ries working with Knowledge Unlatched. KU is a collaborative initiative designed to make high quality books Open Access. More information about the initiative can be found at www.knowledgeunlatched.org Aut ho rs: Dr. Jeremiah James Prof. Dr. Dieter Hoffmann Fritz Haber Institute of the Max Planck Institute for the Max Planck Society History of Science Faradayweg 4–6 Boltzmannstr. 22 14195 Berlin 14195 Berlin [email protected] [email protected] Dr. Thomas Steinhauser Prof. Dr. Bretislav Friedrich Fritz Haber Institute of the Fritz Haber Institute of the Max Planck Society Max Planck Society Faradayweg 4–6 Faradayweg 4–6 14195 Berlin 14195 Berlin [email protected] [email protected] Cover images: Front cover: Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physical Chemistry and Electrochemistry, 1913. From left to right, “factory” building, main building, director’s villa, known today as Haber Villa. Back cover: Campus of the Fritz Haber Institute of the Max Planck Society, 2011. The Institute’s his- toric buildings, contiguous with the “Röntgenbau” on their right, house the Departments of Physical Chemistry and Molecular Physics. Below the “Röntgenbau” is the building of the infrared free elec- tron laser. The top-most building on the right houses the Department of Inorganic Chemistry. The Institute’s workshops are located in the two-towered building. The hexagonal structure houses the Theory Department and the Joint Network Center. The two buildings to the left on the lower side of the areal view house the Department of Chemical Physics. The red-roofed building next to Haber Villa is Willstätter House, which houses part of the Theory Department. ISBN 978-3-11-023953-9 e-ISBN 978-3-11-023954-6 Libraryof CongressCataloging-in-PublicationData One hundred years at the intersection of chemistry and physics : the Fritz Haber Institute of the Max Planck Society, 1911–2011 / by Jeremiah James … [et al.]. p. cm. ISBN 978-3-11-023953-9 1. Max-Planck-Gesellschaft zur Förderung der Wissenschaften. Fritz-Haber-Institut. 2. Electro- chemistry–Research–Germany–History. 3. Physics–Research–Germany–History. 4. Haber, Fritz, 1868-1934. I. James, Jeremiah. II. Title: Fritz Haber Institute of the Max Planck Society, 1911–2011. QD558.2.G32M396 2011 541.37072043--dc23 2011028402 BibliograficInformationpublishedby the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available in the Internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de. © 2011 Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG, Berlin/Boston Typesetting: PTP-Berlin Protago-TEX-Production, Berlin Printing and binding: Hubert & Co. GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen Printed on acid-free paper Printed in Germany www.degruyter.com This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 License. For details go to http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/. Contents Preface vii Acknowledgments xi 1 “under my protection and name….” – Origins and Founding of the Institute 1 Haber’sInstituteduringtheFirstWorldWar............... 25 2 The “Golden Years” of Haber’s Institute 35 RebuildingwithintheKaiserWilhelmSociety.............. 48 Research Orientation: Colloid Chemistry and Atomic Structure . 63 PhysicalandTheoreticalChemistry.................... 69 SpectroscopyandQuantumPhysics.................... 81 3 The “National Socialist Model Enterprise” 89 OustersandReorganizations........................ 90 ResearchActivities............................. 107 IntegrationintotheNationalSocialistSystem.............. 119 4 A Patchwork Institute 131 StructureResearchunderLaue....................... 150 TheSpecialCaseofRuska......................... 160 RudolfBrillandtheendoftheLaueera................. 169 5 Reshaping the Fritz Haber Institute 183 ResearchPrograms,InitiatedandExpired................. 184 The Institute for Electron Microscopy (IFE) – between Science and Technology................................. 195 Alexander Bradshaw and Synchrotron Research in Berlin (BESSY) . 206 Fritz Haber Institute as an International Center for Surface Science . 214 6 Current Era 233 UsheringintheInstitute’snexthundredyears.............. 233 TheoryDepartment............................. 235 DepartmentofInorganicChemistry.................... 241 DepartmentofChemicalPhysics...................... 248 DepartmentofMolecularPhysics..................... 255 DepartmentofPhysicalChemistry..................... 262 Contents Members of the Advisory Board 1981– 2011 271 List of References 273 Archives 297 List of Figures 299 Index 301 vi Preface The Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physical Chemistry and Electrochemistry was established in 1911 as one of the first two institutes of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society (KWG). Its successor, the Fritz Haber Institute (FHI), is not only one of the oldest and most tradition rich institutes of the Max Planck Society (MPG), but also one of the most distinguished, with the highest number of affiliated Nobel Laureates of any KWG/MPG institute. These include Fritz Haber, the founding director, the later directors Max von Laue, Ernst Ruska and Gerhard Ertl, and several scientists who served at the Institute in lesser capacities, such as James Franck, Eugene Wigner and Heinrich Wieland. The Institute has been not only a hub of scientific excellence and productivity but also an active participant in the history of the 20th century. It played a central role in German poison-gas research and the conduct of chemical warfare during World War I. It was particularly hard-hit by Nazi racial policies and was revamped into a “National Socialist Model Enterprise;” then to remain productive during the Cold War, it had to assert itself in a territorially insular and politically precarious West-Berlin. In order to do justice to the complex scientific and political history of the FHI, the Institute’s Board of Directors, prompted by the approaching centenary of the Institute (and of the KWG/MPG), offered support in 2007 for a broad historical investigation of the Institute from its inception to the present. The Centennial Group, established in response to the Board’s initiative in the Fall of 2008 and comprised of the undersigned, launched a research project to examine in detail the changing relationships between this long-standing scientific Institute, its rapidly expanding scientific subject matter and the tumultuous political history of the past hundred years. Although historians and social scientists alike have published several studies on the overarching Kaiser Wilhelm and Max Planck Societies, they have not lavished similar attention on the individual research institutes.1 For the FHI in particu- lar, there have been noteworthy, purpose-driven studies that have attempted to span the entire history of the Institute, but they remain quite brief and were not intended to present balanced historical accounts.2 Certain KWG/MPG institutes have also garnered space in broader historical works, and the FHI is prominent among them. In these histories, however, the FHI is often a bit player in what are 1 Brocke, Laitko, KWG Institute. 2 Chmiel, Hansmann, Krauß, Lehmann, Mehrtens, Ranke, Smandek, Sorg, Swoboda, Wurzenrainer, Bemerkungen;MPG,FHI I. New edition: MPG, FHI II. Preface primarily biographies of famous scientists such a Fritz Haber,3 Michael Polanyi,4 Peter Adolf Thiessen5 and Robert Havemann.6 Or, since the Institute was so closely coupled to social and political events, it appears as a prominent part of mono- graphs focused on topics such as the founding of the KWG,7 poison gas research8 and Nazi era science.9 Although detailed and well-founded, the sum of these stud- ies fails to provide a balanced history of the Fritz Haber Institute. Still wanting was an historical study of the Institute, supported by archival research, that presented a long-term view of the Institute, and hence could more adequately address the rapid and sustained changes in the intellectual content of the sciences to which it contributed and in the societies, both scientific and political, that supported it. The founding of the KWG amounted to the third in a series of institutional innovations – after the founding of the Berlin University (1810) and of the Imperial Institute of Physics and Technology (1887) – which originated in Berlin and helped shape the modern research system. In a sense, the founding of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physical Chemistry and Electrochemistry can be regarded as one of the consequences of the Prussian “Althoff System,” credited with the modernization of education and research structures in Germany. It came about in reaction to forewarnings by numerous prominent scientists and science-policy makers about the waning of Germany’s scientific and technological superiority relative to the US and to other European nations. In hindsight, the founding of the KWG in general and of the KWI for Physical Chemistry and Electrochemistry in particular