Abstract
THE centre of physics teaching and research at the University of Heidelberg, hitherto known simply as the Physikalisches Institut, has recently been solemnly renamed the Philipp-Lenard-Institut. On December 13, at what the local Press justifiably called a unique ceremony, the Minister of Education (Kultusminister), Dr. Wacker, deputising for Reichsminister filr Wissen-schaft, Erziehunq und Volksbildung Dr. Rust, who was unable to attend owing to illness, formally dedicated the building. His speech may be summarised in a sentence taken from it which, literally translated, reads: “It is, then, very superficial to speak of science ‘as such5, as a common property of mankind, equally accessible to all peoples and classes and offering them all an equal field of work. The problems of science do not present themselves in the same way to all men. The Negro or the Jew will view the same world in a different way from the German investigator.” Prof. J. Stark, the president of the Reichsanstalt, who followed him, was, according to the German report, “particularly zealous against the followers of Einstein and attacked with the greatest frankness the scientific methods of Prof. Planck, who, as is notorious, even to-day stands at the head of a celebrated learned institution !” The ceremony concluded with a Sieg-Heil and the Horst-Wessel song.
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Philipp-Lenard-Institut at Heidelberg.: Ceremonial Dedication. Nature 137, 93–94 (1936). https://doi.org/10.1038/137093a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/137093a0