In the 1960s, I had reason to discuss with my friend the late Annemarie Weber, a muscle physiologist, the morality of ethologist Karl von Frisch's decision to continue his studies on honeybee communication during the Second World War (see M. L. Winston Nature 533, 32–33; 2016).

Annemarie's father, Hans Weber, had been removed from his post as professor at the University of Tübingen because he was an opponent of the Nazis. Too famous to be harmed, he was instead transferred to a minor university in East Prussia. Her precise but nuanced response to me was: “After the war, my father would have tea with von Frisch — but dinner, never.”