Hitler the Scientist: How Pseudo-Science and Anti-Semitism Shaped Hitler's Destiny

Introduction

When Hitler came to power in 1933, he promised the German people a technocratic state where science, education and intelligence would grow and flourish. However, many of his promises failed, due largely to his own education and understanding of science.

Hitler’s schooling was a troubled time, where he struggled with many areas of education, especially so with science and its place in the world. For example, he found difficulties accepting competing views from science and religion, such as evolution and creationism, which, in his words, caused him to ‘run his head against the wall’. He was also heavily educated in alternatives to science and religion such as myths, magic and the pseudo-sciences. Unfortunately, these educational problems followed him into adulthood where, as Fuhrer, his mentality and mindset towards science was highlighted when he described his ideology by saying: ‘A new age of magic interpretation of the world is coming, of interpretation in terms of the Will and not the Intelligence.’

Hitler’s ideology and rise to power also came at an interesting time for physics. The early decades of the twentieth century saw a revolution occurring in two key areas known as quantum mechanics and relativity. Whereas today, physicists realize these two theories must combine, at the time of Hitler, they were seen as competing theories by the Nazis. Quantum mechanics was the brainchild of non-Jewish German physicist Max Planck, while relativity was the brainchild of Jewish physicist Albert Einstein. It was quantum mechanics that the Nazis believed was important to their physics research and development of new weapons for their war machine, while relativity was seen as a justification for anti- Semitism and rejection of Jewish science. Yet Hitler’s intellectual strains from childhood and his inability to grasp these theories and the many other scientific advances of the early twentieth century remained steadfast.

Both quantum mechanics and relativity had important connections to the decade preceding Hitler’s rise to power, leading to the Aryan physics under his dictatorship. Both were replacing the ideas of classical physics developed by the likes of Galileo Galilei and Isaac Newton, providing better theories that would have a dramatic influence on the physics community to this day. Gone was the idea of a determined or clockwork universe, replaced instead by a universe governed by probabilities and a new way to interpret reality. It is no surprise these two theories would also influence the physics of the Third Reich and the approaching world war. Furthermore, Einstein had experienced significant anti-Semitic attacks during the decade as he quickly became the first science celebrity following proof of his theory—proof that was difficult for the Nazis to accept. To add to this situation, many of his anti-Semitic enemies of the time later found posts in Hitler’s government.

On the one hand, quantum mechanics suggested a strange underlying world governing physics and a new way of understanding reality, where the observer determined that reality. As war approached, it became clear that just by observing an experiment, the scientist could change reality and the outcome of that experiment. This was particularly exciting to the Nazis, who sought new and hidden sciences; in its early stages, quantum mechanics looked like a gateway into the magical beliefs of Hitler and willpower. On the other hand, Einstein had been attacking quantum mechanics during the 1920s with his view that ‘God does not play dice with the Universe’, referring to its probabilistic properties breaking with a determined or clockwork universe of classical physics. Einstein also dismissed certain elements crucial to Nazi pseudo-science, like the belief in an ether.

As a result, this played perfectly into the hands of Nazi Germany by providing justification for anti-Semitism and rejection of relativity as they turned instead to quantum mechanics. In short, these two theories inevitably allowed the Third Reich to both support its pseudo-scientific beliefs and anti-Semitism in one package, a situation that was set to drag on and drag down Hitler’s ambitions, only amplifying his problems as the war progressed. By using the so-called ‘magical properties’ of quantum mechanics in the hope it would provide new wonder weapons against the Allies, the Nazis believed they could win the war. As such, these two theories aptly demonstrated how Nazi Germany chose to go down a route of experimental applied physics rather than the Jewish theoretical physics that had dominated the years leading up to war, and introduced their pseudo-scientific beliefs into their research too. With this rejection of Jewish theoretical physics, Hitler actually put yet another obstacle in his way to victory.

As Hitler prepared to tear up the Versailles Treaty in stages to release Germany from the restrictions it proposed to his technocratic state, the Third Reich called for a spirit of gleichschaltung (marching in step) so that all were in co-ordination, an effort that was essentially designed to shape public opinion in his own revolution of a National Socialist state. This spirit was to apply to all areas of life, including science, education, technology, medicine, research and even psychology and the media. To this end, efforts were made by Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels to brainwash and manipulate the people, while equally determined efforts were made by other high-ranking Nazis like Heinrich Himmler, who would play a major role in science and technology side-by-side with pseudo-science.

Importantly, Hitler’s belief of ‘Will, not Intelligence’ appears to have been emphasized in his mind following his first attempt to overthrow the government in 1923. It has been suggested that, with this, he was reaching back into the German culture of Arthur Schopenhauer’s The World as Will and Representation and it is significant that the mastermind behind this and Nazi occultism, General Karl Haushofer, not only was an avid scholar of Schopenhauer but also was one of the individuals who visited Hitler in his prison cell during 1924. Furthermore, as well as being an avid scholar of Schopenhauer, Haushofer was also the architect of Nazi geopolitics, with its own interpretation of lebensraum (living space), which played a major part in Hitler’s invasion of other countries and the necessary science and technology that required. It was quantum mechanics and the will of the observing scientist during experiments that fitted well with Schopenhauer’s ideas and Hitler’s education.

This set in motion a battle between science, education and Hitler’s ‘Will not Intelligence’, leading to events such as the famous book burnings encouraged and orchestrated by Goebbels, who said: There was no point in seeking to convert the intellectuals. For intellectuals would never be converted and would anyway always yield to the stronger, and this will always be the man in the street. Arguments must therefore be crude, clear, and forcible, and appeal to the emotions and instincts, not the intellect. Truth was unimportant and entirely subordinate to tactics and psychology.

Unsurprisingly, many of the reforms initiated throughout the Third Reich involving science and education were based on Hitler’s troubled school years: reforms that saw a bias towards the unconventional and a continued lack of understanding of true science, which was replaced by Nazi pseudo-science, magic and even the occult. In order to achieve this, Hitler and Himmler worked together as theorist and facilitator, respectively, while twisting the position so as to regard pseudo-sciences as the true Aryan sciences, while actual true sciences became the pseudo-sciences (especially relativity). This inevitably led to the politicizing of science in all branches, which quickly became ‘Aryan sciences’ with Aryan physics, Aryan chemistry, Aryan biology, Aryan mathematics and so on. From there, science experienced an era of division and decline, with the loss of freedom and diversity, misapplication of innovation, and the inevitable decline in some areas of the natural sciences, especially physics, as all disciplines strived to be acceptable to National Socialism.

Within days of coming to power, Hitler set his destiny in motion as his brownshirts invaded scientific research and educational institutes across the country. Having little or no choice, German scientists readily turned over their civilian science institutions, the Kaiser Wilhelm Institutes. Immediately upon this invasion, the first wave of Jewish scientists were dismissed, with non-Jews, often with inferior qualifications and experience, replacing them. Following their dismissals, the lucky ones managed to escape the country one way or another, while the unlucky ones ended up in concentration camps or were simply murdered, again in the name of pseudo-science. The justification for this and further waves of dismissals was the pseudo-scientific view of National Socialist Germany and a radically hygienic body, where the body politic expelled unwanted pathogens. Put in its simplest terms, the Jewish scientists were seen as being rejected by the body’s immune system, like germs; a further expansion eliminated any lives that were considered not worthy of living.

After the brownshirts had succeeded in their task, a split occurred: some scientists were only too willing to jump into some form of Nazi uniform, while others fought to maintain a distance from politics, arguing that science was apolitical. In the case of medical doctors and anthropologists, this desire to conform was particularly strong, leading to the horrific medical experimentations on concentration camp inmates. Some scientists, preferring to support an apolitical viewpoint, introduced an element of sabotage, where they tried their best to exercise selective ignorance to deprive Hitler of certain advances; a particular example is the enigma surrounding one German quantum physicist, Werner Heisenberg, who appeared to have mental blocks involving the physics necessary to develop an atomic bomb. This led to the good scientist/bad scientist scenario still debated today when scientists and politicians co-operate.

However, the desire to pursue pseudo-science was equally strong, and under the Third Reich, there was an intense quest to investigate the scientific basis of esoteric and occult notions, no matter how bizarre or flawed they appeared to be, in order to discover new science and its possible application to wonder weapons. Interestingly, the occultist element was kept from the German people and largely pursued within Himmler’s SS Ahnenerbe (Ancestral Heritage), an organization prepared to explore all areas of research, including the occult, and in particular the origins of the Aryan bloodline and proof of its superiority. Amongst the many efforts of the Ahnenerbe was the task of finding new and hidden sciences within ancient manuscripts, which became a key area of global research for the Nazis. However, despite the rejection of Jewish science, by the desperate last years of war, the Nazis did include elements of Jewish research in an attempt to win the war.

All this clearly affected Hitler’s war machine and the many technologies it relied upon, especially with the development of the atomic bomb, which was largely Jewish science. However, those who saw worth in conventional areas, like rocketry, managed to push ahead, even if Hitler was initially sceptical and cold towards such research. The justification for such research was not only its necessity as part of the war machine, but it was Aryan in the sense that it was largely experimental or applied physics, and not Jewish theoretical physics. However, it was not without its share of problems, with waste, duplication, delayed deadlines and infighting. There were also problems causing a serious split between science and pseudo-science, resulting in even further duplication, wastage, loss and infighting between competing power cartels. Indeed, the infighting was even encouraged by Hitler and regarded as a positive. As Himmler’s Ahnenerbe took more control over scientific research, the problems increased, as did the ineptitude.

By the war’s end, Himmler’s SS had taken control of much of Nazi scientific research; with the unthinkable dawning on the Nazis (that they might lose the war), Hitler placed SS General Hans Kammler in charge of producing new wonder weapons, even super weapons, through his own think tank along the lines of the Ahnenerbe. Kammler was only one rank below Himmler, working with him in an intense effort to turn the war around. To the very end, Hitler continued to declare that these weapons from Kammler would save Nazi Germany, putting strain on his generals by ordering troops to make a last ditch attempt to protect certain areas that his generals did not fully understand; areas that made no tactical sense as the D-Day invasion progressed. Once again, Hitler had failed to understand the true situation. Meanwhile, Kammler and Himmler had other plans.

It is clear the foundations Hitler set in place after coming to power, based on his upbringing and schooling, shaped his destiny as Fuhrer and the ability of the Nazis to win the war. Consequently, over time the promised veneer of scientific and educational modernization under his technocratic state suffered seriously; although this did not initially cause his government to collapse, it neither allowed it to thrive anywhere close to the many promises he made to the German people.

All this was a far cry from Germany’s scientific research of the nineteenth century, which saw staggering achievements spanning almost a century up to Hitler’s rise to power. These golden years built an unrivalled global reputation from the foundations of chemistry in all areas organic, inorganic and industrial. Furthermore, this was an era that also created advances in the associated area of medicine and ran parallel to major discoveries in other disciplines like astronomy and physics. In doing so, the subject of chemistry had greatly expanded Germany’s economy; by the early twentieth century, with the creation of the Nobel Prize, German and German-speaking scientists, including Einstein, had won over half of its prizes in chemistry, physics and medicine. However, it was not just the sciences that saw advances during the golden years: there were also advances in subjects like history, literature and philosophy.

Whereas such an unequalled series of national advances and discoveries should have placed Germany in a good position to win a world war, the Nazis failed to take full advantage of the opportunities, despite Hitler’s claims that he planned to build on the golden years. Again, it was his inability to understand science and how science worked, in particular, that stood in his way. It is clear the golden years had provided great advances in science for both sides, especially during the Weimer period, but it was the Allies who really fully appreciated its opportunities and took advantage of fleeing Jewish scientists, while Germany failed to do so under a dictator focused on pseudo-science and seething anti-Semitism, aided by his like-minded, high-ranking Nazis.

Chapter One

Missed Opportunities and the Mind of Hitler

Before Hitler came to power in 1933, Germany had gone through a scientific rollercoaster lasting over a century, with the country developing from an agricultural society to one of scientific envy throughout the world. Then, with the First World War, the country’s scientific reputation collapsed, only to recover during the 1920s and then further during the Second World War, but for many of the wrong reasons.

This rollercoaster started in the early 1800s with what is regarded as the golden years of chemistry, with successes spreading to other areas of science as industry and academia benefited from one new discovery after another. However, because of developments in harmful chemicals, this golden period eventually led to the horrors of chemical warfare during the First World War; the gassing of enemy troops in their trenches clearly led to Germany losing in scientific reputation. Following the war, the scientific communities of the world turned their backs on Germany, adding to the restrictions and sanctions generally imposed as part of their unconditional surrender; Germany was defeated in science as it was in war.

Matters did improve during the years between the two world wars, but only to end up in a further decline of scientific reputation as a result of the next war under Hitler. Scientifically speaking, we found a chemists’ war turning into a physicists’ war as the world built on the golden years of Germany’s science.

The chemical revolution within Germany started back in 1824, and although Hitler would talk of this period, and promise the people great advances as a result, we will see that scientifically he was technologically lacking, mentally strained, and clearly did not fully appreciate the significance of how that revolution played out and the essential connections it forged. In short, the lessons learned by both German scientists and the state from 1824 to the First World War did not appear as important to Hitler and were demolished in part thanks to his mindset. Consequently, this deprived the Nazi war machine of many advantages they might otherwise have taken onboard. As we will see later, this mindset was a result of his schooling, and both science and education itself would feature highly in his reforms after he came to power; often these reforms were far from positive.

During the nineteenth century, the golden years revolutionized the German economy as it brought together many scientific discipline like physics, chemistry, mathematics, pharmaceuticals, dyes, electrical power, iron and steel production, and the liquification of gases, to name but a few. The result of all this was to set the scene for the scientific connections that would become part of the war machine in both world wars. For example, whereas the liquification of gases served to weaponize the gassing of troops in the trenches during the First World War, it went on to develop liquid propellants for rockets such as the V-2, increasing their power ever further as new fuels and engineering developed. There was also the discovery of the electromagnetic spectrum, a band of radiation stretching from radio and microwaves to infra-red, visible light, ultraviolet radiation, X-rays, and gamma rays. This one area of electromagnetism allowed both conventional and unconventional technology, including the development of radar and radio communications on the conventional side of science, as well as less conventional attempts involving exotic new weapons that the Nazis particularly considered as a result of their love of pseudo-science. Those weapons included electromagnetic disruption, death rays, long-range X-ray guns, and even flying discs, or what we might today call ‘flying saucers’. Many of these exotic ideas were based on unsound science like endless free energy from mysterious sources.

There were also serious consequences for race and anti-Semitic propaganda with the dismissal of Jewish sciences and the rise of Aryan sciences, including the search for Aryan purity through genetics; this had serious consequences with medical experimentation in the death camps. In short, under Hitler there would no longer be physics, chemistry, biology and mathematics, but Aryan physics, Aryan chemistry, Aryan biology and Aryan mathematics. To fully understand how all this came together and its consequences, we need to look deeper into those golden years of discovery.

The foundations in chemistry leading to the First World War had been laid early by the likes of Justus von Liebig who, in 1824, founded a laboratory at Giessen where he would train large numbers of chemists. Liebig is probably best known for his discovery of the nitrogen cycles, finding a law now named after him. This law states that plant growth is limited by the element’s presence in soil in the least adequate quantity; this helped Germany both to improve its agriculture amongst a young growing population and develop its science, which freed it from dependency on other nations. However, in later years under Hitler, the subject of chemistry became a toxic mix, as it provided a means of both giving life and taking it away, something that Hitler had become aware of during the gassing of troops during the First World War. Ironically, although Hitler saw gassing as distasteful, he would later use its advances in the gas chambers of concentration camps to rid the Third Reich of Jews and others he found undesirable or not worthy of living. Much of the efficiency of such camps was delegated by Hitler in later years to Hans Kammler, a doctor of engineering who was a ruthless, evil and cold-minded SS general. In addition to his skills in building, he improved the efficiency of the concentration camp gas chambers and ovens. Yet, on the other hand, as part of Hitler’s health policies for a hygienic and healthy Aryan race the scientific advances in medicines and foods coming from chemistry would play a very different role.

The discovery of the nitrogen cycle was followed in 1828 by important biological developments when Friedrich Wohler converted ammonium cyanate into urea, an important molecule that until then could only be synthesized by living organisms; now it was possible to artificially produce it in the laboratory. With this discovery chemists realized they were on the brink of something big: a whole new world of manufacturing a host of substances that do not occur in nature. Then, in 1841, a student at Liebig’s laboratory, August Wilhelm von Hofmann, received his doctorate for a thesis on the derivations of coal tar, a waste product from burning coal. One of these substances was aniline, which would prove an important substance in the new world of chemistry for its use in chemical transformations. In the past aniline had been distilled from indigo, but this new method would prove more productive. As a result of this discovery, Hofmann wondered whether artificial dyes could be obtained from coal tar, a thought that would eventually develop into reality following a royal visit four years later.

It was then that Queen Victoria and Prince Albert visited Bonn to celebrate the seventy- fifth anniversary of Beethoven’s birth, and while visiting Hofmann in his laboratory, a set of rooms Prince Albert once lodged in while a student, the prince invited him to head the Prince’s new Royal College of Chemistry in Oxford Street, London, an invitation Hofmann readily accepted. It was there that he was able to bring together a group of chemists, both British and German, and in doing so selected and directed various research projects for them, allowing an entire new industry to be born in his new laboratory.

One of Hofmann’s chemists was a 17-year-old student by the name of William Perkin who, in 1856, found himself working on a way to make quinine from coal tar. It was then he stumbled upon a process for making a rich artificial dye yielding the colour of mauve. He immediately realized the commercial possibilities of this popular colour and left Hofmann’s laboratory behind to set up a rapidly successful, but modest, business with his father. Following the setting up of the business, the colour mauve quickly became the rage of Europe with the French Empress declaring the colour matched her eyes, while Queen Victoria decided to promote the discovery by wearing a vivid mauve dress to a wedding. Hofmann continued in his quest for other artificial dyes, eventually producing colours such as violets, reds, greens and blues.

However, despite the discoveries being made in Britain, it was to be Germany that reaped the industrial and commercial benefits of these new products. Germany, unlike Britain, was looking for more than a short-term investment, so they invested heavily in new technology aimed at exploiting the new chemical techniques. They also actively pursued patents and market strategies to ensure a monopoly for Germany. Following this, many chemistry graduates migrated to England to gain experience in industry but then returned to Germany to take part in the Fatherland’s expanding industries. Perkins himself did not like this situation and complained bitterly that Britain was losing out with its short- sighted approach to the opportunities possible from this new industry, especially those he had helped to develop.

Back in the 1800s, such co-operation between academia and industry was seen as more important with an expansion in the number of universities and general educational institutions; there were new education investments in schools of chemistry set up in Giessen, Heidelberg, Berlin and Bonn. It was at Bonn that August Kekule, a Bohemian- born chemist, discovered the benzene ring with the famous story of the chemical links coming to him in a dream when he saw atoms linked like a serpent grabbing its own tail in its mouth. This discovery eventually proved essential for the future chemical formulae of many carbon-based molecules. However, this is a significant point that Hitler would miss in many ways because of his extremely warped ideas about both science and education. This missed opportunity would make a significant difference to how science played out under his dictatorship; whereas he expanded industry as part of his war effort, co-operation suffered, with many self-inflicted wounds. Instead, Hitler introduced significant damage to education, as well as a corrupt regime. Moreover, where there was co-operation, it was usually only when it suited the Nazi physicists.

In contrast, German industry and academia of the past sported a host of chemical achievements, many coming as a result of dye technologies. These included Bayer’s organic chemistry laboratory in Munich, and F.W. Beneke’s successful staining of plant and animal cells with aniline dyes in the 1860s. This then led to the realization by Paul Ehrlich in Frankfurt that it was possible to develop techniques for staining biological cells, highlighting particular parts of the cell’s structure. For example, the important nucleus of a cell was highlighted green using methyl green, while cytoplasm highlighted other parts in red and in doing so gave colour-coded visualization. Following on from this, Ehrlich’s cousin, Carl Weigert, showed that methyl violet highlighted bacteria, which in turn helped Robert Koch’s research in Berlin on bovine anthrax bacillus and tuberculosis. All these achievements revolutionized biology, giving birth to the new science of biochemistry.

From this starting point in dyes, German chemistry went on to other areas, including the new global pharmaceutical industry. This is highlighted by the development of aspirin in the 1890s at the Bayer plant, which transformed pain and fever control. Meanwhile at Hoechst am Main, Albert Einhorn’s invention of novocaine had its own revolutionary influence in local anaesthetics, especially in dentistry. With such German achievements mounting, Ehrlich went on to win the Nobel Prize for Salvarsan, a synthetic pharmaceutical product for the treatment of syphilis. Indeed, by the start of the First World War, German chemistry had reduced the costs of products dramatically while also flooding the world with its new products, including medicines, soaps, paints, inks, dyes, explosives, fertilizers, improvements in iron and steel production and much more.

Physics also saw developments which further aided biological achievements when Carl Zeiss set up his famous optical instrument workshop in Jena. Not only did this help subjects like biology, pathology, histology and embryology through the development of the microscope, it also helped advance areas of physics such as astronomy with better optics from which telescopes could advance further. By the end of the nineteenth century, the German optical industry was also flourishing, resulting in Carl Zeiss and Ernst Leitz’s companies becoming world leaders in optics, while also providing industrial and production improvements, reducing costs and making the German optical instruments far cheaper and of better quality compared to their rivals.

At this stage, industry and universities were closely associated, enjoying ever-greater personal ties, contracts, formalized research and the production and flow of trained chemists from universities to industry. Consequently, well-funded research establishments flourished with new ones being developed, bringing everything into a mutual, professional framework. This also led to a reductionist approach to science, especially biology, narrowing the scope of scientific enquiry and abandoning the associations with philosophy. In the case of biology, scientists would seek to understand its workings and mechanics on the smallest scales of atoms and molecules, with the foundation of these approaches being credited to Liebig. In fact, through his training of future chemists, Liebig also proved to be instrumental in the rejection of vitalism and speculation about the meaning of living things, concentrating instead on the physico-chemical components of biology and its processes.

Ironically, these were just the areas needed by the Nazis, but the route, methods and co-operation necessary to achieve this were not completely appreciated by Hitler; although he encouraged a form of ‘togetherness’, it was in his unique form thanks to his unconventional schooling in science, with his own ideas about education and academic co-operation with industry. Nevertheless, some areas did strike a chord with him. For example, it was Liebig’s training of chemists and his instrumental rejection of vitalism and speculation and the meaning of living things through physico-chemical components that had a profound influence on Hitler. This was particularly significant with his search for the perfect Aryan race and its origins, driven by genetics and racism, but the medical and pharmaceutical advances of the past would lead to the horrors of medical experimentation on concentration camp detainees as a result. Hitler also believed in a strong race connection with unconventional areas of physics, especially in astronomy, with a universe he and Himmler believed was made of ice; another pseudo-scientific idea that linked the origins of the Aryan race with shoots from ice.

In short, what escaped Hitler was the essential co-operation between industry and academia and the organization of the many parts involved in such achievements, as well as a clear understanding of how science really works.

Another key German scientist from the golden years was Hermann Helmholtz, who brought together physics and physiology, being qualified in both disciplines. Helmholtz made many contributions to science in these areas; so much so that he became known as the ‘Reich Chancellor of Physics’. Helmholtz was also a key contributor to the understanding of electromagnetism and, in particular, its connection with the so-called ether and Einstein’s theory of relativity, something we will come to in detail later because the ether was a key pseudo-scientific belief of the Nazis that connected with their ideas about electromagnetism, gravity and exotic weaponry.

Helmholtz was born in 1821 in Potsdam. His father taught philosophy and literature, and his mother was a descendent of William Penn, the founder of the US state of Pennsylvania. Helmholtz thrived on scholarship; his father taught him Latin, Greek, Hebrew, French, Italian and Arabic and he showed a talent for physics in the early years of his schooling. His unusual dual skill as a physicist and physician was due to his father being unable to afford his tuition in physics at university; however, to study medicine, there was financial assistance. So, in 1838 he entered the Friedrich Wilhelm Institute in Berlin to study medicine and physiological studies.

Dominating the subjects of physics and physiology during the latter half of the nineteenth century, Helmholtz developed a list of achievements in both these scientific disciplines that is quite amazing. Throughout his life, Helmholtz’s phenomenal intellectual capacity and grounding in philosophy were at the basis of his work and this was encouraged through his supervisor, Johannes Muller, who was also interested in various ideas promoted by philosophers. However, during his working life, Helmholtz rejected many ideas of the philosopher Immanuel Kant which his supervisor subscribed to, in particular the assumption that the organism as a whole is greater than the sum of its parts. As a result, Helmholtz’s work was guided by an effort to disprove these fundamentals, convinced instead that living things did not possess an innate vital force and that their life forces are driven by the same forces, and obey the same principles, as non-living systems. It was a further sign of science narrowing and breaking from philosophy.

Helmholtz’s doctoral submission in 1842 concerned the relationship between the nerve fibres and nerve cells of invertebrates which led to an investigation into the nature and origin of animal heat, after which he went on to investigate muscle action. Following his training as a doctor, Helmholtz became a surgeon in the military, but it soon became clear he had a stronger ability in science than medicine and he was released from his military duties in 1848. As a result of his work, by 1848 he had discovered that animal heat and muscle action are generated by chemical changes in the muscles, leading to his appointment as associate professor of physiology at Konigsberg the following year. This appointment placed him on a more suitable career path which allowed him in 1850 to measure the velocity of nerve impulses, after being stimulated by a statement from Muller that vitalism caused the impulses to be instantaneous. Helmholtz measured the impulse velocity of a frog by experimentation and found it to be about a tenth of the speed of sound. In 1855, he moved to Bonn to become professor of anatomy and physiology, and then in 1858 he was appointed professor of physiology at the University of Heidelberg. He finally took up a scientific post in 1871 as the chair of physics at the University of Berlin, and in 1887 became director of the new Physico-Technical Institute (later called PTR) of Berlin.

To give some examples of his dual physics and physiology work, he developed the first precise formulation of the principle of the conservation of energy, which is one of the most important principles in physics; he was the first to measure the speed of nerve impulses; he invented the ophthalmoscope; and he revealed the mechanism by which the ear senses tone and pitch. He also worked with thermodynamics, observed that the energy of life processes is derived entirely from oxidation of food, and derived a general equation that expressed the kinetic energy of a moving body as being equal to the product of the force and distance through which the force moves to bring about the energy change—that could then be used in many fields to show that energy is always conserved, which is another basic principle of physics. Helmholtz also went on to develop thermodynamics in physical chemistry, advancing the German efforts further in the chemical research that would be so important to the country. He also worked with acoustics, producing a comprehensive explanation for how the upper partials in sound combine to give them a particular tone or timbre, and how resonance may cause this to happen, for example, in the mouth cavity to produce vowel sounds. He also produced an important paper in 1858 in hydrodynamics in which he established the mathematical principles that define motion in a vortex. Again, this will link to the vorticular motion that would become another important element of Nazi physics while supporting their ideas about the ether through which electromagnetic waves were thought to move. Vortex ideas would also come into James Clerk Maxwell’s work in understanding electromagnetism. In biological research, Helmholtz’s work on nerve impulses would lead him to important discoveries in the physiology of vision and hearing, and also revived the three-colour theory of vision first proposed in 1801 by Thomas Young who, like Helmholtz, was both a physicist and physician. Helmholtz also took the physics of classical mechanics to its limits, paving the way for other German scientists who developed a radical departure from tradition with the modern physics of quantum mechanics and relativity in the early twentieth century. As we will see, these two theories were destined to become further key elements of Nazi physics, but for different reasons: one positive (quantum mechanics) and one negative (Jewish relativity).

These are just a sample of the many achievements Helmholtz made to German science during the latter half of the nineteenth century, an era he dominated with his wide range of work, and in doing so brought the achievements of German science to the forefront of world attention as well as serving as a great inspiration to others, not least his many students.

Helmholtz died in 1894 without seeing how his work would develop in important associated areas and new discoveries during the early decades of the next century, although he was spared the future visions of his advances when the Nazis attempted to build on his discoveries with medical experimentations performed on concentration camp inmates.

Advances in Germany led to others throughout the world. One key area was the understanding of electromagnetism, which eventually led to those two new theories of quantum mechanics and relativity, significant areas in our understanding of Nazi physics, and both great German discoveries. We start our story at the time of Helmholtz, when a Scottish physicist by the name of James Clerk Maxwell was developing his own theories involving electromagnetism, one of the four fundamental forces