Gerlach, Walther

physicist

Born: 01.08.1889 in Biebrich

died: 10.08.1979 in Munich

Gerlach studied physics and natural sciences in Tübingen. He obtained his doctorate in 1912 with a study on "black radiation". In 1916, he habilitated in Tübingen with a thesis on thermal radiation. In 1920, he became an assistant at the Institute of Physics at the University of Frankfurt am Main, where he was appointed associate professor the following year. He became known in the field for his proof of directional quantization in the Stern-Gerlach experiment. In 1925 he became a full professor of physics in Tübingen, and from 1929-57 a full professor of experimental physics at the University of Munich.

In the early years of the "Third Reich", Gerlach worked closely with other colleagues to resist the attacks on physics, which was slandered as "Jewish". During the Second World War, Gerlach initially worked on problems of magnetism on behalf of the navy. As a nuclear physicist, he was appointed head of the physics division in the central Reich Research Council in 1943, and from January 1944 he was responsible for the secret German uranium project in Berlin; he aimed to build a functioning and energy-generating nuclear reactor. Whether his work was intended to produce an atomic bomb remains unclear to this day.

After the end of the war, Gerlach and nine other German nuclear physicists were interned by the Americans and British in Farm Hall near Cambridge until January 1946. There they learned of the dropping of the American atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

In April 1957, Gerlach was one of the 18 leading German nuclear physicists who publicly pointed out the dangers of nuclear weapons in the "Declaration of the Göttingen 18" and spoke out against equipping the German armed forces with nuclear weapons.

He was honored many times for his achievements. He was a senator of the Max Planck Society and received four honorary doctorates. In 1971 he was awarded the Grand Federal Cross of Merit and in 1974 the Harnack Medal. He was also a member of the Peace Class of the Order Pour le Mérite.