2

Hitler is reported to have been told by Carl Bosch in 1933 that if Jewish scientists were forced to leave Germany, physics and chemistry would be set back 100 years.

He's reported (in the comments section) to have replied "Then we'll work a hundred years without physics and chemistry":

Soon no one, men or women, at the CSIRO or in university departments will have jobs anyway following the government's threat to cut research funding unless their destructive budget measures are adopted by the senate. There is no great difference between the threats of this government and the notorious statement of the German leader from the 1930s: "Then we'll work a hundred years without physics and chemistry" - his response shouted back to Carl Bosch (then still head of IG Farben, the pre-war chemical conglomerate), who had tried to advise him that if Jewish scientists were forced to leave the country both physics and chemistry would be set back 100 years.

Did he say this?

| improve this question | |
  • 1
    Your hyperlink to smh.com.au/act-news/… doesn't seem to contain that quote. – ChrisW Aug 30 '14 at 8:01
  • @ChrisW I never thought I'd tell someone this, but read the comments. – Andrew Grimm Aug 30 '14 at 8:28
4

The reported German quote is said to be "Dann wird das Reich eben einmal die nächsten hundert Jahre ohne Physik und Chemie ausokommem".

"The German Chemical Industry in the Twentieth Century" describes it as an anecdote, and cites "Karl Holdermann, Im Banne der Chemie: Carl Bosch, Leben und Werk" (Düsseldorf, 1953), 271-273.

I don't know how reliable the cited book is. Someone more knowledgeable about chemistry, German history, or who is fluent in German may be able to dig deeper. Hopefully Germans in the 1950s weren't in the habit of making up bogus quotes to support their own beliefs.

| improve this answer | |
  • 12
    "Throughout history, people everywhere have been in the habit of making up bogus quotes to support their own beliefs." -Konrad Adenauer, 1952 – Nate Eldredge Aug 30 '14 at 13:31
  • 7
    @NateEldredge - "90% of the quotes found on the internet are mostly accurate" - Stephen Hawking, 2012. – user5341 Aug 30 '14 at 22:05
  • 1
    I could not find the original source online; however, it is quoted, among others, in "Presidents of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute under National Socialism", by Ulrike Kohl, 2002. In a footnote, Kohl writes that Holdermann referred to the memoirs of R. Willstätter (a German scientist who fled the country in 1939) and H. Gattineau (a German economist and defendant at the Nuremberg trials). P. Hayes noted (in his "Industry and Ideology") the similarity between the Bosch story and a rumour about Planck visiting Hitler which went around the German physics community in in 1937. – P_S Sep 1 '14 at 12:00

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .