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?