Der Kernphysiker Rudolf Fleischmann und die Medizin an der Reichsuniversität Straßburg (1941–1944)

Abstract

Under German occupation in World War II,Alsace-Lorraine was subjected to politically enforced Germanization. One means was science policy. The newly founded research institute of the medical school of the University of Strasbourg for instance was modeled on the Heidelberg Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Medical Research of Ludolf von Krehl, incorporating institutes for internal medicine, physics and chemistry, and housing very modern research facilities. The expansion created tremendous professional opportunities for young German scientists like Rudolf Fleischmann, who worked in Strasbourg until the liberation, when he was taken as prisoner by the allied intelligence mission "Alsos." Released in 1946, Fleischmann started a second career in Hamburg and Erlangen, where he died in 2002. In one of his last interviews, which he gave to the author of this paper, he called the Strasbourg period a prerequisite for establishing his own scientific reputation.