| Abstract: | As President of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society and its successor, the Max Planck Society, from 1946 until 1960, Otto Hahn (1879–1968)
sought to portray science under the Third Reich as a purely intellectual endeavor untainted by National Socialism. I outline
Hahn’s activities from 1933 into the postwar years, focusing on the contrast between his personal stance during the National
Socialist period, when he distinguished himself as an upright non-Nazi, and his postwar attitude, which was characterized
by suppression and denial of Germany’s recent past. Particular examples include Hahn’s efforts to help Jewish friends; his
testimony for colleagues involved in denazification and on trial in Nuremberg; his postwar relationships with émigré colleagues,
including Lise Meitner; and his misrepresentation of his wartime work in the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Chemistry. |
