It was not just biologists and medical doctors who supported Hitler in large numbers, but also physicists. Nobel laureate Philipp Lenard and Professor Johannes Stark opposed not only Jews but even what they called “Jewish physics,” the research conclusions of Jewish scientists, such as the work produced by Albert Einstein.46 Lenard, Stark and others argued the work of Aryan physicists was superior to that of “Jewish science.” Part of their opposition to Jews was “Einstein’s avowed pacifism, internationalism, and
Support of Zionism.”47
Lenard’s loyalty to Nazism was revealed in an “ecstatic statement in favor of Hitler and the Nazi party” that he had published early in the history of the Nazi movement.48 Although strident anti-Semitism by physicists such as by Lenard was not the norm, “a milder version was widespread.” Bernstein concluded that
Von Laue was almost the only German physicist who publicly continued to lecture on relativity, attributing the theory to Einstein, and he courageously opposed Nazi physicists at every step in their efforts to gain control of German physics.49
It was not only Jews that the Aryan scientists opposed, but also those few who spoke out on behalf of Jews, such as Max Planck who opposed the appointment of anti-Semite mathematician Theodor Vahlen to the German Academy. Even “Planck’s retirement did not free him from the attacks of the Aryan physicists” that resulted from his stand against anti-Semitic scientists.50 Planck was merciously ridiculed by Aryan scientists as “no physicist,” and his work was condemned as nothing but “mathematical reworking stumbling after experimental results.”51 Hitler achieved strong support not only from many scientists, but also the entire academic community including philosophers and historians. Elie Wiesel wrote that one of the major shocks of his adult life came the day he
Discovered that many of the officers of the Einsatzgruppen—the death commandos in Eastern Europe-had received degrees from Germany’s best universities. Some held doctorates in literature, others in philosophy, theology, or history. They had spent many years studying, learning the lessons of past generations, yet nothing kept them from killing Jewish children at Babi Y ar, in Minsk, Ponar. Their education provided them with no shield, no shelter from the temptation and seduction of cruelty that people may carry within.52
World History
