Letters: Peter Debye

Was Debye a Nazi sympathizer and/or collaborator (C&EN, March 6, page 19)? Did he hold anti-Semitic views? Was he willing to accommodate the views of the Nazi regime? These are some of the questions being raised by Sybe Rispens' recently published book, "Einstein in Nederland," available only in Dutch (Amsterdam: Anbo, 2006). These questions entered the public arena in January after the prepublication of excerpts from Rispens' book in the newspaper Vrij Nederland.

Subsequently, several other Dutch newspapers and television and radio stations also covered or picked up the story. This media coverage generated a furor in the Netherlands, a country that, because of the Nazi occupation, has a very high degree of sensitivity to anything resembling Nazi collaboration.

On Feb. 16, the Universities of Utrecht and Maastricht announced that they had removed Debye's name from their universities. At the University of Utrecht, they stripped the Debye name from the Debye Institute of Physics & Chemistry of Nanomaterials & Interfaces. The University of Maastricht (Debye's hometown) stopped awarding a Debye scientific award because, in their view, Debye could no longer serve as a role model for young scientists. A spokesman from the University of Utrecht stated, "Maybe he was forced to do it [purge Jews from the German Physical Society], but he did it anyway." "He did not act fiercely enough to defend academic freedom," said a spokeswoman from the University of Maastricht.

Given the close relationship that Debye had with our department and his extraordinary contributions to the science of chemistry, we felt that it was our duty and responsibility to investigate and respond to this situation. However, at the same time, we did not feel that a rush to judgment was in anyone's interest, especially when our department did not know what the facts were, what the situation was at the time, and all of the ethical complexities involved.

We have looked closely at the available historical record during Debye's time as director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Physics (KWIP) and as president of the German Physical Society as well as after his departure from Germany to the U.S. and during and after the war years. This was done with the help of Mark Walker, a science historian from Union College, who coauthored with Dieter Hoffmann an article in the December 2004 issue of Physics Today (pages 52-58) titled "The German Physical Society under National Socialism," in which Debye's presidency of the German Physical Society was discussed and analyzed.

On the basis of the information to date, we have not found evidence supporting the accusations that Debye was a Nazi sympathizer or collaborator or that he held anti-Semitic views. It is important that this be stated clearly since these are the most serious allegations.

On the other hand, the charge that he might have been willing to accommodate the views of the Nazi regime presents a more difficult and nuanced case. One can ask why Debye sought positions of influence, both as director of KWIP and as president of the German Physical Society when he must have known that he would have to enforce the Nuremberg Laws. Why did he wait so long before leaving Germany? Was it so that he could help the few remaining non-Aryans in the German Physical Society or KWIP? Was his departure simply a matter of seizing opportunities to further his scientific interests? One could also ask why he never provided an explanation or rationalization for his actions at the time.

While Debye did not leave an explicit written record addressing these points, his actions in support of the U.S. war effort are well-documented. For example, in his 1986 book "The Making of the Atom Bomb," Richard Rhodes writes (pages 331-332):

"He [Szilard] traveled again to Princeton to see Einstein; they worked up another letter and sent it under Einstein's signature to Sachs [their contact with Roosevelt]. It emphasized the secret German uranium research at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute, about which they had learned from the physical chemist Peter Debye, the 1936 Nobel Laureate in chemistry and the director of the physics institute in Dahlem, who had been expelled recently to the United States, ostensibly on leave of absence, when he refused to give up Dutch citizenship and join the Nazi Reich."

It is worth remembering that it was this second letter from Einstein to Roosevelt that served as the catalyst for the Manhattan Project.

In addition, Debye's work on polymers used in dielectrics for radar and on synthetic rubber, which was key in the U.S. war effort, and which he undertook very soon after entering this country, is well-documented. (See, for example: The Robert A. Welch Foundation Conferences on Chemical Research, 20 (1977), pages 154-200.)

It is difficult to reconcile these actions (and numerous others) with someone purported to be a Nazi sympathizer, collaborator, or who holds anti-Semitic views. While Debye was late to leave Germany, he nevertheless did leave, causing considerable difficulties for his family, and once in the U.S., he made significant contributions to the war effort.

Clearly, we would like to have a written record by Debye detailing the rationale for his actions prior to leaving Germany. However, to suggest that the lack of such evidence is in and of itself incriminating is in our view not a defensible position. Should additional evidence be found in the future, we will be ready to evaluate it in a reasoned manner. Nevertheless, we firmly believe that our decisions must be based on the evidence as we know it today.

Thus, on the basis of the information, evidence, and historical record known to date, we believe that any action that dissociates Debye's name from the department of chemistry and chemical biology at Cornell University is unwarranted.

We acknowledge that this subject is one that will continue to be analyzed through the lens of history, and we will remain active participants in such a debate.

Hector D. Abruña
Chair, Department of Chemistry & Chemical Biology, Cornell University
Ithaca, N.Y.

Having read carefully the various documents in the Debye case, I reach a different conclusion from that of my colleagues. I believe Debye collaborated to an unacceptable degree with the Nazi regime in Germany in the 1933-39 period and made no attempt to explain or apologize for his actions thereafter. I believe Cornell should move to dissociate itself from honoring Debye in the way it does now.

While I agree that Rispens' account−which occasioned the recent discussion in the Netherlands−is unreliable, I believe it has served the purpose of making us think about a matter that in the past had been swept under the carpet, so to speak, both in the Netherlands and here at Cornell.

In my opinion, the major problem with what Debye did is the following: In the period 1933-39, Debye took on positions of administration and leadership in German science, aware that such positions would involve collaboration with the Nazi regime. The oppressive, undemocratic, and obsessively anti-Semitic nature of that regime was clear-we see the evidence in Louis Dennis' letters to Alfred Stock in 1933; we see it in the actions of Thomas Mann, Hans Hellmann, and Hans Bethe, and hundreds of other Germans, Jewish or not, who left Germany in 1933 and 1934.

Debye chose to stay and, through his assumption of prominent state positions within a scientific system that was part of the state, supported the substance and the image of the Nazi regime.

If there were family reasons to remain in Germany, Debye could have remained an ordinary (albeit distinguished) professor or researcher. Instead he sought out the directorship of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Physics and the presidency of the German Physical Society (DPG). It was clear to anyone that such posts would put one in the position of enforcing the Nuremberg Laws, removing Jews (just because they were Jews) from their positions and, as we read, dismissing them from professional societies.

The letter expelling the Jewish members of the DPG and its 'Heil Hitler' signature were required of a person in those positions. Debye chose to take on those positions, to work prominently in the German civil service/academic system, which meant working with the Nazis.

I was touched by Hans Wynberg's strong statement in our considerations that Debye was not anti-Semitic. And there is Debye's help to Lise Meitner, in dire conditions. Indeed, there is no written record at all of Debye's being anti-Semitic, nor of direct Nazi sympathies on his part. Nor is there any record of opposition to the Nazis, I would say. I do not accept the statement of strong Nazi supporters among German physicists on Debye's being unreliable (from their point of view) as evidence of his opposition. Nor, with sadness, do I accept the sincere opinions of the Debye family in this matter.

In the end, we have a man's actions. Yes, Debye finally chose to leave Germany and participated in the U.S. war effort. But to me, and many people in the Netherlands, for a Dutch citizen to have made the choices Debye did, and to remain until 1940 in Germany, is evidence of a choice by him of a degree of collaboration with the Nazi regime. There were much worse instances of collaboration than his, to be sure. But to me his collaboration with the Nazi regime is real.

I have pursued this line of reasoning with Mark Walker, who has written on the setting and the DPG; here is what Walker wrote to me (e-mail, March 30, 2006):

"Debye chose, not only to stay in a position of authority, rather to take on positions with more authority, and thereby placed himself in the service of the National Socialist state. On the other hand, I would not agree that this lack of opposition or resistance justifies stripping his name from scientific institutes or grants."

I cite Walker's comment to me in toto, so as not to hide the conclusion he draws in the end. I disagree with that final opinion.

After the war, Debye made no apology for his actions. Richard von Weizsäcker, the wise former German president, said in 1985, "Versöhnung ohne Erinnerung gar nicht geben kann." There can be no reconciliation without remembering. The recent studies of the DPG archives, and even Rispens' journalistic exposé, with all its faults, prompt that remembering. I think Debye's postwar silence shows that he would have liked us to forget.

My opinion is that Cornell should remove Debye's name from a lectureship and from a chaired professorship named after him. Debye's scientific achievements remain. We also have a prominently displayed bust of Debye, and I would propose that it be moved where it belongs, into the faculty lounge, near the photographs of past professors in the department. The various recognitions that these represent honor more than science and, in my opinion, are unwarranted. I believe we made a mistake in setting them up.

Roald Hoffmann
Frank H. T. Rhodes Professor of Humane Letters, Cornell University
Ithaca, N.Y.

I knew Peter J. W. Debye personally as an undergraduate and as a graduate student at Cornell University. He was a very decent man who showed no signs of being anti-Semitic. As I recall, at least one of his postdoctoral students was Jewish. He signed my application for membership in ACS.

It is easy to assume the moral high ground when there is no penalty for doing so and to fault another for not doing so some 68 years later. Those who label Debye an "extreme opportunist" should search their souls to ask themselves whether, knowing the penalties, they would have opposed the regime or would have gone along if they had been in Debye's position in Germany during the Hitler years.

A side note: When I was a graduate student in chemistry, 1951-56, we graduate students would rate eminent scientists in "Debye units." Debye, obviously, had a rating of one Debye unit. For most scientists, one milli-Debye was high praise.

Stephen R. Cohen
Bronx, N.Y.