Bethe is honored (finally) by German university

The man who is probably the world's most famous living scientist is receiving recognition from his university -- 78 years after he left.

The scientist is Hans Bethe, professor of physics emeritus at Cornell, winner of the Nobel Prize for physics in 1967 and a key figure in the development of the first atomic bomb. For two years, from 1924 to 1926, Bethe, who was born in Strasbourg, then part of Germany, attended the University of Frankfurt. He left to study with Arnold Sommerfeld at the University of Munich, receiving his doctorate in 1928.

An undated photo of Hans Bethe, right, and his father, Albrecht, from the University of Frankfurt archives.

For nearly 80 years, through the rise of Hitler, World War II, the division of Germany and then its reunification, the university (the full name of which is Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main) has failed to recognize its famous student, who left Germany in 1935, after he was dismissed from his post at the University of Tübingen following the adoption of Hitler's anti-Jewish laws (Bethe's mother was Jewish). But Wednesday, June 30, in a ceremony at the university, Bethe was awarded an honorary doctorate.

Bethe, who will be 98 on July 2, was unable to attend the ceremony. Instead, the document was presented to his half brother, Klaus Bethe, who lives in Germany.

The eminent scientist already has a copy of his degree, presented in person on April 14 by Horst Schmidt-Böcking, the retired dean of the Frankfurt University Physics Department, who traveled to Ithaca to make the award. "It is a small copy signed by me. And I shook his hand warmly," recalls Schmidt-Böcking. He says that Bethe remembered well the room in the old part of the university where the official ceremony was held.

But Bethe is no stranger to the university, having been a post-World War II visiting lecturer there in the early 1950s and as recently as the 1980s. He was, however, until recently a stranger to his high school, the Frankfurt Gymnasium, which he attended from 1915 to 1924. All of the school's records were destroyed in World War II and, says Schmidt-Böcking, "they had no idea that Bethe had been a student there."

Said Schmidt-Böcking, "We will fight to make the name of Hans Bethe well known in the city."

Bethe also was an instructor at the university from 1928 to 1929. And his father, Albrecht, a widely respected physiologist, accepted a professorship there in 1915, when Hans was 9 years old. Albrecht Bethe also was rector of the university from 1917 to 1918.