Johannes Stark (, 15 April 1874 – 21 June 1957) was a German

physicist A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe. Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate cau ...

who was awarded the

Nobel Prize in Physics ) , image = Nobel Prize.png , alt = A golden medallion with an embossed image of a bearded man facing left in profile. To the left of the man is the text "ALFR•" then "NOBEL", and on the right, the text (smaller) "NAT•" then " ...

in 1919 "for his discovery of the Doppler effect in canal rays and the splitting of spectral lines in electric fields". This phenomenon is known as the

Stark effect The Stark effect is the shifting and splitting of spectral lines of atoms and molecules due to the presence of an external electric field. It is the electric-field analogue of the Zeeman effect, where a spectral line is split into several compo ...

. Stark received his Ph.D. in physics from the

University of Munich The Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (simply University of Munich or LMU; german: Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München) is a public research university in Munich, Germany. It is Germany's sixth-oldest university in continuous operatio ...

in 1897 under the supervision of

Eugen von Lommel Eugen Cornelius Joseph von Lommel (19 March 1837, Edenkoben – 19 June 1899, Munich) was a German physicist. He is notable for the Lommel polynomial, the Lommel function, the Lommel–Weber function, and the Lommel differential equation. ...

, and served as Lommel's assistant until his appointment as a lecturer at the

University of Göttingen The University of Göttingen, officially the Georg August University of Göttingen, (german: Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, known informally as Georgia Augusta) is a public research university in the city of Göttingen, Germany. Founded ...

in 1900. He was an

extraordinary professor Academic ranks in Germany are the titles, relative importance and power of professors, researchers, and administrative personnel held in academia. Overview Appointment grades * (Pay grade: ''W3'' or ''W2'') * (''W3'') * (''W2'') * (''W2'', ...

Leibniz University Hannover Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz University Hannover (german: Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Universität), also known as the University of Hannover, is a public research university located in Hanover, Germany. Founded on 2 May 1831 as Higher Vocational Sc ...

from 1906 until he became a professor at

RWTH Aachen University RWTH Aachen University (), also known as North Rhine-Westphalia Technical University of Aachen, Rhine-Westphalia Technical University of Aachen, Technical University of Aachen, University of Aachen, or ''Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hoch ...

in 1909. In 1917, he became professor at the

University of Greifswald The University of Greifswald (; german: Universität Greifswald), formerly also known as “Ernst-Moritz-Arndt University of Greifswald“, is a public research university located in Greifswald, Germany, in the state of Mecklenburg-Western Pom ...

, and he also worked at the

University of Würzburg The Julius Maximilian University of Würzburg (also referred to as the University of Würzburg, in German ''Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg'') is a public research university in Würzburg, Germany. The University of Würzburg is one of ...

from 1920 to 1922. A supporter of

Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Germany from 1933 until his death in 1945. He rose to power as the leader of the Nazi Party, becoming the chancellor in 1933 and the ...

from 1924, Stark was one of the main figures, along with fellow Nobel laureate

Philipp Lenard Philipp Eduard Anton von Lenard (; hu, Lénárd Fülöp Eduárd Antal; 7 June 1862 – 20 May 1947) was a Hungarian-born German physicist and the winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1905 for his work on cathode rays and the discovery of ...

, in the anti-Semitic ''

Deutsche Physik ''Deutsche Physik'' (, "German Physics") or Aryan Physics (german: Arische Physik) was a nationalist movement in the German physics community in the early 1930s which had the support of many eminent physicists in Germany. The term was taken ...

'' movement, which sought to remove Jewish scientists from German physics. He was appointed head of the

German Research Foundation The German Research Foundation (german: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft ; DFG ) is a German research funding organization, which functions as a self-governing institution for the promotion of science and research in the Federal Republic of Germ ...

in 1933 and was president of the Reich Physical-Technical Institute from 1933 to 1939. In 1947 he was found guilty as a "Major Offender" by a

denazification Denazification (german: link=yes, Entnazifizierung) was an Allied initiative to rid German and Austrian society, culture, press, economy, judiciary, and politics of the Nazi ideology following the Second World War. It was carried out by remov ...

court.

Biography

Early years

Born in Schickenhof,

Kingdom of Bavaria The Kingdom of Bavaria (german: Königreich Bayern; ; spelled ''Baiern'' until 1825) was a German state that succeeded the former Electorate of Bavaria in 1805 and continued to exist until 1918. With the unification of Germany into the German ...

(now Freihung), Stark was educated at Bayreuth Gymnasium (secondary school) and later in

Regensburg Regensburg or is a city in eastern Bavaria, at the confluence of the Danube, Naab and Regen rivers. It is capital of the Upper Palatinate subregion of the state in the south of Germany. With more than 150,000 inhabitants, Regensburg is the ...

. His collegiate education began at the

, where he studied physics,

mathematics Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics ...

chemistry Chemistry is the scientific study of the properties and behavior of matter. It is a natural science that covers the elements that make up matter to the compounds made of atoms, molecules and ions: their composition, structure, proper ...

, and

crystallography Crystallography is the experimental science of determining the arrangement of atoms in crystalline solids. Crystallography is a fundamental subject in the fields of materials science and solid-state physics ( condensed matter physics). The wor ...

. His tenure at that college began in 1894; he graduated in 1897, with his

doctoral A doctorate (from Latin ''docere'', "to teach"), doctor's degree (from Latin ''doctor'', "teacher"), or doctoral degree is an academic degree awarded by universities and some other educational institutions, derived from the ancient formalism '' l ...

dissertation titled ''Untersuchung über einige physikalische, vorzüglich optische Eigenschaften des Rußes '' (Investigation of some physical, in particular optical properties of soot).

Career

Stark worked in various positions at the Physics Institute of his alma mater until 1900, when he became an unsalaried

lecture A lecture (from Latin ''lēctūra'' “reading” ) is an oral presentation intended to present information or teach people about a particular subject, for example by a university or college teacher. Lectures are used to convey critical infor ...

r at the

. An extraordinary professor at

Hannover Hanover (; german: Hannover ; nds, Hannober) is the capital and largest city of the German state of Lower Saxony. Its 535,932 (2021) inhabitants make it the 13th-largest city in Germany as well as the fourth-largest city in Northern Germany ...

by 1906, in 1908 he became professor at

. He worked and researched at physics departments of several universities, including the

, until 1922. In 1919, he won the

for his "discovery of the

Doppler effect The Doppler effect or Doppler shift (or simply Doppler, when in context) is the change in frequency of a wave in relation to an observer who is moving relative to the wave source. It is named after the Austrian physicist Christian Doppler, who ...

canal rays An anode ray (also positive ray or canal ray) is a beam of positive ions that is created by certain types of gas-discharge tubes. They were first observed in Crookes tubes during experiments by the German scientist Eugen Goldstein, in 1886. Late ...

and the splitting of spectral lines in electric fields" (the latter is known as the

). From 1933 until his retirement in 1939, Stark was elected President of the

Physikalisch-Technische Reichsanstalt The Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB) is the national metrology institute of the Federal Republic of Germany, with scientific and technical service tasks. It is a higher federal authority and a public-law institution directly under f ...

, while also President of the

Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft The German Research Foundation (german: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft ; DFG ) is a German research funding organization, which functions as a self-governing institution for the promotion of science and research in the Federal Republic of Germ ...

. It was Stark who, as the editor of the ''Jahrbuch der Radioaktivität und Elektronik'', asked in 1907, then still rather unknown,

Albert Einstein Albert Einstein ( ; ; 14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist, widely acknowledged to be one of the greatest and most influential physicists of all time. Einstein is best known for developing the theor ...

to write a review article on the

principle of relativity In physics, the principle of relativity is the requirement that the equations describing the laws of physics have the same form in all admissible frames of reference. For example, in the framework of special relativity the Maxwell equations ha ...

. Stark seemed impressed by relativity and Einstein's earlier work when he quoted "the principle of relativity formulated by H. A. Lorentz and A. Einstein" and "Planck's relationship ''M''₀ = ''E''₀/''c''²" in his 1907 paper in

Physikalische Zeitschrift ''Physikalische Zeitschrift'' (English: ''Physical Journal'') was a German scientific journal of physics published from 1899 to 1945 by S. Hirzel Verlag. In 1924, it merged with ''Jahrbuch der Radioaktivität und Elektronik''. From 1944 onwards, ...

, where he used the equation ''e''₀ = ''m''₀''c''² to calculate an "elementary quantum of energy", i.e. the amount of energy related to the mass of an electron at rest. While working on his article, Einstein began a line of thought that would eventually lead to his generalized theory of relativity, which in turn became (after its confirmation) the start of Einstein's worldwide fame. This is ironic, given Stark's later work as an anti-Einstein and anti-relativity propagandist in the ''Deutsche Physik'' movement. Stark published more than 300 papers, mainly regarding

electricity Electricity is the set of physical phenomena associated with the presence and motion of matter that has a property of electric charge. Electricity is related to magnetism, both being part of the phenomenon of electromagnetism, as describe ...

and other such topics. He received various awards, including the

Nobel Prize The Nobel Prizes ( ; sv, Nobelpriset ; no, Nobelprisen ) are five separate prizes that, according to Alfred Nobel's will of 1895, are awarded to "those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind." Alfr ...

, the Baumgartner Prize of the Vienna Academy of Sciences (1910), the Vahlbruch Prize of the

Göttingen Academy of Sciences Göttingen (, , ; nds, Chöttingen) is a university city in Lower Saxony, central Germany, the capital of the eponymous district. The River Leine runs through it. At the end of 2019, the population was 118,911. General information The or ...

(1914), and the

Matteucci Medal The Matteucci Medal is an Italian award for physicists, named after Carlo Matteucci from Forlì. It was established to award physicists for their fundamental contributions. Under an Italian Royal Decree dated July 10, 1870, the Italian Society ...

of the Rome Academy. Probably his best known contribution to the field of

physics Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which ...

is the

, which he discovered in 1913. In 1970 the

International Astronomical Union The International Astronomical Union (IAU; french: link=yes, Union astronomique internationale, UAI) is a nongovernmental organisation with the objective of advancing astronomy in all aspects, including promoting astronomical research, outreac ...

honored him with a

crater Crater may refer to: Landforms * Impact crater, a depression caused by two celestial bodies impacting each other, such as a meteorite hitting a planet * Explosion crater, a hole formed in the ground produced by an explosion near or below the surf ...

on the far-side of the moon, without knowing about his Nazi activities. The name was dropped on August 12, 2020. He married Luise Uepler, and they had five children. His hobbies were the cultivation of fruit trees and forestry. He worked in his private laboratory, which he set up using his Nobel prize money, on his country estate in Upper Bavaria after the second world war. There he studied the deflection of light in an electric field.

Affiliation with Nazism

From 1924 onwards, Stark supported Hitler. During the

Nazi Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in ...

regime, Stark attempted to become the

Führer ( ; , spelled or ''Fuhrer'' when the umlaut is not available) is a German word meaning "leader" or " guide". As a political title, it is strongly associated with the Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler. Nazi Germany cultivated the ("leader princip ...

of German physics through the ''

'' ("German physics") movement (along with fellow Nobel laureate

) against the "Jewish physics" of

and

Werner Heisenberg Werner Karl Heisenberg () (5 December 1901 – 1 February 1976) was a German theoretical physicist and one of the main pioneers of the theory of quantum mechanics. He published his work in 1925 in a Über quantentheoretische Umdeutung kinematis ...

(who was not Jewish). After Werner Heisenberg defended Albert Einstein's

theory of relativity The theory of relativity usually encompasses two interrelated theories by Albert Einstein: special relativity and general relativity, proposed and published in 1905 and 1915, respectively. Special relativity applies to all physical phenomena in ...

, Stark wrote an angry article in the official SS newspaper ''

Das Schwarze Korps ''Das Schwarze Korps'' (; German for "The Black Corps") was the official newspaper of the ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS). This newspaper was published on Wednesdays and distributed free of charge. All SS members were encouraged to read it. The chief edit ...

'', calling Heisenberg a "White Jew". On August 21, 1934, Stark wrote to physicist and fellow Nobel laureate

Max von Laue Max Theodor Felix von Laue (; 9 October 1879 – 24 April 1960) was a German physicist who received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1914 for his discovery of the diffraction of X-rays by crystals. In addition to his scientific endeavors with con ...

, telling him to toe the party line or suffer the consequences. The letter was signed off with "Heil Hitler." In his 1934 book '' Nationalsozialismus und Wissenschaft'' (English: "National Socialism and Science") Stark maintained that the priority of the scientist was to serve the nation—thus, the important fields of research were those that could help German arms production and industry. He attacked theoretical physics as "Jewish" and stressed that scientific positions in

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...

should only be held by pure-blooded Germans. Writing in ''Das Schwarze Korps'', Stark argued that even if

racial antisemitism Racial antisemitism is prejudice against Jews based on a belief or assertion that Jews constitute a distinct race that has inherent traits or characteristics that appear in some way abhorrent or inherently inferior or otherwise different from ...

were to triumph, it would only be a 'partial victory' if 'Jewish' ideas were not similarly defeated: "We also have to eradicate the Jewish spirit, whose blood can flow just as undisturbed today as before if its carriers hold beautiful

Aryan Aryan or Arya (, Indo-Iranian *''arya'') is a term originally used as an ethnocultural self-designation by Indo-Iranians in ancient times, in contrast to the nearby outsiders known as 'non-Aryan' (*''an-arya''). In Ancient India, the term ...

passes".Stone, Dan "Nazi Race Ideologues", in ''Patterns of Prejudice'', Volume 50, Issue 4-5 (2016), p. 452. In 1947, following the defeat of Germany in

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

, Stark was classified as a "Major Offender" and received a sentence of four years' imprisonment (later suspended) by a

court.

Later life and death

Stark spent the last years of his life on his Gut Eppenstatt near Traunstein in Upper Bavaria, where he died in 1957 at the age of 83. He was buried in

Schönau am Königssee Schönau am Königssee is a municipality in the district of Berchtesgadener Land in the German state of Bavaria. It is located at the northern end of the Königssee lake. Geography Schönau is surrounded by the Berchtesgaden Alps; it is the s ...

in the mountain cemetery.UKw
''Ausflug in die Vergangenheit''
Bericht vom 9. Juli 2013 im Berchtesgadener Anzeiger über eine geschichtliche Führung von Alfred Spiegel-Schmidt über den ''Bergfriedhof'', online unter ''berchtesgadener-anzeiger''

Publications

* ''Die Entladung der Elektricität von galvanisch glühender Kohle in verdünntes Gas.'' (Sonderabdruck aus 'Annalen der Physik und Chemie', Neue Folge, Band 68). Leipzig, 1899 * ''Der elektrische Strom zwischen galvanisch glühender Kohle und einem Metall durch verdünntes Gas.'' (Sonderabdruck aus 'Annalen der Physik und Chemie', Neue Folge, Band 68). Leipzig, 1899 * ''Aenderung der Leitfähigkeit von Gasen durch einen stetigen elektrischen Strom.'' (Sonderabdruck aus 'Annalen der Physik', 4. Folge, Band 2). Leipzig, 1900 * ''Ueber den Einfluss der Erhitzung auf das elektrische Leuchten eines verdünnten Gases.'' (Sonderabdruck aus 'Annalen der Physik', 4. Folge, Band 1). Leipzig, 1900 * ''Ueber elektrostatische Wirkungen bei der Entladung der Elektricität in verdünnten Gasen.'' (Sonderabdruck aus 'Annalen der Physik', 4. Folge, Band 1). Leipzig, 1900 * ''Kritische Bemerkungen zu der Mitteilung der Herren Austin und Starke über Kathodenstrahlreflexion.'' Sonderabdruck aus 'Verhandlungen der Deutschen Physikalischen Gesellschaft', Jahrgang 4, Nr. 8). Braunschweig, 1902 * ''Prinzipien der Atomdynamik. 1. Teil. Die elektrischen Quanten.'', 1910 * ''Schwierigkeiten für die Lichtquantenhypothese im Falle der Emission von Serienlinien.'' (Sonderabdruck aus 'Verhandlungen der Deutschen Physikalischen Gesellschaft', Jg. XVI, Nr 6). Braunschweig, 1914 * ''Bemerkung zum Bogen – und Funkenspektrum des Heliums''. (Sonderabdruck aus 'Verhandlungen der Deutschen Physikalischen Gesellschaft.', Jg. XVI, Nr. 10). Braunschweig, 1914 * ''Folgerungen aus einer Valenzhypothese. III. Natürliche Drehung der Schwingungsebene des Lichtes.'' (Sonderabdruck aus `Jahrbuch der Radioaktivität und Elektronik', Heft 2, Mai 1914), Leipzig, 1914 * ''Methode zur gleichzeitigen Zerlegung einer Linie durch das elektrische und das magnetische Feld.'' (Sonderabdruck aus 'Verhandlungen der Deutschen Physikalischen Gesellschaft.', Jg. XVI, Nr. 7). Braunschweig, 1914 * ''Die gegenwärtige Krise der deutschen Physik'', ("The Thoroughgoing Crisis in German Physics") 1922 * ''Natur der chemischen Valenzkräfte'', 1922 * ''Hitlergeist und Wissenschaft'', 1924 together with

* ''Die Axialität der Lichtemission und Atomstruktur'', Berlin 1927 * ''Atomstruktur und Atombindung'', A. Seydel, Berlin 1928 * ''Atomstrukturelle Grundlagen der Stickstoffchemie.'', Leipzig, 1931 * ''Nationalsozialismus und Katholische Kirche'', ("National Socialism and the Catholic Church") 1931 * ''Nationalsozialismus und Katholische Kirche. II. Teil: Antwort auf Kundgebungen der deutschen Bischöfe.'', 1931 * ''Nationale Erziehung'', 1932 * ''Nationalsozialismus und Wissenschaft'' ("National Socialism and Science") 1934 * * ''Physik der Atomoberfläche'', 1940 * ''Jüdische und deutsche Physik'', ("Jewish and German Physics") with

Wilhelm Müller Johann Ludwig Wilhelm Müller (7 October 1794 – 30 September 1827) was a German lyric poet, best known as the author of ''Die schöne Müllerin'' (1823) and ''Winterreise'' (1828), which Franz Schubert later set to music as song cycles. Life ...

, written at the

in 1941 * ''Nationale Erziehung, Zentrumsherrschaft und Jesuitenpolitik'', undated * ''Hitlers Ziele und Persönlichkeit'' ("Hitler's Aims and Personality"), undated

Notes

References

* Andreas Kleinert: ''"Die Axialität der Lichtemission und Atomstruktur". Johannes Starks Gegenentwurf zur Quantentheorie.'' In: Astrid Schürmann, Burghard Weiss (Eds.): ''Chemie – Kultur – Geschichte. Festschrift für Hans-Werner Schütt anlässlich seines 65. Geburtstages.'' Berlin u. Diepholz 2002, pp. 213–222.

External links

Pictures of a Danish translation of Stark's ''Adolf Hitler: Aims and Personality''
* Klaus Hentschel (ed.) Physics and National Socialism. An Anthology of Primary Sources., Birkhäuser-Verlag, Basel, 1996; 2. Aufl. 2011, . * * including the Nobel Lecture, June 3, 1920 ''Structural and Spectral Changes of Chemical Atoms'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Stark, Johannes 1874 births 1957 deaths 20th-century German physicists German Nobel laureates Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich alumni Optical physicists Nazis Nobel laureates in Physics People from Amberg-Sulzbach People from the Kingdom of Bavaria Relativity critics Spectroscopists University of Göttingen faculty University of Greifswald faculty University of Hanover faculty University of Würzburg faculty Recipients of the Matteucci Medal RWTH Aachen University faculty