Otto Hahn

Who was Otto Hahn?

Otto Hahn, OBE, ForMemRS was a German chemist and pioneer in the fields of radioactivity and radiochemistry who won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the discovery of nuclear fission. He is regarded as one of the most significant chemists of all times and especially as "the father of nuclear chemistry".

Hahn was an opponent of Jewish persecution by the Nazi Party and after World War II he became a passionate campaigner against the use of nuclear energy as a weapon. He served as the last President of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society in 1946 and as the founding President of the Max Planck Society from 1948 to 1960. Considered by many to be a model for scholarly excellence and personal integrity, he became one of the most influential and revered citizens of the new Federal Republic of Germany.