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Science 3 March 2006:
Vol. 311. no. 5765, p. 1239
DOI: 10.1126/science.311.5765.1239a
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Newsmakers

Figure 1
Fallen from Grace. Two universities in the Netherlands have distanced themselves from Dutch physicist and 1936 Nobel laureate Peter Debye after new revelations about Debye's closeness to the German Nazi regime. Utrecht University said last week that it will rename its Debye Institute--a decision the institute director calls "hasty"--and Maastricht University will no longer award the Peter Debye Prize for science unless the foundation sponsoring the award renames it.

Debye succeeded Albert Einstein as director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physics in Berlin in 1934 and remained until 1939, when he left and took a job at Cornell University. Although Debye was known to have helped expel Jews from the German Physical Society, which he chaired in 1938, he has often been painted as an apolitical figure. But in a recent dissertation, science journalist and historian Sybe Rispens claims Debye displayed considerable loyalty to the Nazi regime, signing personal letters with "Heil Hitler" and offering to return to Berlin as late as 1941. Rispens also discovered a letter showing that Einstein tried to prevent Debye from getting a U.S. job.

Maastricht University has announced a new, more thorough study of Debye's life; the former Debye Institute will undertake one as well, says its director, Leo Jenneskens. He says he would have preferred to keep the name for now, but he was overruled by the university board. And the American Chemical Society, which has an annual Peter Debye Award for Physical Chemistry, is looking into the matter as well.

CREDIT: AP PHOTO; PTT POST




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