Max Planck

DEUTSCHKURSE | Harry-Folge-043-Landeskunde-Bild
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Harry travels from one end of Germany to the other to stop the dangerous experiment at the Max Planck Institute. Actually, he could have stopped off in Göttingen, a small university town in the heart of Germany, along the way. That's where the man the institution is named after was buried. He's one of eight Nobel Prize laureates whose final resting place is in the city's cemetery.

Despite his great gift for music, Max Planck (1858 - 1947) pursued an academic career in physics. He was teaching at the university level by the age of 23, first in Munich, then in Kiel and Berlin. In 1913, he served as dean of the university in Berlin. In 1918, Planck was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for his discovery of the Planck constant, also known as Planck's quantum of action. When the Nazis seized power in 1933, Planck was 74 years old. As president of a renowned scientific institution, the KWG (Kaiser Wilhelm Society), he initially agreed to work in the service of the government. But when his Jewish colleagues were expelled, he protested by resigning from office. After the Second World War, Planck moved to Göttingen and devoted himself to the reconstruction of the KWG. It was reopened in 1946 and, in his honor, renamed the Max Planck Institute.