In the Name of Science?

In the name of science? P.J.W. Debye and his career in Nazi Germany describes and analyses the highly successful career of the Dutch physicist and Nobel prize winner P.J.W. Debye (1884-1966) in the Third Reich. The book sketches the life of a man who lived for science, but at the same time maintained close contacts with influential officials, industrialists and sometimes even politicians. In this context Debye declined to respond in public to the treatment of Jews in society in general and in science in particular, even after his migration to the United States in 1940. By combining a biographical perspective with network analysis and research on contemporary moral assessments, this book sheds new and disturbing light on Debye's socio-political worldview and his involvement in the Aryanisation of German science