Johannes Stark: Gaining Power Through Politics

Johannes Stark is, through my eyes, the most famous Nazi scientist of the many that willingly participated with the National Socialists. The flagrant anti-Semitism that Stark illustrated through his vicious attacks on the ideas of modern physics, along with a number of physicists, made him both an “intriguing subject and the perfect villain” (Walker 5). Stark used his political leverage as a dedicated “National Socialist” to achieve his goals, not only becoming a well-respected man throughout much of the Third Reich, but also having a significant influence over science in Germany. I am not writing this blog to speak of Johannes Stark’s long, story-filled career as a Nazi scientist, but, I am writing this blog in regard to Stark’s movement (co-founder with Phillip Lenard), Deutsche Physik. Stark used this “movement” and his anti-Semitism as a means to gain power and influence within the Third Reich.

Before the shift in control over Germany took place, Stark was a conservative German scientist looking to strengthen his career and power. Stark concluded that it was necessary to make a connection with politics as “a weapon to use against those who had kept him a pariah for so long” (Walker 13).

At the time, around the year 1923, Germany was still recovering from the humiliation that was suffered at the conclusion of World War I, looking for a government and leader that would successfully lead Germany into the future. Seeing that the Weimar Republic was a weak puppet government, one set up in hope of spreading the ideals behind Democracy, it was clear that Germany would not simply transform into a Democratic state, thus causing a plethora of underground movements to occur. The biggest of these underground movements was Hitler and his National Socialist movement. Stark publicly supported the NSDAP and he would conform to the beliefs of the National Socialists as a means to better his career. And though it is evident that Stark truly was an anti-Semite, he nonetheless used his hatred for Jews with the intention of establishing a link with the political figures of the NSDAP, giving Stark the power and influence that he so desperately desired, thus permitting him to quickly rise within the ranks of German scientists.

The Deutsche Physik movement emphasized three characteristics: oppose modern physics as a conservative physicist, oppose Jewish scientists and “the physics they created” (Walker 13), and lastly, the opposition of the internationalist stand by the nationalist scientist of Germany. If this “movement” is not a brainless, unintelligent method in promoting future progression in science, than I don’t know what is. And Mark Walker accurately summed up the Deutsche Physik movement what he stated that, “These physicists had nothing new to offer in the way of science, and are best characterized by what they rejected” (Walker 13).

Johannes Stark shared little in common with his fellow German scientists. In fact, Stark was neither recognized nor respected throughout much of the scientific community in Germany, even though he won a Novel Prize in 1921, being viewed as a vicious, close-minded. Yet Stark convinced himself that he had the “right ideas” necessary to promote successful progress in the field of science, and when Stark realized that the Weimar Republic was not willing to give him the opportunity to “oversee” the study of science in Germany, Stark selfishly looked to the NSDAP, conforming in hopes of raising his status within Germany’s scientific community. “Stark found in National Socialist circles the honor and recognition as an important scientist that his fellow academics had denied him” (Walker 15). Thanks to Hitler and the National Socialists, Stark gained a great deal of influence over science in Germany, and his “reach”, meaning what he could accomplish and what he couldn’t, extended far, even awarding him with two presidencies over important scientific institutions.

However, Stark’s attempt to control the studies being done and the works being published, as a sort of totalitarian leader over science in Germany, came to an end in 1937 when it became apparent that Stark threatened both intellectual and scientific freedom. Stark’s strong support for Hitler and the National Socialists carried him only so far, overtime becoming clear that he was not qualified to hold any sort of high-ranking position in a scientific community that was, and should always be, solely based on the “brain” of the scientist. Johannes Stark used his conservative stance, his anti-Semitism and his support for the NSDAP as a mean to gain positions within the scientific community that he was most definitely not qualified for and it was Stark’s Deutsche Physik movement that allowed him to establish a short-lived favorable connection with the NSDAP.