ScienceNow: It’s not quite a rehabilitation. But a new study clears Dutch physics Nobel laureate Petrus “Peter” Debye of the most serious accusations that arose last year after publications about his past in Nazi Germany. Debye, who succeeded Albert Einstein at the helm of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physics in Berlin in 1934, was not an anti-Semite or a Nazi, the study concludes--but it knocks him for opportunism.
For the UNESCO section chief, “striking a balance between global coherence and respect for national ownership and cultural diversity is both essential and complex.”
May 13, 2026 01:46 PM
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