Deutsche Physik

Deutsche Physik (literally: "German Physics") or Aryan Physics (German: Arische Physik) was a nationalist movement in the German physics community in the early 1930s opposed to the work of Albert Einstein and other modern theoretically based physics, labeled "Jewish Physics" (German: Jüdische Physik). The term was taken from the title of a 4-volume physics textbook by Nobel Laureate Philipp Lenard in the 1930s. A pseudoscientific movement, it nonetheless won the support of many eminent physicists in Germany.

This movement began as an extension of a German nationalistic movement in the physics community which went back as far as World War I. On 25 August 1914, during the German invasion of Belgium, German troops used petrol to set fire to the library of the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven. The burning of the library led to a protest note which was signed by eight distinguished British scientists, namely William Bragg, William Crookes, Alexander Fleming, Horace Lamb, Oliver Lodge, William Ramsay, Lord Rayleigh, and J. J. Thomson. In 1915 this led to a counter-reaction in the form of an "appeal" formulated by Wilhelm Wien and addressed to German physicists and scientific publishers, which was signed by sixteen German physicists, including Arnold Sommerfeld and Johannes Stark. They claimed that German character had been misinterpreted and that attempts made over many years to reach an understanding between the two countries had obviously failed. Therefore, they opposed the use of the English language by German scientific authors, editors of books, and translators. A number of German physicists, including Max Planck and the especially passionate Philipp Lenard, a scientific rival of J. J. Thomson, had then signed further "declarations", so that gradually a "war of the minds" broke out. On the German side it was suggested to avoid an unnecessary use of English language in scientific texts (concerning, e.g., the renaming of German-discovered phenomena with perceived English-derived names, such as "X-ray" instead of "Röntgen ray"). It was stressed, however, that this measure should not be misunderstood as a rejection of British scientific thought, ideas and stimulations.

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