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How aqua regia saved Nobel Prize medals from the Nazis

15 points by J3L2404 16y ago

srean 16y ago
Interesting set of events. But the artificial dramatization really reeks of a cheap B grade pulp. I am sure the fictionalization could have been done more tastefully. It evokes Sam Spade or Tracer Bullet more than a working chemist. ...taking gold out of Germany was almost a capital offense, carrying a punishment not to be sneezed at. George was certainly not sneezing, but his palms were sweating as if he had a fever and his heart was pounding like a drum.... Perhaps in the near future he would be holding a Nobel Prize of his own. But for now, these two Prizes were all he had, and they were getting smaller.
jws 16y ago
The page is fiction, but it documents fact at the bottom: This be fiction based on a true story. George de Hevesy is credited with dissolving two Nobel Prizes in aqua regia and storing them during the second world war, where they remained unnoticed despite careful searching by the Nazis. The gold was later recovered and recoined, and presented back to the two owners. George de Hevesy won the 1943 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work on radioactive isotopes.
blahedo 16y ago
It's a neat story, and of course by the time the Germans were almost there, disposing of the gold was the only option. But it's a strange interpretation of the word "saved" (or perhaps "medals") in the title that makes the claim that this process actually saved the medals themselves, since they had to be recoined later.
pedanticfreak 16y ago
A more factual account of the medals: http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/about/medals/ http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/about/medals/ The relevant excerpt: Professor Bohr's Institute of Theoretical Physics in Copenhagen had been a refuge for German Jewish physists since 1933. Max von Laue and James Franck had deposited their medals there to keep them from being confiscated by the German authorities. After the occupation of Denmark in April 1940, the medals were Bohr's first concern, according to the Hungarian chemist George de Hevesy (also of Jewish origin and a 1943 Nobel Laureate in Chemistry), who worked at the institute. In Hitler's Germany it was almost a capital offense to send gold out of the country. Since the names of the Laureates were engraved on the medals, their discovery by the invading forces would have had very serious consequences. To quote George de Hevesy (Adventures in Radioisotope Research, Vol. 1, p. 27, Pergamon, New York, 1962), who talks about von Laue's medal: "I suggested that we should bury the medal, but Bohr did not like this idea as the medal might be unearthed. I decided to dissolve it. While the invading forces marched in the streets of Copenhagen, I was busy dissolving Laue's and also James Franck's medals. After the war, the gold was recovered and the Nobel Foundation generously presented Laue and Frank with new Nobel medals." de Hevesy wrote to von Laue after the war that the task of dissolving the medals had not been easy, as gold is "exceedingly unreactive and difficult to dissolve." The Nazis occupied Bohr's institute and searched it very carefully but they did not find anything. The medals quietly waited out the war in a solution of aqua regia.

15 points by J3L2404 16y ago

srean 16y ago

Interesting set of events. But the artificial dramatization really reeks of a cheap B grade pulp. I am sure the fictionalization could have been done more tastefully. It evokes Sam Spade or Tracer Bullet more than a working chemist. ...taking gold out of Germany was almost a capital offense, carrying a punishment not to be sneezed at. George was certainly not sneezing, but his palms were sweating as if he had a fever and his heart was pounding like a drum.... Perhaps in the near future he would be holding a Nobel Prize of his own. But for now, these two Prizes were all he had, and they were getting smaller.

jws 16y ago

The page is fiction, but it documents fact at the bottom: This be fiction based on a true story. George de Hevesy is credited with dissolving two Nobel Prizes in aqua regia and storing them during the second world war, where they remained unnoticed despite careful searching by the Nazis. The gold was later recovered and recoined, and presented back to the two owners. George de Hevesy won the 1943 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work on radioactive isotopes.

blahedo 16y ago

It's a neat story, and of course by the time the Germans were almost there, disposing of the gold was the only option. But it's a strange interpretation of the word "saved" (or perhaps "medals") in the title that makes the claim that this process actually saved the medals themselves, since they had to be recoined later.

pedanticfreak 16y ago

A more factual account of the medals: http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/about/medals/ http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/about/medals/ The relevant excerpt: Professor Bohr's Institute of Theoretical Physics in Copenhagen had been a refuge for German Jewish physists since 1933. Max von Laue and James Franck had deposited their medals there to keep them from being confiscated by the German authorities. After the occupation of Denmark in April 1940, the medals were Bohr's first concern, according to the Hungarian chemist George de Hevesy (also of Jewish origin and a 1943 Nobel Laureate in Chemistry), who worked at the institute. In Hitler's Germany it was almost a capital offense to send gold out of the country. Since the names of the Laureates were engraved on the medals, their discovery by the invading forces would have had very serious consequences. To quote George de Hevesy (Adventures in Radioisotope Research, Vol. 1, p. 27, Pergamon, New York, 1962), who talks about von Laue's medal: "I suggested that we should bury the medal, but Bohr did not like this idea as the medal might be unearthed. I decided to dissolve it. While the invading forces marched in the streets of Copenhagen, I was busy dissolving Laue's and also James Franck's medals. After the war, the gold was recovered and the Nobel Foundation generously presented Laue and Frank with new Nobel medals." de Hevesy wrote to von Laue after the war that the task of dissolving the medals had not been easy, as gold is "exceedingly unreactive and difficult to dissolve." The Nazis occupied Bohr's institute and searched it very carefully but they did not find anything. The medals quietly waited out the war in a solution of aqua regia.