Jewish-German physicist, Nobel Prize winner, who helped develop chemical weapons in World War I – and resigned in protest against the Nazis and fought against the use of the atomic bomb
James Frank, a German-American experimental physicist of Jewish origin and winner of the 1925 Nobel Prize in Physics, was born on August 26, 1882 in Hamburg, the second child of a Jewish family. His father was a local banker and religious man, while his mother came from a rabbinical family. Hamburg was a free city inhabited by expelled Portuguese Jews, of whom Frank's family was a descendant.
The Jews received equal rights to the rest of the city's residents and did not live in ghettos. The city had an atmosphere of tolerance, but anti-Semitism was expressed in social and economic competition. James's parents were very religious and observed the commandments of the Jewish religion. They sought to raise him in the religious faith, but the local Jewish community showed little interest in religious education.
James attended a public school where many Jewish children attended. From 1891, he attended the Wilhelm Gymnasium, where he acquired a classical education that included Latin, Greek, English, and French. Nevertheless, he was inclined towards the exact sciences. His father preferred that he pursue a more traditional career for a Jew, and he initially studied law at the University of Heidelberg (1901), but also attended lectures in the natural sciences. There he met Max Born, a physicist and Nobel Prize winner, who greatly influenced him. Inspired by Born, Frank moved to Berlin and studied physics. In May 1906, he submitted his first doctoral thesis on the mobility of charge carriers in spark discharge. In the declaration attached to the dissertation, he wrote: "I, James Frank, was raised in the Jewish faith" – an unusual formulation, which reflected identification with his Judaism as opposed to the conventional formulation "in the faith of Moses."
After his studies, he was drafted into a brief military service but was discharged after being injured in a fall from a horse. During this time, he also met the Swedish pianist Ingrid Josefsson, whom he married and had two children with.
In 1907, he began working as an assistant at the Institute of Physics at the University of Berlin. In 1911, he completed a second doctoral thesis and received the title of Privatdozent. At the outbreak of World War I, he volunteered for the army and served in Fritz Haber's unit, which was responsible for the development of chemical weapons. Frank, together with Otto Hahn, developed gas masks and reported on the effects of using the new weapon. For his activities, he was awarded the Iron Cross and was promoted to lieutenant.
At the same time, in 1914, he and Gustav Hertz performed a crucial experiment in physics, showing that atoms absorb energy in quanta – a finding that confirmed quantum mechanics. For this, the two received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1925.
After the war, he returned to Berlin and headed the physics department at the Fritz Haber Institute. In 1918, he was awarded the Iron Cross, First Class. In 1920, Frank moved to the University of Göttingen and was appointed professor and head of the Second Institute for Experimental Physics.
In 1933, with the rise of the Nazis, he was required to fly swastika flags in academic institutions. Although he was not required to resign due to his participation in World War I, he chose to resign in protest of principle. In his letter to the Minister of Education, Rust, he stated that he could not continue to serve in an institution that did not respect its Jewish citizens. His resignation caused a stir but did not receive public support at other universities.
He later moved to Denmark to Niels Bohr's institute in Copenhagen, and then emigrated to the United States. In 1938 he was appointed professor at the University of Chicago, and in 1941 he received American citizenship.
During World War II, Frank headed the chemical department of the Manhattan Project for the development of the atomic bomb. Despite his central role in the project, he opposed the use of the bomb against Japan. He headed the committee of scientists that proposed demonstrating the bomb to the nations of the world rather than using it directly. His call was rejected, and the bomb was used. His opposition may also have stemmed from feelings of guilt over his part in developing chemical weapons in World War I.
In 1942, his wife Ingrid died, and in 1946 he married scientist Herta Spooner.
For his contributions to science, he was awarded decorations and honors, including the Max Planck Medal (1951) and an honorary doctorate from Heidelberg (1957). James Frank died of a heart attack in 1964 during a visit to the University of Göttingen, where he had taught and which he had left in protest, and was buried in Chicago next to his wife.
Frank's life reflects the complexity between science, morality, Jewish identity, and contribution to society during times of historical turmoil.
