Článek se zabývá demystifikací dodnes panující legendy o ikoně světové vědy, nositeli Nobelovy ceny za objev štěpení těžkých jader, chemiku Otto Hahnovi. Desítky let byl považován za vzor německé slušnosti, zodpovědnosti a příklad antinacistického vědce, který nekolaboroval se zločinným režimem na jeho válečné mašinérii. Teprve od devadesátých let 20. století se dostávají k rukám historiků archivní materiály, jež umožňují získat ucelenou představu o Hahnově působení v době nacistického Německa a o jeho aktivním zapojení ve válečném uranovém výzkumu, jehož výsledkem mělo být sestrojení jaderných reaktorů a bomb. and The article aims to demystify a long-standing legend about Otto Hahn, who, as the Nobel Prize winner for chemistry for the discovery of the fission of heavy nuclei, is widely regarded as an academic figurehead in the world of science. He was considered a symbol of so-called German decency and responsibility; he was a model example of an anti-Nazi scientist who did not collaborate with the criminality of the regime in its warmongery. It was only from the 1990s onwards that historians gained access to new archival materials, which allowed for a comprehensive picture of Hahn’s work in Nazi Germany and his involvement in uranium research during wartime, whose aim was construction of nuclear reactors and bombs.
Twentieth-century photosynthesis research had strong roots in Germany, with the cell physiologist Otto H. Warburg being among its most influential figures. He was also one of the few scientists of Jewish ancestry who kept his post as a director of a research institution throughout the Nazi period. Based on archival sources, the paper investigates Warburg’s fate during these years at selected episodes. He neither collaborated with the regime nor actively resisted; he was harrassed by bureaucracy and denunciated to the secret police, but saved by powerful figures in economy, politics, and science. Warburg reciprocated this favour with problematic testimonies of political integrity after 1945. Warburg’s case, thus, defies wellestablished notions of how scientists in Germany lived and worked during the Nazi regime, and, therefore, helps provide a more nuanced perspective on this theme., K. Nickelsen., and Obsahuje bibliografické odkazy