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In January 2006, the so-called "Debye Affair" emerged, triggered by the publication of a Dutch book on Einstein. Debye was accused of Nazi collaboration in his capacity as chairman of the German Physical Society when he requested, in December 1938, the remaining Jewish members to leave the society. Within a month, two Dutch universities deleted Debye's name from their research institute and scientific award, and this led, both nationally and internationally, to a heated discussion. The Dutch government commissioned the Netherlands Institute for War Documentation to investigate the case. In its final report, the accusation was toned down to 'opportunism'. This paper is based on new information. Above all, I have researched Debye's extensive American archive. This archive disclosed the correspondence (1940-1963) with his friend Paul Rosbaud, an important MI6 intelligencer in Berlin during the Nazi period. The correspondence, combined with information from other sources, suggests that Debye might have been one of Rosbaud's informants. Therefore, this paper also includes a powerful warning against hasty and definitive conclusions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores diverse conceptions of the physicality and tangibility of elements and principles in early modern chymistry. By tracing the development of natural philosophical and corpuscular ideas about material elements and principles among several physicans and chymists, including Thomas Erastus, Andreas Libavius, Daniel Sennert, and Anton Günther Billich, this article locates a learned tradition that developed predominantly in Germany, and which directly challenged a common understanding of matter held by major Paracelsians as well as authors from the French textbook tradition. Likewise, conceptions of incorporeal elements or principles are shown to have developed from the ideas of Paracelsus and Petrus Severinus, whereas authors in the learned tradition emphasised a particular interpretation of Aristotle. The article concludes by suggesting that chymical interpretations of material composition had an important influence throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and that this provides further evidence that the so-called 'compositional revolution' in chemistry was well underway prior to the eighteenth century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Immediately after its opening in 1855, Bunsen's Heidelberg laboratory became iconic as the most modern and best equipped laboratory in Europe. Although comparatively modest in size, the laboratory's progressive equipment made it a role model for new construction projects in Germany and beyond. In retrospect, it represents an intermediate stage of development between early teaching facilities, such as Liebig's laboratory in Giessen, and the new 'chemistry palaces' that came into existence with Wöhler's Göttingen laboratory of 1860. As a 'transition laboratory,' Bunsen's Heidelberg edifice is of particular historical interest. This paper explores the allocation of spaces to specific procedures and audiences within the laboratory, and the hierarchies and professional rites of passage embedded within it. On this basis, it argues that the laboratory in Heidelberg was tailored to Bunsen's needs in inorganic and physical chemistry and never aimed at a broad-scale representation of chemistry as a whole. On the contrary, it is an example of early specialisation within a chemical laboratory preceding the process of differentiation into chemical sub-disciplines. Finally, it is shown that the relatively small size of this laboratory, and the fact that after ca. 1860 no significant changes were made within the building, are inseparably connected to Bunsen's views on chemistry teaching. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1825, Michael Faraday, working in his workshop at the Royal Institution, discovered what he called bicarburet of hydrogen, now known as benzene. One hundred years later, his discovery was celebrated at the Royal Institution by a host of national and international delegates. Just over thirty years after Faraday's discovery, the industrial importance of benzene was realised with the establishment of the synthetic dyestuffs industry. In this paper, the Faraday Benzene Centenary Celebration is discussed in detail and compared with other celebrations that have linked benzene with colour, in particular the 1890 celebration in Germany of the benzene ring formula and the 1906 celebration of the foundation of the coal-tar dye industry. It is instructive to review the different economic and political agendas underlying these events, each within the context of a particular time and place. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The emergence of physical organic chemistry, which focuses on the mechanisms and structures of organic reactions and molecules using the tools of physical chemistry, was a major development in twentieth-century chemistry. It first flourished in the interwar period, in the UK and then in the US. Germany, by contrast, did not embrace the field until almost a half century later. The great success of classical organic chemistry, especially in synthesis, encouraged indifference to the new field among German chemists, as did their inductivist research philosophy, as enunciated by Walter Hückel’s ground-breaking textbook (1931). This author also resisted new concepts and representations, especially those of the American theoretician, Linus Pauling. The arrival of the Nazi regime reinforced such resistance. Postwar conditions initiated a reaction against this conservative, nationalistic attitude, especially in the American Occupation Zone. Exposure to American textbooks and visiting lecturers influenced attitudes of younger chemists. The accompanying shift towards a more explanatory, less hierarchical mode of pedagogy was consonant with larger social and political developments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]