German Nobel Winners

Over 80 German scientists have received Nobel Prizes in chemistry, physics or medicine since the award was founded in 1901. Click below for a look at the more significant German contributors to the world of science.

Emil von Behring (1854-1917) was awarded the first Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1901 for developing a serum therapy against diphtheria and tetanus, two widespread illnesses of his time. Behring's Nobel Prize certificate is pictured here.

Wilhelm Röntgen (1845-1923) won the first Nobel Prize for Physics in 1901 for developing the x-ray. The scientist's name also became the German word for x-ray.

Robert Koch (1843-1910), considered one of the founders of bacteriology, was awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1905 for his work on tuberculosis. He is pictured here in his laboratory in South Africa, where he conducted research for a time.

Paul Ehrlich (1854-1915) was instrumental in developing the process of chemotherapy as well as a treatment for syphilis. He shared the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1908 with Ilya Ilyich Mechnikov for his contributions to immunology.

Max Planck (1858-1947) conducted research in thermodynamics and radiation. He received the 1918 Nobel Prize in Physics for developing the so-called quantum theory. Planck suffered under the Nazi regime in the 1930s and 40s, but felt it was his duty to remain in Germany while many of his colleagues fled the country. One of the physicist's sons was executed by the Nazis after being implicated in a failed assassination attempt on Hitler. Today, the Max Planck Institute, based in Munich, is one of the leading research organizations in Germany. Click on the links below to read about some of the projects conducted by the institute.

Albert Einstein (1879-1955) is seen here writing out the equation for the density of the Milky Way on the blackboard at the Carnegie Institute in Pasadena, California. Einstein achieved world renown in 1905, at age 26, with his theory of relativity, which proposed the existence of atomic energy. Though his concepts ushered in the atomic age, he was a pacifist who warned against an arms race. Einstein was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1921, in particular for his work on the photoelectric effect. The Jewish physicist left Germany for the US in 1933 when Hitler came to power, where he spent the rest of his life, obtaining US citizenship in 1940.

Carl Bosch (1874-1940) shared the 1931 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Friedrich Bergius for developing a high-pressure synthesis process for ammonia. His work made ammonia more widely available for use in agriculture and industry.

Friedrich Bergius (1884-1949), who shared the 1931 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Carl Bosch, also contributed to high-pressure chemistry. He developed a process to produce synthetic fuel from lignite coal.

Otto Hahn (1879-1960) received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1944 for his discovery of nuclear fission. He has been called the father of the atomic age. After World War Two, Hahn was imprisoned by the Allies for several months, who mistakenly assumed he'd been involved in the Nazis' atomic bomb project. Devastated by the use of the atomic bomb in Japan, the scientist did not attend Nobel Prize ceremony in his honor in 1945. He was presented with the award the following year.

Maria Goeppert Mayer (1906-1972) is one of only two women to have received the Nobel Prize in Physics. In 1963 she was presented shared half of the award with fellow physicist J. Hans D. Jensen for proposing the nuclear shell model of the atomic nucleus. (American Eugene Paul Wigner was awarded the other half of the prize.) Mayer immigrated to the US in 1930 and later became a professor at the University of California, San Diego.

Ernst Otto Fischer (1918-2007) split the 1973 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with British scientist Geoffrey Wilkinson for their independent work on chemistry of the organometallic, so-called sandwich compounds.

Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard (*1942), one of only two German women to receive a Nobel Prize, was awarded with one third of the Prize in Medicine in 1995 for her contributions to the genetic control of early embryonic development. She shared the prize with American scientists Edward B. Lewis and Eric F. Wieschaus. Nüsslein-Volhard heads the Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology in Tübingen and runs its genetics department.

Theodor Hänsch (*1941) received one fourth of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2005 for his contributions to the development of laser-based precision spectroscopy. Hänsch is director of the Max Planck Institute for Quantum Optics.

Peter Grünberg (*1939) shared the 2007 Nobel Prize in Physics with French scientist Albert Fert for the discovery of giant magnetoresistance. Their contributions have made it possible to miniaturize computer hard disks in recent years.

Gerhard Ertl (*1936) has won this year's Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his studies of chemical processes on solid surfaces. His surface chemistry research has led to improved understanding of the thinning of the ozone layer.