Jens Scheer

Jens Scheer (born May 30, 1935 in Hamburg , † July 18, 1994 in Bremen ) was a nuclear physicist and opponent of nuclear power .

Life

Scheer grew up in Hamburg as the son of a public prosecutor and a teacher. He had two siblings. His mother had given up her job two years before he was born and, in keeping with the National Socialist ideology, was only a housewife and mother. At the age of eleven he started high school, where he obtained the general university entrance qualification. Astronomy was already one of his hobbies in his youth. From 1954 he studied physics and astronomy in Hamburg and Heidelberg . In 1958 he became a member of the German Youth Association for Nature Observation (DJN). After completing his studies with a diploma, he went to the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Berkeley ( USA ) in 1960 . In 1962 he wrote his dissertation in Heidelberg. He became a research assistant and radiation protection officer at the Hahn-Meitner-Institut in Berlin and received his habilitation in 1968 . From 1970 he participated in the development of the newly founded University of Bremen and was appointed professor there in 1971.

In his final years, Scheer was specifically concerned with low-level radioactive radiation and, in the early 1990s, undertook various lecture tours through Germany with Ernest J. Sternglass . His main focus was also on new approaches to quantum mechanics (see David Bohm and Bohm's mechanics ).

politics

As a member of the Socialist German Student Union (SDS) , he was involved in the 1968 movement . In 1965 he first became a member of the SPD, but resigned a year later out of disappointment with the grand coalition . From 1971 he participated in the development of the newly founded University of Bremen . He came to the KPD through the “Red Cell Physics” and the “Communist Student Association” KSV . From his “deeply rooted belief in the harmlessness of radioactivity - below certain limits” as a scientist, he developed into an opponent of nuclear power over the course of around twenty years. Because of his political activities and because of the radical decree , Scheer had to fight against occupational and home bans at the University of Bremen from the 1970s. Together with Inge Schmitz-Feuerhake, he was one of the leading figures in the anti-nuclear movement of that time . After the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in 1986, Scheer was in great demand as an expert for discussions and events.

Publications (chronological)

• Authors group of the project SAIU at the University of Bremen: To the correct understanding of the nuclear industry - 66 replies. Oberbaumverlag, Berlin 1975.
• Klaus Bätjer, Jens Scheer: Atomic energy in the GDR, information on energy and the environment. Part A, No. 7, 2nd revised edition, University of Bremen, Bremen, 1980.
• Klaus Bätjer, Jens Scheer: Nuclear power in the GDR. In: Info 42. Socialist Eastern European Committee, Hamburg, 1980, pp. 20–31.
• Jens Scheer, Werner Heuler : The Soviet nuclear program. Bremen 1982 (information on energy and the environment; 17).
• Does modern physics lead to magic and astrology? Interaction No. 28, February 1986.
• Reimar Paul (Ed.): Nuclear power at the end? With a contribution by Jens Scheer, Göttingen 1986.
• Put Niels Bohr upside down on his feet. A dead cat in Schrödinger's box. Contentious Materialism No. 12, March 1989.
• Communism - Naturalism - Humanism. Controversial Materialism No. 14, Jan 1991.
• Radioactive low radiation. Controversial Materialism No. 16, September 1992.
• Against the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum theory. Lively debate about dead cat. Controversial Materialism No. 20, Jan 1996.

literature

• Put down fences, advance to the construction site . In: Der Spiegel . No. 8 , 1977, pp. 89–90 ( online interview with the Bremen nuclear physicist Jens Scheer (KPD) about new actions against Brokdorf ).
• Jens Scheer is allowed to remain a university professor in Bremen. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung . April 24, 1980 (as he “no longer advocates the class struggle goals of the left-wing extremist KPD. Scheer himself now excludes violence as a political means. Now he is in favor of the separation of powers and the independence of the courts.” )

Web links

• Obituaries for Jens Scheer and pictures