Physical society of the GDR
The physical society of the GDR was the physical society of the GDR .
While the first physical society was founded in the British occupation zone as early as the spring of 1946 and later expanded into the French and American zones and merged to form the Association of German Physical Societies in 1950 , no such new foundation took place in the Soviet Zone . Instead, with the Kulturbund and the Chamber of Technology, two institutions were created that were supposed to be the central reservoir for the “anti-fascist” intellectuals. The VdI was absorbed into the Chamber of Technology, and the German Chemical Society continued as a section of the Kulturbund.
At the regional level, independent organizations of physicists were formed in the late 1940s. As part of the physicists' meeting on the fringes of the Leipzig autumn fair , leading physicists of the GDR met on September 14, 1952 in Halle (Saale) to found a physical society. This Physical Society of the GDR was formally founded on September 26, 1952 in Berlin by the State Secretary for Higher Education and officially registered with the Ministry of the Interior on October 31, 1952. An attempt made in 1950 by Max von Laue , Walther Bothe and others to found a joint physical society for all of Germany (Association of German Physical Society) did not prevail, although many physicists from the GDR also took part at the first conference in Bad Nauheim.
The slightly more than 100 members at the beginning of 1953 were overwhelmingly members of the SED . In the course of the following years, however, the society increasingly became the professional organization of physicists in the GDR. Hopes for an integration of both societies were only given up in the West in the early 1960s, when the DPG was re-established independently for the West. The Physical Society of the GDR was assigned to the Academy of Sciences of the GDR and had its seat from 1958 in the Magnus House in East Berlin.
The Physical Society of the GDR awarded prizes and published the journal Progress in Physics . The Gustav Hertz Prize (awarded since 1978) and the Physics Prize for schoolchildren were taken over by the DPG after the fall of the Wall, with the Gustav Hertz Prize being combined with the Physics Prize of the DPG. It organized regular conferences and most recently (1990) had around 2000 members.
On November 20, 1990, the GDR Physical Society was merged with the German Physical Society .
Personalities
The Physical Society of the GDR initially had no chairman, but several board members, one of which acted as a spokesman. Above all, Gustav Hertz should be mentioned as spokesman for the board from 1955 to 1967, member of the board from 1967 to 1975 and then honorary chairman. There were chairmen since 1970. Robert Rompe was chairman from 1970 to 1988 and then honorary chairman (and from 1955 to 1967 spokesman for the board). Joachim Auth was chairman from 1988 to 1990. After reunification, Gerd Röpke was the last chairman in 1990.
literature
- Dieter Hoffmann: Die Physikalische Gesellschaft (in) der DDR, in: Physikalische Blätter 51 (1995), S. F / 157-F / 182, doi : 10.1002 / phbl.19950510124