Here’s how a Hungarian scientist saved two Nobel Prizes during WWII

During the turbulent Second World War, the scientific community grappled with unprecedented challenges, not only in advancing knowledge but also in securing recognition for intellectual achievements. A remarkable episode from this era unfolds in the ingenuity of Hungarian chemist George Charles de Hevesy, or György Károly Hevesy, who saved two Nobel Prizes.

German occupation

Helló Magyar writes that this unbelievable story of brilliance and scientific insight took place in occupied Copenhagen. Two Nobel Prize winners of Jewish origin sent their medals to Niels Bohr’s Institute of Theoretical Physics to shield them from the Gestapo. Bohr’s institute became part of the German-occupied territory and was a haven for Jewish scientists. The Nobel Prize medals of Max von Laue (winner of the 1914 Prize for Physics) and James Franck (winner of the 1925 Prize for Physics), with their inscriptions prominently displayed, were placed in Bohr’s building and posed a serious threat. The Nazis were aware of Bohr’s support for Jewish intellectuals thus the institute became a target for the Germans.

A bold idea

György Hevesy, a Hungarian chemist working in Bohr’s laboratory, proposed a bold plan to preserve the medals. Bohr had initially considered burying them, but fearing the Germans’ meticulous research, he rejected the idea. Instead, Hevesy, leveraging his expertise in chemistry, opted for an unconventional yet effective solution. The scientist decided to dissolve the medals. Dissolving gold, known for its stability and resistance to corrosion, proved a formidable challenge. Hevesy chose an unusual solvent: a mixture of hydrochloric acid and nitric acid known as ‘aqua regia’. This corrosive mixture, capable of dissolving gold, triggered a slow and complex chemical reaction. See how ‘aqua regia’ dissolves gold:

An ingenious disguise

Hevesy describes the process of unlocking the two gold medals in a gripping narrative. As the Nazi forces marched through Copenhagen, he worked tirelessly, turning the coins first from a colourless, then pale peach to a bright orange solution. Once the coins had dissolved, Hevesy conveniently stored the solution in a flask on a high laboratory shelf. When the Nazis stormed Bohr’s institute in search of evidence and loot, they failed to notice the inconspicuous flask of orange aqua regia. NPR quotes Sam Kean’s book The Disappearing Spoon:

…When the Nazis ransacked Bohr’s institute, they scoured the building for loot or evidence of wrongdoing but left the beaker of orange aqua regia untouched. Hevesy was forced to flee to Stockholm in 1943, but when he returned to his battered laboratory after V-E Day, he found the innocuous beaker undisturbed on a shelf.

But how did this liquid turn into Nobel prizes again?

Hevesy reversed the chemical process and precipitated the gold from the solution. He sent the raw metal back to the Swedish Academy in Stockholm around January 1950. The Nobel Foundation meticulously recast the prizes from the original gold, and in 1952 both Laue and Franck were again awarded Nobel Prizes. Hevesy used chemistry to defend these extremely valuable accolades. In a different turn of events, Niels Bohr auctioned his own Nobel Prize in 1940, eventually finding a home at the Danish Historical Museum of Fredrikborg, where it remains on display, its anonymous buyer having contributed to preserving this piece of history.

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