Calgary, November 2019
My name is Franz Schmidt and I am sitting by the window of my apartment, looking at the grey sky and wandering where did I go wrong, where did I made the crucial mistake. I am old, lonely, have no friends, my wife left me, and my colleagues rejected me. In the past I was rich and famous, but, as the Czechs say: "Worldly fame is worth as much as the field grass." Now I know how right they are, but I wish I had known that before.
I was born in 1890 in Prussia, where my parents had a large farm. As a kid I was useless as a farm boy, but I was good at studies. That was not appreciated too much by my father, who would have preferred to have a farm boy, but kids rebel against their parents and my rebellion was entirely successful. After the high school I attended Gymnasium (German version of Senior High School). I was good at mathematics and physics and got excellent marks in the final exam, called a maturity diploma. It was obvious that I would continue to study at the university, and that would never have to touch the farm equipment again. This realization filled me with a great joy.
The beginning of the twentieth century was an exciting time for physicists. New and startling discoveries, like Max Plank’s proposal of quantum properties of the light, or Einstein’s theory of relativity, pointed out that our understanding of reality, based on the ideas of Isaac Newton, were incorrect. It was therefore natural that I wanted to be part of this new world of discoveries and decided to study physics at the University of Gottingen, one of the best universities in Germany. It was a place where the future Nobel prize winners like Max Born, Max Planck, Werner Heisenberg, Enrico Fermi, Wolfgang Pauli and others started their careers. When I was accepted there as a student, I felt a surge of excitement for having the opportunity to research this new world, which seemed to violate all the laws of physics. However, I decided that my work will be directed towards practical applications and not to the abstract theories with their incomprehensible mathematics.
Those were the happiest days of my life. My research was progressing very well, I graduated with a Ph.D. in physics, and I also met my future wife, Charlotte, who was also a student at this university. Her parents had an international background, her mother was English, and father was a German professor teaching English literature. Charlotte and I were much in love, got married, and a year later, our first child, Anita arrived. As a new father, I had to find a job, which is never easy for a recent graduate. Finally, I got an offer to work as an assistant to my former supervisor, but the salary was very low. Only the help of both of our parents enabled us to maintain a decent standard of living.
Working as an assistant to my former supervisor was not very demanding and left me with time to conduct my own research. I became interested in the mysterious rays traversing through the vacuum of a glass container, and to learn more about them I developed a series of experiments to explore their properties. Those experiments lead to important findings, and I wrote many articles about the practical applications of the rays. Much later, my articles were used in designing the screens for television and computer monitors.
One day, a young Ph.D. student, Johan, came to me. He was very appreciative of my articles and suggested that he can work on the theoretical explanation of my observations. I was happy that somebody was interested in my research and we started to work in cooperation, which lasted for many years, but unfortunately did not have a happy ending. John was a mathematician who was familiar with the latest theories of quantum mechanics, so he applied them to my findings. The mathematics was complicated, but his conclusions agreed with my observations. We published articles together and Johan got a lot of recognition, in my opinion more than he deserved. After all, it was I who clarified the origins of those rays, he just provided the mathematics to confirm it. Nevertheless, Johan got many invitations to present his ideas, and after listening to one of his lectures, I became annoyed: The conversation went like this:
"You never mention my name in your presentation."
"Well, it was all just mathematics, and I did not think you would be interested in that."
"Yes, I am not interested in that, but still, it was my discovery which started it all!"
"You are right, sorry, next time I will give you credit for your discovery." said Johan not very convincingly.
This was the first dark cloud in our friendship, but unfortunately not the last. The problem was that his mathematics opened a possibility of additional research, different from what I was doing, and I was not happy about it. I am not a mathematician, could not follow his lead, and I felt left out of the research community.
Nonetheless, my little personal problem was nothing compared to what was happening in Germany. The First World War, which began in 1914, was a disaster. With a naïve overconfidence that we would win in a couple of months, everybody including myself, was very enthusiastic. I even wanted to volunteer to serve in the army, but my wife talked me out of it.
"Your first duty is to your family, not to the military establishment!", she pointed out correctly. The war was dragging on and the overall suffering was increasing, there was a shortage of everything, including food.
"You and Anita should go to my parent’s farm, there will be some food," I suggested one evening to Charlotte.
"You are not coming?"
"No, I want to continue with my research."
So, Charlotte with Anita moved to the farm and I stayed back in Gottingen.
The end of the war brought little relief. Germany was humiliated by the Treaty of Versailles, and the Weimar Republic was going from bad to worse. To culminate the misery, hyperinflation erased the value of money, and everyone lost all their savings. Charlotte and Anita returned from the farm, but our reunion was not very cheerful. All the optimism of the 1914 disappeared like water under the bridge.
Contrary to the economic situation, physics in the 1920s made great progress. Einstein’s theory of relativity was confirmed in 1919 by photographing a solar eclipse, and by 1925 quantum mechanics made some incredible claims about the nature of the subatomic world. I was outraged by those claims, but Johan was in his element.
"How can you believe that particle can be wave at the same time? Why is it impossible to determine precisely the speed and the position of a particle? How can a particle be in two places simultaneously? To me, this is some kind of fairy tale, something like Alice in the Wonderland!", I was yelling infuriated.
"It is all based on probabilities. A particle can be with 50% of probability here and with 50% there. We cannot say until we make an observation."
"Even Einstein said that God does not play dice with the universe!", I snapped angrily.
Well, it turned out that Johan was right. The experiments started to confirm the predictions of the mathematics and there was a lot of opportunity for additional experimental work, but I was stubborn, I did not want to have anything to do with it. Meanwhile, Johan was busy communicating with the international community of quantum physicists. He was talking to Werner Heisenberg here in Germany, to Niels Bohr in Denmark, George Thomson in England, Erwin Schroedinger in Austria, and others. For him, this was the golden age of physics, but for me, it was a bitter disappointment of being forgotten. Then something happened. Not in physics, but in German politics. There appeared a man called Adolf Hitler.
As I have mentioned before, in the 1920s Weimar Republic had serious problems. To start with, the Treaty of Versailles ordered Germany to pay impossible war reparations, which led to the hyperinflation of 1923 and gravely harmed the German economy. When the World War I allies realized that this situation was no good for anybody, the League of Nations asked the U.S. banks to help in stabilizing the situation. But just when people started to feel some hope, the Great Depression of 1929 hit, devastating the economy once again. This time many people lost their faith in democracy and turned to the extremist Nazi Party, led by Adolf Hither, who was promising to maintain the law and order, to reject the Treaty of Versailles, and make Germany great again.
"We are the superior race, we deserve to be the leaders, and we will not allow our enemies, the Jews, and the Communists, to stand in our way. They are the cause of our troubles and we will get rid of them!" Hitler was yelling at Nazi Party gatherings, and people liked to hear that. It is always nice to be able to blame somebody.
In 1932, the Nazi Party won the elections and in 1933 Hitler was proclaimed the Chancellor and started to call himself the "Führer", meaning a dictator. Most of the people, including myself, were happy about it. Most, but not all. My wife’ parents returned to England soon after 1933 and urged us to do the same. "I can find a good job for your husband.", her father promised, but I refused.
"Germany will be great again; cannot you see it? Hitler will lead us to be the masters of Europe!" I kept saying to Charlotte, but she would not listen.
"I do not want to live in a prison where a brutal dictator will control all aspects of my life!"
We had serious disagreements and when I joined the Party and came home with the swastika on my sleeve, she stopped talking to me altogether. Two days later, when I came home from the Nazi Party meeting, there was nobody in the apartment, and on the table was a short message: "Anita and I are returning to England to be with my parents." At that moment I probably could have stopped their departure, but I realized that our marriage was over. My only hope was that when Germany become great again, Charlotte would realize her mistake and return back to me.
The official antisemitism of the Nazi Party affected Gottingen University, where I was still working. Out of the 238 academics, Nazis dismissed 45 professors, some of them top scientists, because of their Jewish origin. That left room for the advancement of people like me, and I was promoted to the head of the physics department. This normally would not mean much, but in the late 1930s, it became obvious that there was a good possibility of building an atomic bomb of an unimaginable destructive power. Moreover, in 1939 the Second World War started and both sides were terrified that the enemy will build the bomb first. Suddenly, physics became a top priority and Germany had a head start. The German Nuclear Weapons Project, also known as Uranium Society, was established, headed by Werner Heisenberg, who collaborated with the top German scientists, disregarding their party loyalty. The government officials wanted results, and they knew that they would not get them from people like me. It was a big disappointment, I wanted to contribute to the final victory. However, I knew one person who could make such a contribution: Johan. He was now working at Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physics in Berlin, and I decided to convince him to use his talent for the benefit of our country. Unfortunately, our meeting did not go well. After a more or less warm greeting and a bit of a small talk, I went straight to the point:
"Johan, I am sure that you know that there is an effort to build a nuclear bomb for Germany."
"Yes, I know", he replied.
"It is led by top German scientists, and you would fit in there perfectly."
"I am not interested, I am a scientist, not a weapons designer."
"But you have to contribute to the final victory!"
"Final victory for whom? For the Nazi Party? No, thanks."
"Are you refusing to work for our Fuhrer?"
"Yes, I am."
I was shocked. Our fatherland was in danger and he refused to use his considerable talent to contribute to the war effort. To me, that sounded like a treason, and I mentioned it to the head of our branch of the Nazi Party. Shortly after that I have learned that Johan disappeared from the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physics, and nobody knew what happened to him. This was the last I ever heard about my former friend.
Things did not turn out the way Hitler was promising. The war went badly, and the atom bomb project failed. After six years of terrible death and destruction throughout the world, Germany lost the war. It was occupied by the victorious powers and the leading figures of the Nazi Party were put on trial and some of them were executed. Johan never returned from the concentration camp and my denouncement of him to the Nazis was never discovered. I was not charged with any crime but was relieved of my post at Gottingen University and ended up teaching physics in a high school. Also, I tried to contact my family in England and wrote a letter to Charlotte’s parents, asking them to tell her that I was still alive and that I would love to see them again. It took a long time to get the answer, but I finally got it today. It is just a short letter from Charlotte, telling me that she remarried, that Anita is now a true English lady and that they do not want to see me, I would not be welcome.
I read the letter several times, and now I am sitting by the window of my apartment, looking at the grey sky and wondering where I went wrong, where did I make the crucial mistake.