Globalization can be defined as the expansion and intensification of a set of social processes, that are shifting forms of human contact and consciousness toward greater interdependence and integration. These social processes can be represented by extreme change, such as political revolution, or minor change, such as changes in local legislation. Globalization has influenced the movement of people around the world and within countries. Although these movements of people can cause conflict, there are times in which they have benefitted society, through increased cooperation of a diverse individuals. The political revolution of Germany prior to World War II caused scientists in Berlin – the center of European Physics – to flee. The migration of Jewish German physicists to Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States increased scientific cooperation and stimulated discovery throughout World War II and the post-War Era.
Under the leadership of Adolf Hitler, the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (Nazi Party), grew into a mass movement and ruled Germany from 1933 to 1945. Founded in 1919 as the German Workers’ Party, the group promoted German pride and anti-Semitism, and expressed dissatisfaction with the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, the 1919 peace settlement that ended World War I (1914-1918) and required Germany to make numerous concessions and reparations. The reparations governed the economic policy of many nations following World War I. Hitler joined the National Socialist German Workers’ Party the year it was founded and became its leader in 1921 (Bendersky 29). In 1933, he became the chancellor of Germany and his Nazi government soon assumed dictatorial powers (Bendersky 100). As his power strengthened, Adolf Hitler began to take control of intellectual institutions, ordering public universities in Germany, such as the University of Berlin, to rid themselves of any Jewish, or Jewish sympathizing, professors. Although the majority of these scholars had already fled the state, those who had not were immediately suspended from their positions of prestige without pay. After Germany’s defeat in World War II, in 1945, the Nazi Party was outlawed and many of its top officials were convicted of war crimes related to the murder of millions of European Jews during the Nazis’ reign. Unfortunately, the heinous acts committed under the Nazi Regime can never be justified. However, the mass departure by scientists in Germany, at the dawn of World War II, led to perhaps the greatest period of scientific cooperation and discovery in modern history.
Lise Meitner was regarding as one of the leading nuclear physicists of her day. Not only was Meitner one of few female professors, she was also Jewish, researching and teaching in a nation riddled with antisemitism. Meitner was the first woman in Germany to assume a post of full professor in physics (Sime 81). Even though Meitner was celebrated as a genius, she was forced to leave the University of Berlin in 1938, as the National Socialist German Workers’ Party grew. Meitner ended up at the University of Stockholm, in Sweden (Sime 81). It is worth noting the Lise Meitner is given credit for the discovery of Nuclear Fission. Ironically, Lise Meitner, along with Otto Frisch, were the first to realize the implications of nuclear fission, as they pertained to weapons. While walking in the woods of Sweden Otto Frisch and Lise Meitner discussed the phenomenon of Nuclear Fission (Zoellner 32). The discussion that took place would result in a major discovery for atomic physics, one that would change the outcome of World War II, and the politics of much of the 20th century. In short, Otto Frisch and Lise Meitner speculated that mass amount of energy would be released from nuclear fission, giving way to the possibility of its weaponization. “Frisch sent his results to the British Journal Nature, which scheduled them for publication on February 11, 1939. The split halves of the uranium would be rushing apart at a speed of one-thirtieth the speed of light, he estimated: enough energy to make a grain of sand twitch from the popping of a single atom” (Zoellner 33). Frisch and Meitner first realized that Einstein's famous equation, E=mc2, explained the source of the tremendous releases of energy in nuclear fission. Lise Meitner’s relocation resulted in the discovery of nuclear fission and its potential for weaponization on the global scale. This scientific cooperation, and discovery, between the two governed research throughout World War II, and politics for the post-War Era and Cold War. Furthermore, this scientific cooperation would not have occurred had Meitner remained in Berlin, a position she may have retained for the remainder of her life, without the effects of political change, and globalization.
Erwin Schrödinger, a Nobel Prize Recipient in Physics, was the Director of the Institute for Theoretical Physics at the University of Berlin, from 1927, to 1934, as well as a professor in Physics (Moore 241). Although a handful of his colleagues left for the University of Princeton, in the United Kingdom, and the University of Stockholm, in Sweden, a vast majority were relocated by Frederick Lindemann. Frederick Lindemann, known by his colleagues as “The Prof,” was a close friend and scientific advisor to Winston Churchill. Lindemann convinced the University of Oxford to provide £15,000 for thirteen two-year grants to German Jewish scientists (Moore 271). Following the lead of Lindemann, various wealthy organizations sprang to action to place refugee scholars, from the expanding political ascendancy of the Third Reich, in safe locations, where they could continue to thrive and pursue intellectual advancements. Notably, the Rockefeller Foundation helped to place nearly 200 of these refugees in American and European institutions, at a cost of $734,000 (Moore 271). This support by outside institutions was vital for Erwin Schrödinger. In the midst of political strife in 1935, after extensive correspondence with Albert Einstein, he proposed what is now called the “Schrödinger’s Cat” thought experiment – an experiment for which he still known for today. While he was at the University of Oxford, Erwin Schrödinger collaborated with scholars, such as Frederick Lindemann, that he would have likely never met. Again, his emigration from Germany proved to enable greater scientific breakthrough and thought, benefitting various disciplines – notably Physics and Philosophy.
By 1944 more than 133,000 German Jewish émigrés had moved to America – many of them highly skilled and educated (Parker). These émigrés included Nobel Prize winners in Physics and Chemistry, and renowned scholars such as Albert Einstein, Leo Szilard, Eugene Wigner, Edward Teller, Otto Loewi, and Max Bergmann. In the short span of a decade, the United States would transform from an industrial powerhouse of the world, to the center of intellectual development for the first world, overtaking the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), the United Kingdom, Austria, Germany, and Sweden. This transformation would have not occurred without the mass emigration of German Jewish intellectuals fleeing from the political ideals of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party. Baseline estimates indicate that the arrival of German Jewish émigrés led to a 31 percent increase in innovation after 1933 in common research fields of these immigrants (Moser et al. 2). This growth is undeniably connected with the immigration of German Jewish scientists, most of which, as discussed above, were fleeing political persecution. The effect of German Jewish immigrants was arguably even larger than can be scientifically documented. Due to the weaponization of scientific discovery, there is much research that was and still is highly classified – such as the Manhattan Project that led to the creation of an atomic bomb. It is po
ssible that the impact of German Jewish immigrants to the United States will never be fully acknowledged, as much of their work remains shrouded behind a veil of “national security.” However, regardless of the true extent of these scientists’ contributions, they have not only affected the United States, but the world abroad, politically, scientifically, and societally. The depth of these immigrants’ scientific contributions was only made possible through extensive collaboration with one another – a product of globalization.
Leo Szilard, a Hungarian refugee physicist, like Edward Teller and Eugene Wigner, was extremely vocal with his advocacy for a nuclear weapons program at the dawn of World War II. These immigrants saw their advocacy as a responsibility to alert the United States, and its government, to the possibility of German scientists creating a nuclear weapon, prior to an Allied Force. Albert Einstein wrote to inform President Franklin Delano Roosevelt of recent research on chain reactions utilizing enriched uranium, also known as Nuclear Fission, making it probable that large amounts of power could be produced by a chain reaction and that, by harnessing this power, the construction of “extremely powerful bombs” was tenable, and likely (Gosling vii). Through the combined efforts of three émigrés fleeing political dissension, the United States was launched into nuclear research – resulting the Manhattan Project.
The Manhattan Project was a $2.2 billion collaborative effort of scientists in the United Kingdom and United States to develop the world's first atomic bomb in the midst of World War II (Lee). Aside from introducing the most destructive force known to man, the Manhattan Project was the first instance in which the pursuit of physical sciences was manipulated to benefit a government and supposed national security. “Spanning between the years 1943 and 1945, the Manhattan project employed the efforts of over 130,000 people (roughly the then-size of the auto industry) and secretly commandeered facilities throughout the east coast; these proportions are certainly more dramatic than might be the case in modern nuclear facilities” (Lee). This project was built on the backs of some of the leading physicists and chemists of the 20th century. A vast majority of these physicists were European, fleeing the reign of the ever-expanding Third Reich. In physics, Jewish German Scientists such as Leo Szilard, Eugene Wigner, Edward Teller, John von Neumann, and Hans Bethe formed the core of the Manhattan Project, developing the atomic bomb, and furthering atomic research and technology (Moser et al. 1). In addition to ending World War II with the detonation of two atomic weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Manhattan Project served to advance atomic physics, making nuclear energy a principle energy source for much of Europe, the United States, and Russia, and creating the process by which nuclear energy is formed. The Manhattan Project thrived with guidance of European physicists, bringing the best of German Jewish immigrants and intellectuals from the United States together. This cooperation, forced by the changing political climate of Germany, as the National Socialist German Workers’ Party gained power, has led to tangible benefits felt today, in the Modern Era. Globalization, or the intensification of social processes, provided advancements such as nuclear power, and other advanced scientific processes, through the cooperation of German Jewish Scientists and American intellectuals.
A United States Office of Strategic Services program, codenamed Operation Paperclip, brought 1,500 Germans, namely scientists, engineers, and technicians, to the United States, following the end of World War II. The purpose of Operation Paperclip was to withhold Germany’s ability to redevelop its military, and to prevent the Soviet Union from acquiring German scientific expertise and knowledge (Jacobsen ix). A young physicist by the name of Wernher von Braun was among these 1,500 that travelled to the United States following World War II. Receiving the Knight's Cross of the War Service Cross, Wernher von Braun was celebrated in Germany, during World War II, for the design, implementation, and success, of the V-2 rocket program (Jacobsen 65). Arthur Rudolph, one of Wernher von Braun’s associates, was in charge of production for the construction of the Saturn V rocket (Walker). Rudolph’s expertise, unavailable to scientists the United States prior to his arrival, made space travel possible. Finally, Hubertus Strughold, a physician from one of Germany’s many concentration camps, designed Nasa's on-board life-support systems, necessary for the Apollo missions, which resulted in the lunar landing (Walker). These individuals, hidden from the Nuremburg Trials, gave the United States and platform to build their space program, and rocket propulsion technology for future weapons. Arguably diabolical, and clearly morally corrupt, Operation Paperclip manipulated the need of many war criminals to flee Germany into scientific advancement, at the cost of justice. The crimes of the individuals protected by Operation Paperclip outweighed any contribution to science. However, the effect of these advancements, caused by globalization, founded the United States Space Program, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and created many technologies still used today – microprocessors, ballpoint pens, and digital image processing.