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May 21, 2014

German Nuclear Physicist Hans-Peter Dürr Dies at 84 
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The German nuclear physicist, Professor Hans-Peter Dürr, has died at
the age of 84. Dürr received a Right Livelihood Award for his critique
of the Strategic Defense Initiative — a Reagan-backed defense
system against potential nuclear attacks — and for his work to
convert high technology to peaceful uses. In an interview with Democracy
Now!, Dürr spoke about how he convinced the famous physicist Werner
Heisenberg not to help build a nuclear reactor in Germany.

Hans-Peter Dürr: "That I did not want, because I knew that the reactor
is very easily to get in a military way. So I wanted to go to the
philosopher Heisenberg. And when I arrived in Göttingen, he said, 'I
have to tell you, I'm not allowed to take the laboratory to Munich,
where I'm coming from. It's too close to Russia. They put to in
Karlsruhe, a little further west. So, I have decided I will not do
anything with the reactor, but I will go to Munich, and I will only do
the philosophical part.' And exactly that, what was my dream."

Hans-Peter Dürr, dead at the age of 84. He died in Germany. He was a
student of Hannah Arendt at the University of California, Berkeley,
after World War II.

 

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