The scientist who opened the door to new physics with three blows. Einstein's Nobel Prize for the theory of the photoelectric effect 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics

Nobel laureate In 1961, after the success of The Road to Serfdom, Hayek was invited to the position of professor of social sciences at the University of Chicago. Colleagues from the Mont Pelerin Society George Stigler and Milton Friedman were participants in his scientific seminar. Later

36. Nobel nominee Even before his trip to Paris, in September of the same 1929, Remarque was surprised to learn that he had been nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature. The initiator was the Norwegian playwright and poet Bjornstern Martinius Bjornson. Remarque did not know him personally,

NOBEL LAUREATE It is no coincidence that Joseph Brodsky loved Chinese restaurants. It was there that he received his Nobel Prize in 1987. Of course, he knew that he was one of the three or four favorites for the award. I prepared for it, dreamed about it. Once upon a time visiting

How the great physicist actually studied, why he refused to work at the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences, why they didn’t want to give Einstein the Nobel Prize and how he served science after his death, the site tells in the section “How to get a Nobel Prize.”

Albert Einstein

Nobel Prize in Physics 1921. The formulation of the Nobel Committee: “For services to theoretical physics and especially for the discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect.”

While working on the column “How to get a Nobel Prize,” the author has already encountered a hero about whom no matter how much you write, it will not be enough: even in the 10-15 thousand characters allotted for the article, it will not be possible to fit even just a brief summary of what this person did in physics. But if this can be said about, then what can we say about our today’s hero? Only a complete list of his works will take up the specified volume of text and will not say anything about him as a person and a scientist. But we will still try to tell you something, find some less well-known facts and dispel some myths.

The future “physical revolutionary” was born in southern Germany. His father, Hermann Einstein, owned a company that produced feather beds and mattresses, or rather, feather and down stuffing for them. Mom, Paulina Einstein, née Koch, also came from a wealthy family - her father, Einstein's grandfather Julius Derzbacher, was a famous corn trader.

14 year old Einstein (1893)

Public domain

Einstein began studying at the Ulm Catholic school and, as he later said, until the age of 12 he was a deeply devout child. True, this did not stop him from being interested in the Critique of Pure Reason and playing the violin like a decent Jewish boy.

The family then moved to Munich, then to Pavia, and then finally, in 1895, to Switzerland. An incident happened here: Einstein was going to take the entrance exams to the Zurich Polytechnic, and then, having studied, teach physics. A modest, quiet career... But he did not pass the exams. However, the director of the Polytechnic advised Einstein to simply study for a year at a local school, receive a certificate of the “established standard”, and then go to his educational institution with a light heart. That's what Einstein did. After which I entered.

By the way, since we are talking about the studies and certificate of the future genius, we need to immediately dispel one common myth. From year to year, from decade to decade, the same story is repeated: Einstein studied very poorly at school, was a dumbass, received only twos and threes. This myth is especially popular among sellers of programs “how to make a genius out of your child in two weeks.”

Nevertheless, it is stupid to talk about Einstein’s failure, although it is clear where this myth comes from. Take a look at the certificate that Albert received upon graduating from school in Aarau, Switzerland. This is where the confusion lies.

Albert Einstein Certificate

Wikimedia Commons

The fact is that Einstein began his studies in Germany and graduated in Switzerland. But German children at that time were rated on a ten-point scale, and Swiss children on a six-point scale. So one can understand that Einstein was almost an excellent student, but if he had received such a certificate in Germany, then his highest grade in physics and mathematics (6) would have turned into a three in our understanding, and a four in geography would have turned into a “banana”. Not what you should expect from a schoolboy who actually spends all his free time studying Maxwell's electromagnetic theory.

Polytechnic brought Einstein two important things: a diploma and a wife. It was there that he met a student four years older, Mileva Maric, a Serbian who was studying medicine.

Photo of Mileva Maric and Albert Einstein

Public domain

So, in 1900 the Polytechnic graduated. They say that the professors did not like Einstein for his independence (in fact, Einstein himself said this), and until 1902 he could not find any work at all, let alone a scientific one. “He lived from hand to mouth” for the future great physicist was not a metaphor, but the harsh truth of life, which damaged his liver.

However, there are forces on physics. Already in 1901 Annalen der Physik publishes the article "Consequences of the Theory of Capillarity", Einstein's first paper, in which he calculates the forces of attraction between the atoms of liquids.

His father could not help him with money - his enterprise went bankrupt, a new venture with a company selling electrical equipment did not take off, and in 1902 Hermann Einstein died. Albert barely had time to arrive to say goodbye to his father.

But a classmate, Marcel Grossman, helped, who in the same 1902 recommended his friend for the position of third class expert at the Swiss Federal Patent Office. The salary is small, but you can live, and the work is dust-free, leaving time for doing science. In 1904 Annalen der Physik proposed cooperation - for this journal Einstein made annotations of new articles on thermodynamics. Apparently, that’s why, when an almost real scientific miracle happened, the world learned about it from the pages of this publication.

In 1905, an almost unknown physicist published three articles in Annalen der Physik. Zur Elektrodynamik bewegter Körper(“On the electrodynamics of moving bodies”) Über einen die Erzeugung und Verwandlung des Lichts betreffenden heuristischen Gesichtspunkt(On one heuristic point of view concerning the origin and transformation of light) and Über die von der molekularkinetischen Theorie der Wärme geforderte Bewegung von in ruhenden Flüssigkeiten suspendierten Teilchen(On the motion of particles suspended in a fluid at rest, required by the molecular kinetic theory of heat).

The first begins the theory of relativity (still special), the second lays the foundation of quantum theory (and then Einstein will still convince Max Planck himself of the reality of the existence of quanta), the third, in general, is dedicated to Brownian motion, but at the same time it also thoroughly shakes up the whole building statistical physics.

Three powerful blows kicked open the door to new physics and, in fact, to a new consciousness. No wonder the year 1905 went down in the history of science as Annus Mirabilis- “Year of Miracles.” Only after these works Einstein was able to obtain a doctorate in physics. However, right up to 1909 he served in the Patent Office, despite the fact that already in 1906 physicists around the world addressed him in letters as “Herr Professor.”

Einstein gradually gained worldwide fame, especially since experimental confirmation of his theoretical research gradually came. In 1914, he was even invited to work in St. Petersburg, at the Academy of Sciences, but after the sensational Beilis case and the Jewish pogroms, Einstein refused precisely for ideological reasons. Moreover, the physicist, unlike many of our previous heroes, actively opposed the First World War. Maybe this was due to his Swiss citizenship, which he had had since 1901, or maybe it was just his character.

However, it was during the First World War, namely in 1915, that another “miracle” of Einstein appeared - which finally connected the nature of space and time and assigned the role of the material carrier of gravity to this union. Now, a hundred years later, without the general theory of relativity there is nowhere even in practice: for example, without corrections for the effects of general relativity, GPS devices will not work accurately.

The first time Einstein was nominated for a Nobel in physics was back in 1910, for his special theory of relativity. And every year the number of nominations grew and grew until it led to a natural ending.

There was also an interesting story about the Nobel Prize. We need to start with the fact that in 1911, the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, after several unsuccessful nominations in physics, was awarded to a Swedish optics specialist. He was indeed a very good optician and specialist in eye dioptrics, and after the award he became a very respected scientist in Sweden. And a member of the Nobel Committee.

This wonderful man turned out to be a very stubborn, although very friendly person “for his own people.” But if anyone was a “stranger” for Gullstrand... The stern Swedish genius could not stand and did not recognize the new physics and, in particular, Albert Einstein. “Thanks to” Gullstrand, 1921 was the year in which no prize in physics was awarded at all. No, not because they didn’t find a worthy candidate, but because Albert Einstein received so many nominations. Gulstrand threw a fit. He is said to have even yelled, “Einstein should never win the Nobel Prize, even if the rest of the world demands it.” And he convinced the committee not to award the prize to Einstein. Well, not Einstein - so no one.

Alvar Gullstrand

Public domain

To be precise, in 1922 two laureates were named, both for 1921 (after all, Einstein, although the great physicist received many nominations already in 1922), and for 1922. And, knowing in advance what would happen, many physicists already began to fear for their reputation. One of Einstein's nominations, from Karl Wilhelm Oseen, saved the matter. Oseen nominated the greatest physicist not for the theory of relativity, like everyone else, but for the discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect. Everyone clung to this “loophole” and, adding to the verdict the phrase “for outstanding achievements in theoretical physics” (read “he’s also a great guy”), they finally pushed through the stubborn Swede.

By the way, Einstein himself exercised his right to nominate Nobel laureates only nine times. He proposed to award the prize to Max Planck (even before he became a laureate), James Frank and Gustav Hertz, Arthur Compton, Werner Heisenberg and Arthur Schrödinger, Otto Stern, Isidor Rabi, Wolfgang Pauli, Walter Bethe and Carl Bosch (the latter chemistry). A unique story: all Einstein nominees received their awards.

The remaining third of a century of Einstein's life was full of both scientific and social activities until his death. And the gradually unfolding persecution in Germany, the forced move to the USA, work on general field theory, a letter to Franklin Delano Roosevelt about the need to actively create atomic weapons - and immediately, after the war, active participation in the founding of the Pugwash movement of scientists for peace, and even refusing the post of President of Israel. A separate book could be written about each of these 33 years.

However, these images, stored in the National Museum of Medicine and Health (NMHM), until relatively recently did not attract the attention of scientists, like the drugs themselves. Einstein's brain remained without research: it was only clear that in general it turned out to be slightly smaller than the average human brain (but within normal limits). However, in 1985, the first study of the slices already showed that all areas of the brain from which samples were taken contained an unusually large number of glial cells.

And in 2013, an article was published in the journal Brain, which analyzes the images discovered shortly before. Its main conclusion is the unusually highly developed prefrontal and parietal cortex of the great scientist’s brain. This probably explains his amazing mental abilities, the mathematical and spatial apparatus of his consciousness. This is how Albert Einstein helps “advance” science sixty years after his death.

Names of Nobel Prize laureates in physics. According to Alfred Nobel's will, the prize is awarded to "whoever makes the most important discovery or invention" in this field.

The editors of TASS-DOSSIER have prepared material about the procedure for awarding this prize and its laureates.

Awarding the Prize and Nominating Candidates

The prize is awarded by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, located in Stockholm. Its working body is the Nobel Committee on Physics, consisting of five to six members who are elected by the Academy for three years.

Scientists from different countries have the right to nominate candidates for the prize, including members of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and Nobel Prize laureates in physics who have received special invitations from the committee. Candidates can be proposed from September until January 31 of the following year. Then the Nobel Committee, with the help of scientific experts, selects the most worthy candidates, and in early October the Academy selects the laureate by a majority vote.

Laureates

The first prize was received in 1901 by William Roentgen (Germany) for the discovery of radiation named after him. Among the most famous laureates are Joseph Thomson (Great Britain), recognized in 1906 for his research on the passage of electricity through gases; Albert Einstein (Germany), who received the prize in 1921 for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect; Niels Bohr (Denmark), awarded in 1922 for his atomic research; John Bardeen (USA), two-time winner of the prize (1956 for research into semiconductors and the discovery of the transistor effect and 1972 for the creation of the theory of superconductivity).

To date, there are 203 people on the list of recipients (including John Bardeen, who was awarded twice). Only two women were awarded this prize: in 1903, Marie Curie shared it with her husband Pierre Curie and Antoine Henri Becquerel (for studying the phenomenon of radioactivity), and in 1963, Maria Goppert-Mayer (USA) received the award together with Eugene Wigner (USA ) and Hans Jensen (Germany) for work in the field of the structure of the atomic nucleus.

Among the laureates are 12 Soviet and Russian physicists, as well as scientists who were born and educated in the USSR and who took second citizenship. In 1958, the prize was awarded to Pavel Cherenkov, Ilya Frank and Igor Tamm for their discovery of the radiation of charged particles moving at superluminal speeds. Lev Landau became a laureate in 1962 for the theories of condensed matter and liquid helium. Since Landau was in the hospital after being seriously injured in a car accident, the prize was presented to him in Moscow by the Swedish Ambassador to the USSR.

Nikolai Basov and Alexander Prokhorov were awarded the prize in 1964 for the creation of a maser (quantum amplifier). Their work in this area was first published in 1954. In the same year, the American scientist Charles Townes, independently of them, came to similar results, and as a result, all three received the Nobel Prize.

In 1978, Pyotr Kapitsa was awarded for his discovery in low temperature physics (the scientist began working in this area in the 1930s). In 2000, Zhores Alferov became the laureate for developments in semiconductor technology (shared the award with German physicist Herbert Kremer). In 2003, Vitaly Ginzburg and Alexey Abrikosov, who took American citizenship in 1999, were awarded the prize for their fundamental work on the theory of superconductors and superfluids (the award was shared with the British-American physicist Anthony Leggett).

In 2010, the prize was awarded to Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov, who conducted experiments with the two-dimensional material graphene. The technology for producing graphene was developed by them in 2004. Game was born in 1958 in Sochi, and in 1990 he left the USSR, subsequently receiving Dutch citizenship. Konstantin Novoselov was born in 1974 in Nizhny Tagil, in 1999 he left for the Netherlands, where he began working with Game, and was later granted British citizenship.

In 2016, the prize was awarded to British physicists working in the United States: David Thoules, Duncan Haldane and Michael Kosterlitz "for their theoretical discoveries of topological phase transitions and topological phases of matter."

Statistics

In 1901-2016, the prize in physics was awarded 110 times (in 1916, 1931, 1934, 1940-1942 it was not possible to find a worthy candidate). 32 times the prize was divided between two laureates and 31 times between three. The average age of the laureates is 55 years. Until now, the youngest winner of the physics prize is 25-year-old Englishman Lawrence Bragg (1915), and the oldest is 88-year-old American Raymond Davis (2002).

Albert Einstein , without any doubt, is one of the greatest scientists of the twentieth century. This is probably why there have always been many rumors and myths around his figure, many of which are still popular today, although they do not correspond to reality at all.

I bring to your attention a short note in which an attempt is made to refute a couple of such persistent misconceptions about the personality of the great physicist.

I assure you that I am not going to lure anyone into the deep theoretical jungle in this note, especially since I myself know little about physics (only at the level of a long-forgotten school curriculum). To convince you of this, I will start my post with an anecdote about Einstein (and end it with an anecdote).

An American journalist once interviewed Einstein.
- What is the difference between time and eternity? - she asked.
“Dear child,” Einstein replied good-naturedly, “if I had time to explain this difference to you, an eternity would pass before you would understand it.”

Try asking someone Why Albert Einstein received the Nobel Prize . Most likely they will tell you what kind of creature it is theory of relativity .
In fact, this is not at all the case.

Albert Einstein in 1921
(Einstein was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1921)

Nobel Committee in 1922 awarded Einstein a prize for discovery of the laws of the photoelectric effect (and this confirms the quantum theory of Max Planck).
However, Albert Einstein had previously been nominated for the Nobel Prize three times (and specifically for the theory of relativity) - in 1910, 1911 and 1915. But to the members of the Nobel Committee, Einstein's work seemed so revolutionary that they did not dare to recognize it.

This is best seen in a letter to Einstein from the Secretary of the Swedish Academy of Sciences, Christopher Aurivillius, dated November 10, 1922: “As I have already informed you by telegram, the Royal Academy of Sciences, at its meeting yesterday, decided to award you the Prize in Physics for the past year, thereby recognizing your work in theoretical physics, in particular the discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect, without taking into account your work on the theory of relativity and the theory of gravity, which will be evaluated once confirmed in the future."

Among modern schoolchildren with poor grades (those who are ordinary lazy people, but not without intellectual abilities, otherwise they would not even know the name of a physicist) it has long been circulating the story that Einstein did poorly at school and even failed the math exam. Apparently they are trying to justify themselves with this: you see, Einstein was, like me, a poor student, and then became a great scientist! And I can do it, look!

I hasten to disappoint them.

Einstein's grades in both mathematics and physics were beyond praise. Another thing is that he was intolerant of the cane discipline that reigned in the Munich gymnasium (now, by the way, it bears his name). According to Einstein, the teachers of the junior classes reminded him of sergeants in their behavior, and the senior teachers reminded him of lieutenants. The teachers didn’t particularly like him either, because the behavior of the obstinate student called into question the entire orderly education system at the school. It was because of this that he gained a reputation as a bad student, and not at all because of a lack of knowledge or ability to think.

Albert Einstein's certificate from the Swiss school in Aarau in 1879
(grades are given on a 6-point scale). As you can see, in algebra, geometry and physics
The highest scores were given, but only a “C” in French:

In fairness, it should be noted that among the legends about the great scientist there are also stories that, quite possibly, could actually happen to him.

So, they write that one day he opened a book and found in it as a bookmark an unused check for one and a half thousand dollars. This could well have happened, since Einstein was extremely absent-minded in everyday life. They say that he did not even remember his home address - 112 Mercer Street, Princeton, New Jersey.

It is quite possible that the following anecdotal story is true:

Albert Einstein in his youth loved to wear only a tattered jacket.
- How do you dress so casually that people will talk about you? - the neighbors were surprised.
“Why,” Einstein asked, “nobody knows me here anyway.”
Thirty years have passed. Einstein wore the same jacket.
- Why do you dress so casually that people will talk about you? - the new neighbors were already surprised.
- And what? - asked the now famous physicist. - Everyone here already knows me!

Thank you for attention.
Sergey Vorobiev.

How World War II affected discoveries and achievements

The history of the Nobel Prize began with a reporter's mistake

In 1888, having confused the Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel with his deceased brother, journalists published a false obituary, eight years “ahead” of the scientist’s real death. In the text, Nobel, known to his contemporaries as the creator of dynamite, was called by journalists a “merchant of death” and a “millionaire on blood.” Not wanting to be remembered by posterity only as the author of a deadly invention, in 1895 the chemist wrote his famous will, in which he announced the decision to establish an annual scientific prize for inventions that brought the greatest benefit to humanity.

Largely thanks to the discoveries and inventions of Nobel laureates in the twentieth century, humanity created one of the most destructive weapons in history - the atomic bomb. Being the brainchild of the Second World War, it nevertheless, 70 years after its end, continues to act as a deterrent and, possibly, prevent the emergence of new armed conflicts on a global scale.

About the reverse side of the Nobel medal - the Manhattan Project, the inventions and fates of the laureates associated with the bloodiest conflict in human history - in the TASS material.

Deadly Physics - Manhattan Project

One of the main and most famous versions of the creation of the Manhattan Project is considered a letter from Albert Einstein to US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in August 1939, in which the physicist, Nobel Prize winner in 1921 (who received it for the discovery of the photoelectric effect, and not for the famous theory of relativity) warns that work is underway in Nazi Germany to create weapons of mass destruction

In 1943, Los Alamos National Laboratory, a secret US nuclear research center, began operating in the United States.

Over the years, about ten Nobel laureates in the field of physics have directly or indirectly participated in research related to the creation of nuclear weapons.

The contribution of some of them consisted exclusively of scientific developments and information. Others combined research and political activities - for example, physicist Enrico Fermi was one of the scientific advisers to President Harry Truman on the use of the atomic bomb for military purposes.

The developments and calculations of physicists Edwin McMillan and Ernest Lawrence were used to create the Baby uranium bomb, dropped on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945 (one of three bombs created within the walls of the laboratory).

Some of the laureates were distinguished by their extraordinary behavior. For example, American physicist Richard Feynman demonstratively broke into the safes of his laboratory colleagues and extracted from them documents containing secret information and drawings to show that insufficient attention was paid to the issue of safety and security of deadly developments.

On July 16, 1945, in complete secrecy in the desert of New Mexico, in Alamogordo, the United States carried out the first ever test of an atomic weapon © Youtube/atomcentral

It is worth noting that many scientists and researchers who stood at the origins of nuclear weapons opposed the aggressive use of atomic energy.

Thus, one of the participants in the Manhattan Project, the Danish scientist Niels Bohr (who worked in the USA for two years under the pseudonym Nicholas Baker), winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1922, according to official data, refused to cooperate with Nazi Germany in the development of atomic weapons, after the start of nuclear Research in the United States sent a series of messages to world leaders, in which he warned about the destructive potential of such weapons and called for their complete ban. In particular, the scientist tried to convey the idea of ​​abandoning nuclear weapons to US President Franklin Roosevelt, as well as British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. These attempts were unsuccessful, and in 1944, because of an invitation to visit the Soviet Union, the scientist was suspected of spying for the USSR.

Einstein later regretted the development of nuclear weapons, emphasizing that he had no choice, and the development of the bomb was forced by events in Germany.

American physicist Isidor Isaac Rabi (1944 laureate), speaking about one of the founders of the Manhattan Project, a supporter of comprehensive nuclear testing, Edward Teller, succinctly emphasized that without him “the world would be a better place.”

Soviet academician Andrei Sakharov, one of the creators of the Soviet hydrogen bomb and the nuclear shield in the USSR, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1975 “for his fearless support of the fundamental principles of peace among people,” also spoke out against atomic weapons.

"Nobel Ban" in Nazi Germany

The ban on the Nobel Prize in Germany began with its award to the pacifist and anti-fascist, opponent of National Socialism, Karl von Ossietzky. Von Ossietzky's nomination for the Peace Prize was supported by many German forced emigrants, including Albert Einstein and the writer Thomas Mann.

But the Nazi authorities never allowed the founder of the German Peace Society to receive the award, keeping him under secret police surveillance until his death in 1938.

In the same year, the German scientist Richard Kuhn was forced to refuse the prize in chemistry; in the post-war years he still received a medal and a diploma, but without the monetary part of the reward.

A year later, the prize winners in chemistry, Adolf Butenandt, and in medicine, Gerhard Domagk, refused their awards under pressure from the Gestapo.

Some scientists resorted to cunning in order to maintain the prize.

For example, German physicists Max von Laue and James Frank entrusted the storage of their gold medals to Niels Bohr, who lived in Denmark.

In 1940, during the German occupation of Copenhagen, in order to avoid the confiscation of awards, one of the employees of the Bohr Institute, chemist Gyorgy de Hevesy, dissolved the medals in aqua regia, which is a concentrated mixture of nitric and hydrochloric acids, and placed the solution in a jar.

In this form, the Nobel gold stood on the shelves of the university throughout the war, and after its end it was separated from solution and transferred to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and the Nobel Foundation, which re-melted it into medals and presented them to von Laue and Frank.

The Hungarian chemist who came up with an unusual way to save the awards later became a Nobel laureate himself, receiving the prize in chemistry in 1944.

Saving inventions from World War II

The world owes the discovery of penicillin, a drug that saved the lives of thousands of wounded soldiers during the war, to the British bacteriologist Alexander Fleming and the accident associated with the disorder in his laboratory.

In 1928, after a month away from work, Fleming discovered that a colony of mold had grown in one of his laboratory dishes, destroying the staphylococcal bacteria around it. The scientist managed to isolate the active substance that destroyed the virus cells. It turned out to be penicillin, the first antibiotic discovered.

The scientific community did not immediately appreciate the medical potential of the discovery. The first successful clinical trials of penicillin, confirming its antiseptic properties, were carried out only 12 years later by Oxford biochemists Howard Florey and Ernst Chain after they managed to obtain the drug in its pure form.

In 1941, penicillin was first used to treat bacterial infections, and the first person whose life was saved by the antibiotic was a 15-year-old boy with a previously untreatable blood poisoning.

However, due to the skeptical attitude of the authorities, the first country to successfully use penicillin for the needs of the army was not Great Britain, where it was invented, but the United States, which launched production of the drug on an industrial scale in 1944.

Fleming, Flory and Chain received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine “for the discovery of penicillin and its healing effects in various infectious diseases” only in 1945, 17 years after the discovery of the antibiotic.

Wartime Peace Prize

In 1944, the first recipient of the Peace Prize after a three-year break was the International Committee of the Red Cross, a society founded by Swiss writer Henri Dunant in 1863 after he witnessed the events of the Austro-Italian-French War of 1859.

The ICRC is the only three-time winner of the Peace Prize (1917, 1944 and 1963).

During World War II, the organization's employees delivered humanitarian aid around the world and provided support to prisoners of war and civilians. At the same time, representatives of the committee later admitted that the period from 1939 to 1945 was the most unsuccessful in the work of the ICRC, since the organization failed to provide the necessary assistance to victims of the Holocaust and other persecuted groups of the population.

In 1945, the Peace Prize laureate was the controversial figure of the Secretary of the US State Department. Cordell Hull, who received an award for his active role in the creation of the United Nations, a few years earlier categorically refused to grant political asylum to 930 Jewish refugees from Germany who requested it from Cuba and the United States. The politician motivated his decision by his reluctance to weaken the immigration policy of the United States and the illegality of such a step, emphasizing that if President Roosevelt does not listen to his recommendations, he will not support him in the upcoming elections.

No less interesting are the figures of politicians who were nominated but never received the Nobel Prize.

In 1943, Cordell Hull took part in the Moscow Conference of the Foreign Ministers of the USSR, USA and Great Britain, which was attended by the future nominee for the 1948 Nobel Peace Prize, USSR Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov. The Soviet politician was known not only as a signatory of the Non-Aggression Pact between Germany and the Soviet Union (Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact), but also as one of the initiators of the creation of the anti-Hitler coalition (on the basis of which the United Nations was subsequently formed).

For his contribution to its formation, Maxim Litvinov, who served as People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the USSR, was also nominated for the Peace Prize in 1945.

The number of Soviet figures who were applicants for the award also included Alexandra Kollontai, who served as the USSR Ambassador to Sweden in 1930-1945. During the Soviet-Finnish war of 1939-1940, she managed to prevent Sweden from entering the war against the USSR, and in 1944, the diplomat took on the role of mediator in negotiations on Finland's withdrawal from the war, which ended in success.

In 1939, Adolf Hitler, who had recently been recognized in the United States by Time magazine as “person of the year” for “spreading democracy around the world,” was nominated as a candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize. The European Community proposed to reward the German leader “For establishing peace in Europe,” in particular for his participation in the signing of the Munich Agreement of 1938, which secured the transfer of the Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia to Germany.

In the same year, the Fuhrer of the Third Reich was deleted from the Nobel lists - for military aggression against Poland, which marked the beginning of World War II.

Previously, in 1935, Italian dictator Benito Mussolini was nominated as a candidate for the prize, who was also struck off the list for starting hostilities against Ethiopia. Subsequently, the prize was awarded to the already mentioned German oppositionist Karl von Ossietzky.

Also, for the efforts made to end the Second World War and for the victory over fascism, the head of the USSR Joseph Stalin (twice - in 1945, 1948), the 32nd President of the United States Franklin Roosevelt and the Prime Minister of Great Britain Winston Churchill were nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize .

As is known, the Nobel Peace Prize was not awarded to any of them.

Churchill received the Nobel Prize later, but as a writer.

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Writers - about war and in war

British Prime Minister Winston Churchill was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1953 - “For excellence in works of a historical and biographical nature,” in particular for his work “The Second World War.”

Researchers emphasize that the award indicated recognition of Churchill’s political rather than literary talents, because at the same time as the head of the British government, 25 writers, including Ernest Hemingway, applied for the award.

Hemingway received the Nobel Prize in Literature a year later for his famous story “The Old Man and the Sea.”

The biography of the American writer contains many episodes related to the Second World War. So, in the first years of the war, while in Cuba, Hemingway monitored German submarines in the Caribbean Sea on his boat Pilar. Then he took part in combat bomber flights over Germany and occupied France. During the Allied landings in Normandy, the writer led a detachment of French partisans and took part in the breakthrough of the Siegfried Line - an offensive operation by Allied troops against the German army, undertaken in order to break through to West Germany.

Hemingway was also known for his harsh criticism of Mussolini.

While working as a correspondent for the Canadian edition of the Toronto Star, the writer published a caustic note containing his impressions of the Italian dictator's first press conference in Lausanne in 1923.

Hemingway recalled how, during a meeting with reporters, the Italian leader was ostentatiously immersed in concentrated reading of a book, which, after the writer managed to tiptoe behind him, turned out to be a French-English dictionary that Mussolini was holding upside down.

Ernest Hemingway

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Take a closer look at his biography. Think about the compromise between capital and labor that is fascism, and remember the history of such compromises. Take a closer look at his ability to wrap small ideas in big words. To his penchant for duels. Truly brave people have no reason to fight a duel, but many cowards do this all the time to convince themselves of their own bravery. Lastly, take a look at his black shirt and white socks. There's something off about a man who wears white leggings with a black shirt, even from an acting point of view.

Ernest Hemingway

Since 1929, after the publication of the novel A Farewell to Arms!, which describes the retreat of the Italian army during the First World War, Hemingway's books were officially banned in Italy, and later in Nazi Germany.

There were many opponents of the war and the Nazi regime among German authors. In the 20th century, four postwar Nobel Prize winners in literature were born and raised in Germany.

In 1946, the award was given to Hermann Hesse, the author of Steppenwolf, Siddhartha and The Glass Bead Game, whose novels had been banned in the Third Reich since 1942.

Hermann Hesse

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Instead of lulling themselves with the political question “who is to blame,” each nation and even each individual person must delve into himself, understand how much he himself, due to his own mistakes, omissions, bad habits, is guilty of war and other troubles peace,<...>this is the only way to avoid, perhaps, the next war ("Steppenwolf")

Hermann Hesse

In 1966, the Nobel Prize for Literature was awarded to 75-year-old German Jewish poet Nelly Sachs, most of whose family was killed in the Holocaust.

At the award ceremony, a representative of the Swedish Academy emphasized: “Sax’s books tell about the terrible truth, about mass extermination camps and death factories, but the writer stands above hatred of the torturers.”

In 1972, the prize was received by Heinrich Böll, a principled opponent of the arms race, a pacifist, and author of the novels “Through the Eyes of a Clown” and “The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum.”

It is believed that Bell was awarded the award for the publication of the novel “Group Portrait with a Lady” (1971), in which the writer tried to recreate a panorama of the history of Germany in the 20th century.

The writer’s attitude to the war is characterized by lines from the famous “Letter to his Sons,” written shortly before Bell’s death.

In 1999, at the age of 72, the award was given to Günther Grass, author of The Tin Drum, a writer with a controversial past. In 1944, 17-year-old Grass was enlisted in the 10th SS Panzer Division, with which he participated in the Battle of Berlin in April 1945. Later, in an interview in 2006, the writer stated that while serving in the SS military formations, he did not commit war crimes and did not fire “a single shot.”

“I was six years old when Hitler came to power, when the war began - 12, when it ended - 17,” said Grass. “I didn’t know any other ideology - it was the only one. The Hitler Youth organization was brilliantly organized. From the point of view of perception young man, all these tents, songs around the fire were wonderfully invented... This, by the way, was also in Stalin’s youth organizations. They liked it, and until the end of the war, despite the now obvious facts and circumstances, we believed that they were about to invent a miracle weapon that will ensure victory for Germany."