the rise of the Bolsheviks. He wrote articles in several far-right journals under the pseudonym Ernst Domeier, as was revealed in the 1990s. In 1933, Jordan joined the Nazi party, like Philipp Lenard and Johannes Stark, and, moreover, joined an SA unit. He supported the Nazis' nationalism and anti-communism but at the same time, he remained "a defender of Einstein" and other Jewish scientists. Jordan seemed to hope that he could influence the new regime; one of his projects was attempting to convince the Nazis that modern physics developed as represented by Einstein and especially the new Copenhagen brand of quantum theory could be the antidote to the "materialism of the Bolsheviks". However, while the Nazis appreciated his support for them, his continued support for Jewish scientists and their theories led him to be regarded as politically unreliable. Jordan enlisted in the Luftwaffe in 1939 and worked as a weather analyst at the Peenemünde rocket center, for a while. During the war he attempted to interest the Nazi party in various schemes for advanced weapons. His suggestions were ignored because he was considered "politically unreliable", probably because of his past associations with Jews (in particular: Courant, Born, and Wolfgang Pauli) and the so-called "Jewish physics". Had Jordan not joined the Nazi party, it is conceivable that he could have won a Nobel Prize in Physics for his work with Max Born. Born would go on to win the 1954 Physics Prize with Walther Bothe. Wolfgang Pauli declared Jordan to be "rehabilitated" to the West German authorities some time after the war, allowing him to regain academic employment after a two-year period. In 1953 he recovered his full status as a tenured professor, at the university of Hamburg, where he stayed until he became emeritus in 1971. Jordan went against Pauli's advice, and reentered politics after the period of denazification came to an end under the pressures of the Cold War. In 1957 he secured election to the Bundestag standing with the conservative Christian Democratic Union. In 1957 Jordan supported the arming of the Bundeswehr with tactical nuclear weapons by the Adenauer government, while the Göttingen Eighteen (a group of German physicists which included Born and Heisenberg) issued the Göttinger Manifest in protest. This and other issues were to further strain his relationships with his former friends and colleagues. Selected works References Further reading 1902 births 1980 deaths Scientists from Hanover