Armed Forces. From 1937 until 1945, Gerlach was a member of the supervisory board of the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gesellschaft (KWG). After 1946, he continued to be an influential official in its successor organization after World War II, the Max-Planck-Gesellschaft (MPG). On 1 January 1944, Gerlach officially became head of the physics section of the Reichsforschungsrat (RFR, Reich Research Council) and Bevollmächtigter (plenipotentiary) of nuclear physics, replacing Abraham Esau. In April of that year, he founded the Reichsberichte für Physik, which were official reports appearing as supplements to the Physikalische Zeitschrift. From May 1945, Gerlach was interned in France and Belgium by British and American Armed Forces under Operation Alsos. From July of that year to January 1946, he was interned in England at Farm Hall under Operation Epsilon, which interned 10 German scientists who were thought to have participated in the development of atomic weapons. Upon Gerlach's return to Germany in 1946, he became a visiting professor at the University of Bonn. From 1948, he became an ordinarius professor of experimental physics and director of the physics department at the University of Munich, a position he held until 1957. He was also rector of the university from 1948 to 1951. From 1949 to 1951, Gerlach was the founding president of the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft, which promotes applied sciences. From 1949 to 1961, he was the vice-president of the Deutsche Gemeinschaft zur Erhaltung und Förderung der Forschung (German Association for the Support and Advancement of Scientific Research); also known in short as the Deutsche Forschungs-Gemeinschaft (DFG), previously the Notgemeinschaft der Deutschen Wissenschaft. In 1957, Gerlach was a co-signer of the Göttingen Manifesto, which was against rearming the Federal Republic of Germany with atomic weapons. Other positions / Decorations / Honours From 1935 – Chairman of the committee to appoint a successor to Arnold Sommerfeld. From 1939 – Member of the Comerlin working group on ship degaussing and torpedo physics. From 1948 – a member of the Göttingen, Halle, and Munich Academies of Sciences. Civil Class of the order Pour le Mérite. 1970 – Bundesverdienstkreuz mit Stern Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany Literature Walther Gerlach: Matter, Electricity, Energy: The Principles of Modern Atomistic and Experimental Results of Atomic Investigations (D. Van Nostrand, 1928) Mac Hartmann and Walther Gerlach: Naturwissenschaftliche Erkenntnis und ihre Methoden (Springer, 1937) Walther Gerlach: Die Quantentheorie. Max Planck sein Werk und seine Wirkung. Mit einer Bibliographie der Werke Max