 James Franck ( 26 August 1882 – 21 May 1964 ) was a German physicist who won the 1925 Nobel Prize for Physics with Gustav Hertz " for their discovery of the laws governing the impact of an electron upon an atom " . He completed his doctorate in 1906 and his habilitation in 1911 at the Frederick William University in Berlin , where he lectured and taught until 1918 , having reached the position of professor extraordinarius . He served as a volunteer in the German Army during World War I. He was seriously injured in 1917 in a gas attack and was awarded the Iron Cross 1st Class . 
