Autograph Postcard Signed; to Otto Stern, July 25, 1953

Hamburg. -. Fine. Written on one side of a picture postcard, approx. 4 X 6 in., with a color photo of tulip gardens on the other side, stamp cancelled with a postmark from the Internationale Tagung Wissenschaft und Freiheit, from which the scientists wrote to their colleague. A remarkable postcard, sent from this group including two Nobel Prize-winning physicists -- and one who most certainly should have received a Nobel Prize -- to another Nobel Prize-winning physicist. The bulk of the text here is penned by Lise Meitner, who has signed in full. Adding a few lines is James Franck ("J. Franck") and adding their signatures are Max von Laue, Hans Thirring, and F.G. Houtermans. This impressive roster of atomic physicists were attending a prominent Cold War era conference (secretly sponsored by the CIA) in Hamburg. Max von Laue, a close associate of Albert Einstein, received the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1914; James Franck received it in 1925, and the recipient Otto Stern got the award in 1943. The Nobel committee's overlooking Lise Meitner's role in awarding the Chemistry prize to her colleague Otto Hahn in 1944 has often been cited as an example of sexist bias. A wonderful document joining a veritable constellation of twentieth-century scientific stars.