Abstract
Using newly found letters and photographs from the 1950s, this short documentary film commemorates the 70th anniversary of the first visit of a Peace Nobel Laureate to a Lindau Meeting. Albert Schweitzer’s visit in 1954 not only marked a new epoch for the Meetings but also had a profound impact on some of the 20th-century's leading physicists that were assembled in Lindau.
The most enduring impact of Schweitzer’s visit may have been in the dialogue he began with Werner Heisenberg and Otto Hahn. Following their meeting in Lindau, Schweitzer corresponded with both men for the remainder of his life, discussing topics that included quantum physics but that, above all, were concerned with nuclear war. In 1954, the issue of nuclear armaments could not be overlooked. That spring, Schweitzer published an article in the Daily Herald addressing the dangers of the hydrogen bomb. Otto Hahn publicly supported Schweitzer’s stance against nuclear weapons, while Heisenberg later remarked that Schweitzer's presence at the 1954 Meeting led him and his colleagues to re-evaluate their humanitarian responsibilities as scientists.
One year later, the 1955 Mainau Declaration, an appeal against nuclear war signed by 18 Nobel Laureates, was spearheaded by Heisenberg and Hahn
Footage (among others): SWR Retro - Der Südwesten damals: Bodenseewoche mit Albert Schweitzer (ardmediathek.de).