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Otto Haxel (2 April 1909, in Neu-Ulm – 26 February 1998, in Heidelberg) was a German nuclear physics. During World War II, he worked on the German nuclear energy project. After the war, he was on the staff of the Max Planck Institute for Physics in Göttingen. From 1950 to 1974, he was an ordinarius professor of physics at the University of Heidelberg, where he fostered the use of nuclear physics in environmental physics; this led to the founding of the Institute of Environmental Physics in 1975. During 1956 and 1957, he was a member of the Nuclear Physics Working Group of the German Atomic Energy Commission. From 1970 to 1975, he was the Scientific and Technical Managing Director of the Karlsruhe Research Center.
Haxel was a signatory of the Manifesto of the Göttingen Eighteen.
It was in 1940 that Haxel met a future collaborator, Fritz Houtermans, who, through the auspices of Max von Laue, had been released that year from Gestapo incarceration.Powers, 1993, 93.Hentschel and Hentschel, 1996, Appendix F; see the entry for Houtermans.
From at least 1940 to early 1942, Haxel worked on the German nuclear energy project, also called the Uranverein (Uranium Club). He specialized in studies of neutron absorption in uranium (see, for example, the Internal Reports below authored with Helmut Volz, also a former student of Geiger). Haxel was called up for military service in early 1942. He was put in charge of a group doing nuclear research for the German Navy under Admiral Rhein, who had formerly been a submarine commander.Powers, 1993, 324–325.
From 1946 to 1950, Haxel was a staff assistant to Werner Heisenberg at the Max-Planck Institut für Physik, in Göttingen. While there, he and Fritz Houtermans collaborated; Houtermans was at the II. Physikalischen Institut of the University of Göttingen.O. Haxel and F. G. Houtermans Gleichzeitige Emission von zwei Elektronen beim radioaktiven Zerfall des Rubidium 87, Zeitschrift für Physik Volume 124, Numbers 7–12, 705–713 (1948). Received 25 February 1948. Institutional affiliations: Haxel – Max-Planck-Institut für Physik, Göttingen and Houtermans – II. Physikalischen Institut der Universität Göttingen, Deutschland. Haxel also worked on the development of “magic numbers” in nuclear shell theory with J. Hans D. Jensen at the Institut für theoretische Physik, Heidelberg, and Hans Suess at the Institut für physikalische Chemie, Hamburg.O. Haxel, J. Hans D. Jensen, H. E. Suess Concerning the Interpretation of “Magic” Nucleon Numbers in Connection With the Structure of Atomic Nuclei, Die Naturwissenschaften (West Germany); Volume 35, 376 (1948).Otto Haxel, J. Hans D. Jensen, and Hans E. Suess On the “Magic Numbers” in Nuclear Structure, Phys. Rev. Volume 75, 1766 – 1766 (1949). Institutional affiliations: Haxel – Max-Planck Institut für Physik, Göttingen; Jensen – Institut für theoretische Physik, Heidelberg; and Suess – Institut für physikalische Chemie, Hamburg. Received 18 April 1949. In 1949, Haxel was also appointed supernumerary professor ( nichtplanmäßiger Professor) at the Georg-August-Universität Göttingen.
From 1950 to 1974, Haxel was an ordinarius professor ( ordentlicher Professor) of physics at the University of Heidelberg. At the University of Heidelberg, Haxel was also director of the II. Physikalischen Institut. Declaration of the German Nuclear Physicists ArmsControl.de . In the 1950s, mainly through the impetus of Haxel, environmental physics was developed there through the application of nuclear physics. This led to the founding of the Institut für Umweltphysik (Institute of Environmental Physics) in 1975, with Karl-Otto Münnich as its founding director. Haxel – Universität Heidelberg. Institut für Umweltphysik – Universität Heidelberg.
During 1956 and 1957, Haxel was a member of the Arbeitskreis Kernphysik (Nuclear Physics Working Group) of the Fachkommission II „Forschung und Nachwuchs“ (Commission II “Research and Growth”) of the Deutschen Atomkommission (DAtK, German Atomic Energy Commission). Other members of the Nuclear Physics Working Group in both 1956 and 1957 were: Werner Heisenberg (chairman), Hans Kopfermann (vice-chairman), Fritz Bopp, Walther Bothe, Wolfgang Gentner, Willibald Jentschke, Heinz Maier-Leibnitz, Josef Mattauch, , Wilhelm Walcher, and Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker. Wolfgang Paul was also a member of the group during 1957.Horst Kant Werner Heisenberg and the German Uranium Project / Otto Hahn and the Declarations of Mainau and Göttingen, Preprint 203 (Max-Planck Institut für Wissenschaftsgeschichte, 2002).
From 1970 to 1975, Haxel was the wissenschaftlich-technischen Geschäftsführer (Scientific and Technical Managing Director) of the Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe (Karlsruhe Research Center). Haxel – January 1970, Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe.
Haxel was a signatory of the manifesto of the Göttinger Achtzehn (Göttingen Eighteen).
In 1980, Haxel was awarded the Otto Hahn Prize of the City of Frankfurt am Main for his advocacy of and work on harnessing nuclear energy production. Haxel – 1980, Otto-Hahn-Preis der Stadt Frankfurt am Main.
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