The Nobels and the Nazis

I've been reading Sam Kean's book The Disappearing Spoon, a very fun read that takes you through various stories surrounding elements, their discoveries and the scientists who discovered, isolated or otherwise messed with them to good effect.

A young de Hevesy

One story I just have to share, and from some quick googling I know that it is not only me who, out of all the great stories in Kean's book, has picked this one out as particularly impressive. After all, it has Nazis, tension, a healthy dash of derring-do and (drumroll) science!

It was 1940, the Nazis were marching into Copenhagen in Denmark, and Neils Bohr and Georges de Hevesy found themselves in possession of two Nobel prizes. They weren't theirs-- two physicists, fearing their medals would be seized and lost forever under the rise of the Nazis, had sent them from Germany to Copenhagen for safekeeping. Their discovery could be deadly, because exporting gold from Nazi Germany was forbidden and the names of the recipients were inscribed on the medals.

Bohr and de Hevesy had only hours and, knowing the Institute would be searched, initially thought of burying the medals-- although a freshly-covered pit would no doubt be discovered. So what did de Hevesy do? He dissolved them.

Gold in Aqua Regia

Gold, it turns out, doesn't dissolve easily. The same stability which means it sits around in Pharoah's tombs untarnished for thousands of years also means it stubbornly resists efforts that would rid a lab of, say, a silver medal. However, such a problem only needs one workable solution-- and solution it was, as, the Nazis breathing down his neck, de Hevesy slowly dissolved the medals in a mixture of hydrochloric and nitric acid called aqua regia.

The bright orange resultant liquid was bottled up and carefully stored on a shelf and, despite the Institute being searched and both de Hevesy and Bohr ultimately fleeing Denmark themselves, it was still there after the war, sitting on the shelf. De Hevesy simply precipitated out the gold and returned it to the Swedish Academy where it was once again turned into two, shiny gold medals inscribed with the names of their owners.

 Great story, eh? This story may be the quintessential example of this:

Probably how de Hevesy looked when dissolving the medals,