Karl Richard Bechert (August 23, 1901 inNuremberg,Middle Franconia – April 1, 1981 inWeilmünster-Möttau,Hesse) was a Germantheoretical physicist andpolitical leader. As a scientist, he made contributions inatomic physics.

From 1920 to 1925, Bechert studied physics and mathematics at theUniversity of Munich, in the Institute of Theoretical Physics. He received his doctor of philosophy underArnold Sommerfeld, in 1925. Under a fellowship of theRockefeller Foundation, from 1925 to 1926, he accomplished postdoctoral studies and research at the Physics Institute of the University of Madrid. From 1926 to 1933, he was an assistant to Sommerfeld, completing hisHabilitation in 1930 and becoming aPrivatdozent.^[1][2]

While working for his Ph.D., Bechert helped Sommerfeld extend theBohr model of the atom and determine the atomic cobalt and vanadium energy terms from their respective spectra.^[3][4] He worked in collaboration withMiguel A. Catalán^[5] and Ludwig August Sommer.^[6] His thesis was on the structure of atomic nickel spectra.^[7]

In 1933 he was called as an ordinariusprofessor and director of the Institute for Theoretical Physics at theUniversity of Giessen. From 1945 to 1946, he was rector at the university. He remained at Giessen until 1946, whereupon he was called as ordinarius professor and director of the Institute for Theoretical Physics at the Johannes GutenbergUniversity of Mainz, where he remained until his retirement in 1969. He was also a member of the State Commission for School Questions on Lecture Courses at Mainz.^[2]

From 1942 to 1948, Bechert was chairman of theHesse District Association of theDeutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft. In 1963, he was elected as a foreign member of theNorwegian Academy of Sciences.^[2]

Bechert co-authored a number of books withChristian Gerthsen.

Bechert was raised in theLutheran Church. He had refused to join theNazi Party, and in promoting hisJewish colleagues at the Institute for Theoretical Physics of theUniversity of Mainz, he angered the Party. He also protected local citizens from the Nazis by hiding them in the surrounding forest.^[8]

In 1945, theAllied Military Government for Occupied Territories appointed Bechert mayor of Donsbach, Westerwald and the Oberschulrat in Dillingen, where, on behalf of the Allied Military Government, he built a secondary school/high school.^[2]

While at the University of Mainz, he was a member of the Senate Commission for Atomic Questions. Since the 1950s, he was a member of the Kuratorium of theDeutsche Friedensgesellschaft (DFG) - the German Peace Society. In 1951, Bechert joined Victor Paschkis in founding theSociety for Social Responsibility in Science. In 1955, he became a member the Church and Politics working group of the Evangelist Church inHesse-Nassau. The next year, he joined theSocial Democratic Party of Germany – the SPD. From 1957 to 1972, he was an SPD delegate in the GermanBundestag. From 1962 to 1965, he was also chairman of the Committee for Atomic Energy and Water Management. In the beginning of his political career he fought against nuclear armament. Later he opposed also the so-called "peaceful use of nuclear energy" ("friedliche Nutzung der Kernenergie") which was the official political aim of the SPD (and the other political parties at that time). He argued that the development and use of nuclear plants never could be safe and the problems with nuclear waste were impossible to solve. He became the "father of the german anti-nuclear movement" as the Manchester Guardian called him in 1981 and one of the precursors of the German Green Party. Bechert was also part of thePugwash movement and member of theWorld Union for Protection of Life.^[2][8]

• Karl Bechert and Christian GerthsenAtomphysik Bd. I Allgemeine Grundlagen (De Gruyter, 1944)
• Karl Bechert and Christian GerthsenAtomphysik Bd. II Allgemeine Grundlagen (De Gruyter, 1944)
• Karl BechertDer Wahnsinn des Atomkrieges (Diederichs, 1956)
• Karl BechertDeutsche Politik im Schatten der Atomdrohung (1958)
• Karl Bechert and Christian GerthsenAtomphysik Bd. III, Theorie des Atombaus (De Gruyter, 1963)
• Karl Bechert, Christian Gerthsen, andArnold FlammersfeldAtomphysik. Bd. IV. Theorie des Atombaus 2. Teil (De Gruyter, Berlin, 1963)

• Karl Bechert and Ludwig August Sommer, "Zur Struktur des Vanadiumspektrums",Z. Phys.31 145-162 (1925)

• Mehra, Jagdish, andHelmut RechenbergThe Historical Development of Quantum Theory. Volume 1 Part 1 The Quantum Theory of Planck, Einstein, Bohr and Sommerfeld 1900–1925: Its Foundation and the Rise of Its Difficulties. (Springer, 2001)ISBN 0-387-95174-1
• Mehra, Jagdish, and Helmut RechenbergThe Historical Development of Quantum Theory. Volume 1 Part 2 The Quantum Theory of Planck, Einstein, Bohr and Sommerfeld 1900–1925: Its Foundation and the Rise of Its Difficulties. (Springer, 2001)ISBN 0-387-95175-X
• Mehra, Jagdish, and Helmut RechenbergThe Historical Development of Quantum Theory. Volume 2 The Discovery of Quantum Mechanics 1925. (Springer, 2001)ISBN 0-387-95176-8

• Karl Bechert Biography – Friedrich Ebert Stiftung

• 1901 births
• 1981 deaths
• Politicians from Nuremberg
• Scientists from the Kingdom of Bavaria
• German Lutherans
• Social Democratic Party of Germany politicians
• Mayors of places in Bavaria
• German Peace Society members
• Lutheran pacifists
• 20th-century German physicists
• German quantum physicists
• Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich alumni
• Academic staff of the University of Giessen
• Academic staff of Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz
• Scientists from Nuremberg
• 20th-century Lutherans

• Webarchive template wayback links
• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata