Adventurous Life of Friedrich Georg Houtermans, Physicist (1903-1966)

Prof. Edoardo Amaldi (5 September 1908 – 5 December 1989) was an Italian physicist. He graduated under the supervision of Enrico Fermi. After the second world war, Amaldi held the chair of "General Physics" at the Sapienza University of Rome. He was the co-founder of the Italian National Institute for Nuclear Physics, and of CERN and ESRO. He pioneered the European  search for gravitational waves. Edorardo Amaldi is the original author of the Houtermans biography and left behind an incomplete version of it that was now completed by the Editors Profs. Braccini, Ereditato (both University of Bern) and Scampoli (University of Naples).

• Preamble.- Friedrich’s birth and family background.- His youth in Vienna.- Student in Göttingen.- Assistant in Berlin.- Fritz’s first marriage.- Life in Berlin.- Emigration to U.K. and U.S.S.R.- Professor in Kharkov.-The beginning of the great trials.- The years of prison.- An overview of the situation in central Europe.- More about Fritz and Konstantin.- A few other physicists’ political troubles.- Finally out of prison!.- Shaken by worldwide storms. Fritz’s second family.- An outline of the early development of applied nuclear energy in Germany.- From Berlin to Ronneburg.- In Göttingen again.- Houtermans’ third family.- Fritz’s fourth family. His departure.- Houtermans’ scientific work and influence in Bern.- Why we remember him.- List of Publications by F. G. Houtermans.- Bibliography.