Robert Jungk

Robert Jungk (German: [jʊŋk]; born Robert Baum, also known as Robert Baum-Jungk; 11 May 1913 – 14 July 1994) was an Austrian writer, journalist, historian and peace campaigner. He wrote mostly on matters relating to nuclear weapons.^[1]

Life

Jungk was born into a Jewish family in Berlin. His father, known as Max Jungk, was born David Baum in Bohemia.

When Adolf Hitler came to power, Robert Jungk was arrested and released, moved to Paris, then back to Nazi Germany to work in a subversive press service. These activities forced him during World War II to move through various cities including Prague, Paris, and Zürich. After the war, he continued working as a journalist.^{[citation needed]}

His book Brighter than a Thousand Suns: A Personal History of the Atomic Scientists, was the first published account of the Manhattan Project and the German atomic bomb project. Its first Danish edition implied that the German project's workers had been dissuaded from developing a weapon by Werner Heisenberg and his associates, a claim strongly contested by the Danish 1922 Physics Nobel Prize winner Niels Bohr. This led to questions about a 1941 meeting between Bohr and Heisenberg in Copenhagen, Denmark, which became the subject of Michael Frayn's 1998 play Copenhagen.

In 1986 Jungk received the Right Livelihood Award for "struggling indefatigably on behalf of peace, sane alternatives for the future and ecological awareness."^[2]

In 1992 he made an unsuccessful bid for the Austrian presidency on behalf of the Green Party.

Jungk died in Salzburg on 14 July 1994.^[1]

Personal life

In 1948 Jungk married Ruth Suschitzky (1913–1995).^[3] Their son is journalist and writer Peter Stephan Jungk.^[4]

Bibliography

Tomorrow Is Already Here, New York: Simon & Schuster, 1954. Reportage on scientific and technical breakthroughs, a work of nascent dystopian 'futurism'. Much of it was about what developed from the Manhattan Project, as well as things like "electronic brains".
Brighter than a Thousand Suns: A Personal History of the Atomic Scientists, New York: Harcourt Brace, 1958
Children of the Ashes, 1st English ed. 1961. About Hiroshima
The Nuclear State
The Everyman Project
Future Workshops

Recognition

1970: Honorary Professor at the Technical University of Berlin
1986: Right Livelihood Award
1989: Honorary Citizen of the City of Salzburg
1992: Alternative Büchner Prize
1993: Honorary Doctor of the University of Osnabrück
1993: Austrian Cross of Honour for Science and Art
1993: Salzburg Award for Future Research
2000: The anti-Wackersdorf reprocessing plant-monument on Mozartplatz (Salzburg) is, among others also dedicated to him.