Göttinger 18

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The Göttinger Achtzehn (Göttingen eighteen) was a group of eighteen leading nuclear researchers of the newly-founded Federal Republic of Germany who wrote a manifesto (Göttinger Manifest, Göttinger Erklärung) on April 12th, 1957, opposing chancellor Konrad Adenauer and defense secretary Franz-Josef Strauß's move to arm the Western German army, the Bundeswehr, with tactical nuclear weapons.

The eighteen atomic scientists were: Fritz Bopp, Max Born, Rudolf Fleischmann, Walther Gerlach, Otto Hahn, Otto Haxel, Werner Heisenberg, Hans Kopfermann, Max von Laue, Heinz Maier-Leibnitz, Josef Mattauch, Friedrich Adolf Paneth, Wolfgang Paul, Wolfgang Riezler, Fritz Straßmann, Wilhelm Walcher, Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker and Karl Wirtz.

These eighteen people were leading researchers and members of public institutions for research on nuclear energy and technology in Western Germany in that time.