A strong objector to Nazism, he was instrumental in re-establishing and organizing German science after World War II.

At Göttingen, he was greatly influenced by the physicists Woldemar Voigt and Max Abraham and the mathematician David Hilbert.

There, he studied under Max Planck, who gave birth to the quantum theory revolution on 14 December 1900, when he delivered his famous paper before the Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft.

In Berlin, he worked on the application of entropy to radiation fields and on the thermodynamic significance of the coherence of light waves.

But Born was in the army until WW I ended, and before he had occupied the chair, Laue changed his mind and accepted the position.

[8][9][10][11] He was called to the University of Berlin as ordinarius professor of theoretical physics, a position he held from 1919 until 1943, when he was declared emeritus, with his consent and one year before the mandatory retirement age.

Laue, as one of the organizers of the weekly Berlin Physics Colloquium, typically sat in the front row with Nernst and Einstein, who would come over from the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Institut für Physik in Berlin-Dahlem, where he was the director.

Among Laue's notable students at the university were Leó Szilárd, Fritz London, Max Kohler, and Erna Weber.

It was at Hechingen that Laue wrote his book on the history of physics Geschichte der Physik, which was eventually translated into seven other languages.

Laue and his close friend Otto Hahn secretly helped scientific colleagues persecuted by Nazi policies to emigrate from Germany.

An address on 18 September 1933 at the opening of the physics convention in Würzburg, opposition to Johannes Stark, an obituary note on Fritz Haber in 1934, and attendance at a commemoration for Haber are examples which clearly illustrate Laue's courageous, open opposition: The speech and the obituary note earned Laue government reprimands.

[17][26][27][28][29][30] In a commonly reported anecdote Laue is supposed to have carried parcels in his hands when exiting his house, so to avoid having to give the Nazi Salute.

The scientific advisor to the Operation was the Dutch-American physicist Samuel Goudsmit, who, adorned with a steel helmet, appeared at Laue's home.

Laue was taken into custody and taken to Huntingdon, England, and interned at Farm Hall with other scientists thought to be involved in nuclear research and development.

[35] During his incarceration, Laue wrote a paper on the absorption of X-rays under interference conditions, which it was later published in Acta Crystallographica.

He was extended many courtesies by the British officer who escorted him there and back, and a well-known English crystallographer as his host; Laue was even allowed to wander around London on his own.

During the war, the PTR had been dispersed; von Laue, from 1946 to 1948, worked on its re-unification across three zones and its location at new facilities in Braunschweig.

[10][17][36] In April 1951, Laue became director of the Max-Planck Institut für physikalische Chemie und Elektrochemie, a position he held until 1959.

[9] On 8 April 1960, while he was driving to his laboratory in West Berlin, Laue's car was struck by a motorcyclist, who had received his license only two days earlier.