Siegfried Balke

During the Nazi period, Balke, a Protestant Christian, was classified as a "half-Jew", which prevented him from pursuing an academic career in Germany.

Balke was co-publisher of "Ullmann's Encyclopedia of Technical Chemistry" as well as the periodicals "Chemical Industry" and "Nuclear Economy" (all in German).

During Balke's term as Minister for Nuclear Energy, the German Electron Synchrotron (DESY) was founded, one of Germany's largest research centers for particle physics.

In 1957, he publicly sided with the signers of the Göttingen Manifesto against arming the German military with tactical nuclear weapons.

German Wikipedia article Joachim Radkau, Aufstieg und Krise der deutschen Atomwirtschaft, Reinbek 1983, ISBN 3-499-17756-0

Dr. Siegfried Balke, Portrait by Günter Rittner 1969. In the possession of the Confederation of German Employers' Associations