I MUST say that I was surprised to see the eminent German-Jewish physicist, Lise Meitner, staring out from the pages of your Second World War supplement.

Lise Meitner and her professional partner, Otto Hahn, undertook a great deal of important research into how Einstein's theory E=mc2 could be put to use, and how all that energy he talked about could be released.

Then came the Nazi persecution of the Jews, and surprisingly, Otto Hahn saw to it that his partner was dismissed from the university where they had so closely worked together.

He must have guessed her days in Nazi Germany were numbered and indeed, he may have feared his association with a Jewish colleague would not bode well for him. I think he took advantage of an opportunity to rid himself of someone he may have perceived to be a threat.

In the event, Lise Meitner packed her bags and left for Sweden but without her, Otto Hahn was soon to find himself in trouble. He actually appealed to her for help and help him she did, thinking perhaps that despite everything, her achievements would also one day be recognised. They never were.

After the war, Otto Hahn wrote her out of the story and even claimed that the laboratory where they had collaborated, and which is now displayed in the Deutsches Museum in Munich, was his. He had in fact convinced the international scientific community that what he had achieved was all his own work. For that he was awarded the Nobel Prize.

Lise Meitner ultimately settled in England and, in 1968, she died in relative obscurity.

GEORGE ABENDSTERN