In 1945, the Kaiser Wilhelm Society, Germany's premier science research institution, was in tatters. It was even at risk of being axed after the Second World War, but leading German scientists convinced the allies to rebuild and rebrand the renowned research organization. So an 86- year-old Max Planck once again assumed the presidency, after the Nazi regime forced him from the post in 1937. As part of the society's makeover, Planck, the founder of quantum theory, offered his own name. In 1946, he served as the first honorary president of the Max Planck Society (MPS) during its early development in postwar Germany's British zone.
Planck, however, passed away less than a year before the society's first official meeting in February 1948 in Göttingen. At that time, his eponymous society comprised only 25 small institutes with a combined budget of around $5-6 million (about $50 million in today's ...
