Hans Hellmann
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Hans G.A. Hellmann (Wilhelmshaven, Germany, October 14, 1903 – Moscow, Russia, May 29, 1938), German theoretical chemist. M. Sc. in Berlin under Otto Hahn and Lise Meitner. Ph.D. with Prof. Regener, who was also the landlord of his future spouse Victoria Bernstein. Privatdozent (roughly Assistant professor) at Hannover Institute of Technology. After the Nazi rise to power, dismissed Dec. 24, 1933 as ‘undesirable’ because of Jewish wife. Took up a position in Moscow next. Ironically, he became one of the victims of the Great Terror in 1938. His son, Hans Hellmann, Jr., was only allowed to leave the former Soviet Union in 1991.
In science, his name is primarily associated with the Hellmann-Feynman theorem, as well as with one of the first-ever textbooks on quantum chemistry (‘Kvantovaya Khimiya’, 1937; translated into German as ‘Einfuehrung in die Quantenchemie’, Vienna, 1937). He pioneered several approaches now commonplace in quantum chemistry, notably the use of pseudopotentials.
