6 Nobel Prize Winners Who Declined The Prize

5. Adolf Butenandt

1903 – 1995

Butenandt was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry “for his work on sex hormones” in 1939. He shared the award with Leopold Ruzicka, Croatian-Swiss scientists.

Adolf Butenandt did a lot of pioneering work on sex hormones. First, in 1929, he isolated estrone, female sex hormone, from the urine of pregnant women. The second female hormone that he managed to isolate was progesterone by using ovaries of 50.000 sows to obtain 20 milligrams of the hormone. In 1931, he isolated male hormone androsterone. Together with Dr. Ruzicka, who investigated the relationship between cholesterol and androsterone, he synthesized testosterone. His work eventually led to the discovery of birth control pills. Besides researching hormones, Butenandt made a lot of important discoveries about pheromones and gens.

Adolf Butenandt, like Richard Kuhn and Gerhard Domagk, was forced by Hitler to decline the award. Hitler forbade German scientists to receive the award because, in 1935, Carl von Ossietzky, journalist and pacifist, won Nobel Peace Award for exposing German’s re-armament during Versailles Treaty. Ossietzky was arrested in 1933 and kept in a concentration camp until 1938 when he died.

Although Nazi prevented Butenandt to receive the award, one can hardly say that he was Nazi opponent. As a matter of fact, he was a member of Nazi party from 1936, and while Max Planck Society says that he “never made his mark in the party actively”, there are evidence that he participated in military researches. However, the extent of his involvement with the Nazi party has never been determined.

Adolf Butenandt eventually received the award in 1949.