A colleague’s memories of George Manu

I am among Your Lordships on the 40th anniversary of George Manu’s death because I had the privilege of living for some time with the commemorated man, some seven decades ago, as a member of the same university department. In 1935 we joined almost simultaneously the Department of Acoustics and Optics of the Faculty of Science in Bucharest, which had recently been occupied by Professor Eugen Bădărău, who had been called from Chernivtsi. Manu had obtained his doctorate in physics in Paris under the supervision of Professor Marie Curie (1867-1934), a Nobel Prize winner (Physics 1903 and Chemistry 1911).

His thesis was both experimental and theoretical and was cited in the original books and papers of the world’s leading authorities on nuclear physics. Gheorghe Manu, despite his exceptional professional training and his advanced age, was employed only as an assistant. Apart from him, I, the preparator, hired by the head of the department after graduating from the Reserve Engineer Officer School, was nobody. The only physicist, a colleague of my generation with an equivalent but purely theoretical education, was Șerban Țițeica, who was exiled as a substitute assistant in the Department of Analysis at the Polytechnic, although he had brilliantly completed his doctorate in theoretical physics in Leipzig under Professor Werner Heisenberg (1901-1976), who, like Marie Curie, was also a Nobel laureate (1932). But the old Faculty of Physical and Chemical Sciences in Bucharest was the only one in the country that had not been split into two separate departments, and where neither theoretical physics nor atomic and nuclear physics were taught at all. As a result, Șerban Țițeica lived in the university’s only physics library, which was housed and maintained by the Department of Acoustics and Optics.

It was a turbulent time at all levels, especially among the young. In the Faculty of Science, however, the restlessness manifested itself above all in the tendency to deepen and modernise courses, seminars and student and research laboratories. Lacking the necessary academic rank, Manu could only hold seminars or practical work with the students; his lectures and communications, which aroused great interest because of their topicality, were presented at the periodic symposia of the Faculty or at the meetings of the Physical Society, in the management of which he was the treasurer and I took care of its bulletin.

Since Professor Bădărău had added to his course a term devoted to spectroscopy and, implicitly, to elements of atomic physics, about which the students in Bucharest had never heard a word, I collaborated with Manu in setting up a student atomic physics laboratory in a room in the basement. Attracted to teaching, Manu perfected the way he presented his nuclear physics lessons and in 1940 published the first volume of a planned four-volume series covering the whole subject. Unable to continue his high-precision experimental work in Paris due to a lack of equipment, he continued to publish until 1941 papers analysing his own earlier experimental data and data from the literature, and inspired Șerban Țițeica with theoretical research, the results of which proved to be in perfect agreement with other experimental data.

On the political level, he expressed his revolt against corruption and social injustice, and at first naively dreamed of founding a party of honest people. At the insistence of the more original members of his illustrious family, Manu joined the Legionary movement in 1937, while continuing to be amused by the emergence of contrasts between the old concepts rooted in his family and the harsh realities that fuelled the revolt of the ordinary members of the Legion. He had thus retained a comforting clarity.

In Gheorghe Manu, we, his colleagues in the department, had discovered an exceptional man in whom general culture, of an unusual breadth, coexisted freely with a moral strength that was too often lacking even in refined and creative intellectuals.

In the autumn of 1937, I saw him, together with other honest and courageous colleagues, some of whom held fundamentally different political views, resist the concentrated acts of corruption and nepotism perpetrated by a group – today we would call it a mafia – of professors from the Faculty of Science, known as the “Falanga”, and senior officials from the Ministry of Education. They wanted to promote a director of the ministry and the son-in-law of a boastful physics professor, who thought he was invincible, to the rank of professor of Voivode Michael. The professor, disgraced by the king, was suspended from teaching because he had forged the poor qualification of an acolyte in his papers under his signature; the director of the ministry, corrupt to the bone, who boasted of a ridiculous doctorate and works done by others, was promoted, but only in the ministry; but the son-in-law, a nobody, obtained a higher qualification in a shameful competition than Șerban Țițeica, and thus the faculty was left without a theoretical physics course.

Immediately after the establishment of the royal dictatorship, Falanga tried to take revenge by demanding the punishment of three of the rebel assistants, one socialist and two legionaries, including Manu, of course. Ironically, the sanction was not approved by the interim Minister of Education, Armand Călinescu, who had reserved his interim position (as Minister of the Interior!) specifically to root out this nest of corruption.

As is well known, political conflicts degenerated into mass killings, and education became disorganised, with young people, whether students or teachers, increasingly being called up for long periods of concentration camp and other military service. We saw less of each other in the department. But on 1 September 1939, Germany invaded Poland without warning. Like bees in a hive, we in Bucharest spontaneously gathered in Gheorghe Manu’s small office, as if at an oracle. He was the best-informed and clearest man among us, the only one who could correctly answer the key question: “Who will win the war?” An unforgettable scene followed.

In a few minutes, Manu drew a map of Europe on a double sheet of A4 paper with incredible accuracy. (We were all familiar with his talent for capturing slightly caricatured portraits of people in a few simple lines). Now everyone present was ready to present their arguments and conclusions. Virtually everyone had come to the clear conclusion that victory would go to Germany and its allies. Their technical prowess, the Germans’ passion for the military, their acceptance of discipline, the youth’s enthusiastic adherence to Hitler’s ideology, the Führer’s ability to intimidate his opponents, and how many other qualitative arguments, such as the moral and material decay of the European democratic states and Russia’s military weakness demonstrated in the war with Finland, underpinned this quasi-unanimity. Manu seemed to agree, but began to unfold quantitative data on economic, technical and historical factors, which he drew from a personal database of astonishing richness and accuracy; then he listed many important factors that we had all forgotten, among them the apparently passive and peaceful United States of America and its natural, technical and moral resources. All our arguments in favour of a German victory fell like dominoes, and the conclusion that Germany would eventually lose the war became clear and inevitable.

On this occasion Manu had shown us not only the quantity and quality of the general knowledge stored in his mind, but also that he had the ability to organise it in such a way that he could draw convincing conclusions from it, which seemed self-evident.

For Romania, 1940 was a year of unprecedented crisis. Massive territorial losses, the abdication of King Charles II, the establishment of a new hybrid dictatorial regime, only partly legionary, preceded by widespread acts of violence aimed at decapitating opposing political groups, the collapse of traditional foreign relations, the infamous German-Soviet pact, shook but did not shake the country. However, there is only one event that I remember about Gheorghe Manu from this period: his reaction to the assassination of Nicolae Iorga. I was talking to a colleague in the corridor of the laboratory – I don’t remember who it was – when Manu appeared, agitated, his face as dishevelled as I had ever seen it, and shouted: “They killed Iorga! Our movement is finished!” He retired to his office. I didn’t dare follow him. From then on he behaved like a man at peace with his fate. Today I cannot understand why Manu considered this attack, among so many others, to be fatal for the Legionary Movement. Although after the “rebellion” some well-wishers, who had ostentatiously carried the “Nestmaster’s Booklet” in their pockets, claimed to have seen Manu in the street with a machine gun in his hands, Manu fell into the category of “good” Legionaries and was not persecuted. I did not notice that, in the presence of others, he reacted to Marshall Antonescu’s dictatorship in any other way than with irony. Moreover, at that time and until the summer of 1944, especially the younger ones were scattered for long periods, either in the country or at the front, so that contacts between us had increased considerably.

In the summer of 1941 the war was raging. At the age of almost 40, Gheorghe Manu, an uneducated soldier and university assistant, was in no danger of being called up. Even I, although a reserve officer, was used to censor foreign correspondence until December 1943 because of my knowledge of foreign languages. For me, this was followed by about five months at the front in the “Crimea across the sea” and a refuge in the service of my wife in Ardeal until after 23 August 1944. No wonder that my remarkable encounters with Manu were rare during this long interval. I would like to tell you about two of them.

At the beginning of 1941, it had been suggested to us that the Romanian Physical Society, in order to clearly demonstrate its political position, should invite a distinguished German scientist. Manu and I consulted Professor Gamilschegg of the University, an old friend of the Romanians and very reserved politically. He did not seem to like our proposals. But his counter-proposal, concerning Otto Hahn (1879-1968), who had discovered the fission of uranium less than two years earlier, seemed very appropriate, especially since the professor’s remark was: “You’ll like it”, made us curious.

Hahn arrived in Bucharest by plane on a Saturday afternoon, just a few days after Professor Horia Hulubei was appointed Rector. A spontaneous bus trip to the Prahova Valley was arranged. We were there, Manu as the specialist, me as the translator. And the surprises began.

Cautiously and politely, Manu asks about the flight to Bucharest. Hahn immediately pulled down his mask and answered: “Well protected by many of our planes, also heading south; I think Yugoslavia is next”. Noting his physical prowess, Manu admiringly asks him how old he is. The mask slips a little and the answer is indirect: “I was born in the same year as my friends Albert Einstein and Max von Laue”. A fascinating exchange! Hahn didn’t wait for me to translate the ban on Jews at the door of the Alpine Club and simply remarked in German: “I’ve made my point! He is then fascinated by the capital letters on the next door: “Please closîe USA”[1] and asked me: “What about these people?”

The misunderstanding amuses him and he promises not to draw any furter conclusions. After a short lunch, we walked through the park towards Sinaia. Two German soldiers, Bavarians by all accounts, come towards us, not at all happy. They are stopped by Hahn and startled, but a glance at his buttonhole reassures them: there are three miniature iron crosses on it – obviously from the First World War. To Hahn’s question, “How’s the beer here?”, they reply politely, “Good, good…”. To Manu: “Like at home?” with a hesitation and a gesture of embarrassment, the answer is: “It’s even better…”. They leave us with a parade salute. Hahn adds: “Poor people! What a cheap, short and conclusive survey!”

The next day in Bucharest: Presentation in German, with translation. Then coffee and the three of us go down to the basement to show Hahn our poor student’s nuclear physics lab. To start the discussion, Manu asks Hahn to tell us how he became a radiochemist. At one point he interrupts him and asks if he’s been to Montreal, pronouncing the name Montreol as the English do. Surprised that Manu speaks English, Hahn declares that no one will be able to make him badmouth the people who taught him everything he knows. He firmly believes that in the not-too-distant future mankind will be able to use nuclear energy, either for survival or for self-destruction, but also that the technological difficulties of creating a nuclear weapon will delay its realisation long enough for it not to determine the outcome of the current war. Manu’s pertinent questions also enlivened this open presentation of the future. It was natural that not a word should be said on either side about Germany’s possible plans to acquire this weapon. But Hahn’s words made his negative attitude quite clear, and indeed he was negative.

I wonder, however, why the leaders of nations seem to shy away from direct consultation with the great experts; both they and the nations would benefit, for only those who know things in depth can explain them in a way that everyone can understand.

The festive dinner that followed in the evening was held in a relaxed atmosphere, but was punctuated by some critical moments. A speech in French by the new Rector (Horia Hulubei) was followed by the Dean’s embarrassing speech in German, which he did not speak. Amused, Professor Hahn addressed the Rector with the formal German title Magnifizenz, but the Dean with an improvised, ironic “Suspektabilitat” – the correct one being “Spektabilitat”. Fortunately, the rather crude joke was hardly noticed. When Manu was asked how the legionaries had managed to install this man as dean, he bitterly replied: “Because he does what is asked of him”.

The second memorable meeting with Manu seems at first sight to be frivolous, but in my mind it became significant on another level: that of what was to come. It was in the autumn of 1943. Gheorghe Manu, Șerban Țițeica and I were discussing the future harvest of the vineyards. Țițeica and I turned out to be poor amateurs, while Manu, himself the owner of a selected vineyard, was also an expert in the field. When it turned out that we had no idea what the black wine nicknamed “catifeluță” felt like on the tongue, Manu invited us to a frugal meal in the restaurant of a small hotel – now extinct – near the Royal Palace. The meal was, of course, sprinkled with Manu’s velvet. I hope I may be forgiven for daring to see in this modest feast, the last time I met Manu, more of a secret celebration following a treacherous victory and foreshadowing the ritual sacrifice of the best of us.

When I returned from the sanctuary in 1945 to a semblance of normality, Manu was gone. I suspected, of course, that his underground political activity prevented him from appearing in public, but I had no idea on what level he was operating. Șerban Țițeica then secretly told me that he had met Manu in disguise and that he was directly involved in the National Anti-Communist Resistance Movement, thus going beyond the framework of his own political activity, even if it was illegal. As far as I knew, such a meeting had taken place once before.

Then I found out what everyone knew: the struggle, the arrest, the torture, and especially the prosecution and life sentence of Gheorghe Manu in the Black Sumanas trial, and his dignified behaviour in prison until his death. But his real merit and glory, beyond any partisan or ideological affiliation, remains the creation, through self-sacrifice, of that unique University of Aiud, which had three faculties: one of love of nation, humanity and manhood; one of love of honour and dignity; and one of love of knowledge and culture, led by the Rector Magnificus Gheorghe Manu.

N.B. This is a later, expanded version of my extemporaneous speech delivered on the occasion of the commemoration of Gheorghe Manu.

(Acad. Radu Grigorovici – George Manu. Monografie, edited by Gheorghe Jijie, Babel Publishing House, Bacău, 2010, pp. 386-392)

[1] The word “door” written in capital letters “USA” made Prof. Otto Hahn think that it was the USA (United States of America) and hence the justification of his question.