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In postwar Germany, Hahn became the most revered elder statesman of what had once been Europe's proudest scientific establishment. He collected many awards, including a Nobel Prize in chemistry for his discovery of fission. But he always accepted such honors with characteristic humility. Visiting an atomic reactor or nuclear power station, he would shrug modestly: "It has all been the work of others." In a soon-to-be-published 300-page memoir, he brushed off his historic work in fewer than five pages. Last week, at the age of 89, the father of fission died peacefully in his beloved Göttingen.