The Alsatian-born American theoretical physicist Hans Albrecht Bethe (born 1906), prolific and creative contributor to several vital fields of nuclear physics, discovered the mechanism of energy production by stars (including the sun).

Hans Bethe was born in Strasbourg, Alsace-Lorraine--(now part of France)--on July 2, 1906, to Albrecht Theodore Bethe, a physiologist, and Anna Kuhn Bethe. At the age of 22 he earned his doctorate at the University of Munich and was given an assistantship at the Institute of Theoretical Physics of the University of Frankfurt. After a year he transferred to the Technische Hochschule in Stuttgart and then for three years was privatdozent--unsalaried lecturer--in physics at the University of Tübingen. He worked at Cambridge University and in Rome in 1930-1931 and then returned to Tübingen as an assistant professor.

After Hitler came to power, Bethe fled first to England and then to the United States...