The First Class of Fulbrighters - Fulbright-Kommission

Reminiscences on the
Fulbright Experience
by Chuck Buntschuh
AS A JUNIOR PHYSICS STUDENT at Massachusetts
Institute of Technology (MIT), I was fortunate enough
to spend the summer working in Germany under a program
sponsored by the International Student Association as a technician
in the quality control department of the Philips electric
light bulb plant in Aachen. Actually, I didn’t have much to
do—in fact my coworkers teased me when I forgot to turn the
page on the calendar, as that was my job—so I spent a lot of
time working on my language skills, touring the plant with
one of the production engineers, who taught me about the
processes of light bulb manufacture, and, best of all, getting to
know my colleagues. Becoming immersed in a different culture,
and learning that it wasn’t so terribly different after all,
Those evenings, meals in the dining hall
—with a seemingly infinite supply of
potatoes—and regular volleyball games
in the backyard provided wonderful
opporttunities to get to know other students.
and the warmth of the associations I formed, were such positive
and profound experiences that I just had to go back. Not
long after returning to school in the fall, I learned that the
Fulbright program was being expanded to Germany. I lost no
time in applying and was thrilled to be accepted.
AS A MEMBER of the first Fulbright class in 1953 I
matriculated at the Georg-August Universität in Göttingen
to study physics. Early on I found a place at the Max Planck
Institut für Physik in Göttingen where Werner Heisenberg
and Karl Wirtz were co-directors. Professor Wirtz, who led
up the experimental physics activities, was my mentor and
encouraged me to undertake a project on measuring some
properties of neutron diffusion in graphite, a subject related
to nuclear reactor physics, a field in which the Institut was
heavily engaged.
I was among the fortunate few who applied for and
received a one-year extension to my grant, enabling me to
complete my laboratory work, write a Diplomarbeit, and earn
a Diplomphysiker degree. Even though my later career took
some turns and I moved away from reactor physics, the
immediate result was, after returning to the U.S. and beginning
my two-year tour of duty in the Air Force, that I was
assigned as a nuclear engineer in the project office for the
design and construction of a nuclear test reactor. The Göttingen
training not only served me well in that position, it was
terrific preparation for research and study on returning to
grad school after the service.
ALTHOUGH I HAD HAD SEVERAL YEARS OF
GERMAN in high school, I had to struggle during the
summer in Aachen to become reasonably proficient in the
language. One time I went into a shoe shop to purchase
some polish for my white bucks. The salesperson asked me,
“Wild- oder Glattleder?” Without my dictionary, I was lost,
and had to return the next day and reply, “Wild!” By the end
of the summer, however, I was feeling pretty confident. But
the following year, in Göttingen, in a university setting, I
was virtually blown away by the more sophisticated level of
the conversation compared to that of the factory. So much so
that it took until about Christmas for me to feel really comfortable.
GÖTTINGEN, A LOVELY UNIVERSITY TOWN
of about 80,000 people—today it has over a half a million—
was mercifully spared by the Second World War, making it a
delightful place to live and study. (Aachen, on the other
hand, was working diligently to overcome the devastation of
the Battle of the Bulge.) I loved the walk from the Nansen
Haus, where I lived, to the lab, which took me through a
couple of parks with inspiring statues of famous Göttingen
physicists like Gauß and Weber. And, of course, there was
the Konditorei which Jim Turner and Jack Waldrip, the two
other first-year Fulbrighters in Göttingen, and I frequented
enough to claim our favorite spot as our Stammtisch.
There is a large plaza in front of the Göttinger Rathaus in
the middle of which is a fountain surmounted by a statue of
a young girl and her goose. It is called the Gänseliesel. It is
supposed to be a tradition that every student has to kiss her
before graduating. I’m not sure how many students actually
observe this tradition, but shortly before my final oral exams,
my friends insisted I had to do it.
IN GÖTTINGEN, I lived in the Fridtjof Nansen
Haus, an international student home founded by Rev. Olav
Brennhovd just a year or so earlier. The Nansen Haus housed
about 100 students, half German and half from countries all
around the world. Probably my fondest reminiscences of
Göttingen center around the Nansen Haus and its social life.
There were monthly Hausabende in which we all gathered in
the main hall for a party, often accompanied by some formal
presentation or activity. Those evenings, meals in the dining
hall—with a seemingly infinite supply of potatoes—and regular
impromptu volleyball games in the backyard provided
wonderful opportunities to mix with, and get to know, students
not in one’s smaller circle of friends. For the smaller
groups, afternoon tea, trips to the movies, and walks in the
nearby woods were always popular. I shall always cherish
having lived and interacted with such a diverse and fascinating
group of people.