Two months after the dropping of the first atomic bomb, with the horrors of war and the images of the mushroom clouds still fresh in everyone’s minds, the Swedish Academy announced the awarding of the 1944 Nobel Prize in Chemistry to Otto Hahn, the German scientist who discovered fission in 1938. Insulated from the ravages of war by their neutrality, the Swedes could be perhaps more dispassionate than others in selecting a winner who, in Nobel’s words, “during the preceding year, shall have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind.” Even for those who believed that “all knowledge is good,” this was a truly remarkable choice: awarding the prize to someone whose discovery had led directly to the practical application of fission—the atom bomb—that killed a hundred thousand Japanese. Beyond that, the decision by the Academy to ignore the enormous contributions to this discovery by Hahn’s close colleague Lise Meitner is equally controversial and reflects both the effects of Nazi policies and the politics within the Swedish Academy. What follows is the fascinating story of one of the most impactful scientific collaborations, involving the German chemist Otto Hahn and the Austrian Jewish physicist Lise Meitner. Their story swirls amongst their personal challenges, the rise of Germany’s dictatorship, and the emerging age of nuclear physics, leading ultimately to the discovery of fission and one of the most controversial Nobel prizes ever awarded in the sciences.