The Nobel Prize is steeped in controversy, and this year’s roster of laureates adds fresh fuel to the fire. From accusations of genocide denial to sexual‑abuse scandals and glaring Eurocentric bias, the awards continue to split opinion. In this rundown we’ll unpack the ten most startling revelations that surround the Nobel’s storied history.
10 Shocking Facts About the Nobel Prize
10 Fritz Haber, the “Father of Chemical Warfare”
Fritz Haber stands among the most divisive Nobel recipients. To some, he is a brilliant chemist who revolutionised ammonia production; to others, he is the reviled architect behind Germany’s chemical‑warfare programme during the First World War.
Born into a Jewish family in Breslau – now Wrocław, Poland – Haber teamed up with Carl Bosch around the turn of the twentieth century to perfect a method for synthesising ammonia gas. This breakthrough underpins modern fertiliser manufacturing, feeding roughly half of the world’s population and saving billions from starvation. For this monumental achievement he received the 1918 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, while Bosch was honoured in 1931.
When the Great War erupted, Haber redirected his talents toward weapons development, heading the Chemistry Section of the German Ministry of War. He spearheaded the deployment of chlorine gas on the Western Front, earning the grim moniker “father of chemical warfare.” The lethal gas drifted across no‑man’s land, sinking into enemy trenches and suffocating soldiers. Estimates suggest over a million lives were claimed by chemical attacks during WWI. Haber also demonstrated how ammonia could be oxidised into nitric acid, a key ingredient for explosives.
9 Peter Handke, an Accused Genocide Apologist
The Nobel Prize in Literature frequently sparks heated debate, often framed as a clash of aesthetic preferences. Yet the controversy surrounding Peter Handke plunges far deeper, touching on matters of historical truth and moral responsibility.
Handke, an Austrian playwright, has been accused of championing Slobodan Milošević’s genocidal regime during the Bosnian wars. He publicly denied the Srebrenica massacre, the largest mass killing in Europe since WWII, in which more than 7,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys were executed in 1995. Handke further inflamed the debate by suggesting that the atrocities in Sarajevo were self‑inflicted by the Bosnian Muslims to vilify Serbian forces.
The 2019 award ignited outrage among writers and activists worldwide. Figures such as Salman Rushdie, Slavoj Žižek and Jennifer Egan condemned the decision, with Egan describing herself as “dumbfounded” by a laureate who “uses his public voice to undercut historical truth and offer succor to perpetrators of genocide.” The literary community continues to wrestle with the implications of his selection.
8 Kary Mullis, the Narcotic Astrologer
Kary Mullis, a 1993 Nobel laureate in Chemistry, is as famous for his scientific breakthroughs as for his eccentric personal beliefs. He co‑developed the polymerase chain reaction (PCR), a technique that can amplify tiny amounts of DNA into millions of copies, revolutionising fields from forensic science to archaeology.
Beyond his Nobel‑winning work, Mullis cultivated a reputation for wild behaviour: he openly advocated LSD use, claimed a steadfast belief in astrology, and even alleged an alien raccoon abducted him. He also voiced controversial opinions questioning the link between HIV and AIDS. Despite these quirks, the Nobel Committee still deemed his contributions worthy of the highest honour.
7 Egas Moniz, Inventor of the Lobotomy
By today’s standards, the lobotomy feels more like medieval torture than a legitimate psychiatric treatment. Yet in the early twentieth century it was hailed as a cutting‑edge “cure” for mental illness, with roughly 20,000 patients in the United States undergoing the procedure.
Portuguese neurologist António Egas Moniz introduced the operation in the mid‑1930s, initially describing it as a “simple, always safe” technique. Early patients, however, suffered severe personality changes, some becoming child‑like, while others slipped into vegetative states. The procedure’s high‑risk side effects have since rendered it widely condemned as unethical.
Moniz received the 1949 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for pioneering the lobotomy, despite the limited scientific understanding of its consequences at the time. Some historians argue the award legitimised the practice, bolstering its popularity. Appeals to rescind the prize have been denied, with the committee asserting that the 1940s context offered no better alternatives.
6 Soviet Repression
Boris Pasternak, author of Doctor Zhivago, was announced as the 1958 Nobel Laureate in Literature. His novel, initially rejected by Soviet publishers for “malicious libel of the USSR,” soon gained traction abroad and was seized by the United States as anti‑Soviet propaganda, with the CIA distributing copies globally.
While Pasternak celebrated his accolade, Soviet authorities branded him a “literary weed,” subjecting him to intense press vilification. Under Nikita Khrushchev’s regime, he faced pressure to renounce the prize, ultimately being forced to decline it to avoid exile.
Similarly, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, awarded the 1970 Nobel in Literature, was barred from traveling to Oslo and later expelled from the USSR for treason, illustrating how the Nobel could become a flashpoint for Cold‑War politics.
5 Sexual Assault and Financial Misconduct
In 2018, Swedish cultural figure Jean‑Claude Arnault faced a torrent of allegations involving sexual assault and financial impropriety. The 72‑year‑old was accused of rape, assault, and harassment by eighteen women, while evidence also suggested he and his wife Katarina, a member of the Swedish Academy, leaked the names of several prize winners ahead of announcement.
The scandal escalated to the point where the Nobel Committee was compelled to cancel that year’s Literature Prize. Arnault, who boasted of being the unofficial “nineteenth member” of the Academy, was convicted of rape in October 2018 and sentenced to two years in prison.
4 Alexis Carrel, Surgeon and Eugenicist
Alexis Carrel, a French biologist, earned the 1912 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for pioneering work in transplant surgery. Three years later, amid World War I, he devised an innovative antiseptic treatment for wounds, cementing his reputation as a medical innovator.
However, Carrel’s legacy darkened in the 1930s when he published Man, The Unknown, openly endorsing eugenics. He argued that “desirable” women should exclusively reproduce with “desirable” men, while advocating the sterilisation or even extermination of “undesirable” individuals, including proposals for gas‑chamber disposal of criminals.
3 D. Carleton Gajdusek, Perverse Criminal
Daniel Carleton Gajdusek, an American physician, shared the 1976 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his research on infectious diseases. He famously linked the fatal brain disorder kuru among the Fore tribe of New Guinea to a ritual of cannibalistic consumption of human brains, a groundbreaking discovery in prion disease.
Despite his scientific acclaim and generosity—adopting around fifty impoverished Pacific children and funding their U.S. education—Gajdusek’s reputation collapsed in 1997 when two of his protégés accused him of sexually abusing under‑age boys. He pleaded guilty to molestation and served a one‑year prison sentence.
2 Aung San Suu Kyi, Apologist for Ethnic Cleansing
The Nobel Peace Prize has a long‑standing history of contentious laureates, from Henry Kissinger to the European Union. In recent years, Aung San Suu Kyi, awarded the prize in 1991, has become a focal point of debate.
In 2018, the United Nations released a damning report documenting the Myanmar military’s systematic persecution of the Rohingya Muslim minority. Findings detailed mass killings, gang rapes, and the forced displacement of over 700,000 Rohingya, many seeking refuge in Bangladesh.
As Myanmar’s de facto leader, Suu Kyi faced global criticism for defending the regime’s actions. Nevertheless, the Nobel Committee has refused to rescind her award, sparking ongoing controversy.
1 William Shockley, White Supremacist
William Shockley, a pioneering American physicist, launched the first silicon‑semiconductor laboratory in Mountain View, California, in 1956—a cornerstone of today’s Silicon Valley. That same year he received the Nobel Prize for his pivotal role in inventing the transistor, a device essential to computers, smartphones and the modern Internet.
Beyond his scientific triumphs, Shockley harboured extremist views. He became an outspoken white supremacist, promoting the notion of racial IQ disparity and advocating eugenic policies that would financially incentivise the sterilisation of “genetically disadvantaged” (i.e., Black) populations.