Laue & Franck had their medals dissolved in aqua regia to save them from Nazis

[fourier jr]

this is one of the coolest stories i've read in a while. it's so cool it's got to be true :tongue2:
When Nazi Germany invaded Denmark in World War II, the Hungarian chemist George de Hevesy dissolved the gold Nobel Prizes of von Laue and James Franck in aqua regia to prevent the Nazis from stealing them. He placed the resulting solution on a shelf in his laboratory at the Niels Bohr Institute. After the war, he returned to find the solution undisturbed and precipitated the gold out of the acid. The Nobel Society then re–cast the Nobel Prizes using the original gold.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_von_Laue
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Franck

[flame_m13]

that is pretty cool.

[f95toli]

Yes, it is a true story.
You can read more about it in e.g. "The Making of the Atomic Bomb" by Richard Rhodes (which also describes the development of physics during the first three decades of the 20th century).