The Croatian physicist, philosopher, writer, peace activist and humanist died in his Zagreb home on 5 March after a long illness.
Supek was born on April 4, 1915 in Croatia's capital. He graduated from the Faculty of Philosophy in Zagreb in 1940. He then continued his studies in mathematics, physics and philosophy in Zürich and Leipzig. His professors, among others, were the physicist Wolfgang Pauli, psychologist Carl Jung and mathematician Wein. In 1941 he was arrested by the Gestapo for being involved in antifascist activity. His professors, Werner Heisenberg, Hund and von Weizsäcker intervened to release him from prison. He completed his doctoral thesis under Heisenberg and continued to work with him until 1943, when he went back to Croatia and joined the Croatian antifascist movement. In 1943 and until the end of the war he was the Minister of Education and Science.
Already in 1944, fourteen months before Hiroshima, he warned on the danger of the newly developed atomic bomb, which could soon destroy the entire life on Earth.
Beside his scientific and humanist work, Supek wrote numerous novels and plays, with themes spanning from philosophy, science fiction to politics.