Otto Hahn in an obituary: Hahn's death did not stop his public acclamation. Proposals were made at different times, first in 1971 by American chemists, that the newly synthesized element no. 105 should be named hahnium in Hahn's honor; in 1997 the IUPAC (International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry) named it dubnium, after the Russian research center in Dubna (see element naming controversy). Although element 108 was given the name hassium (after Hesse) by its officially recognized German discoverers in 1992, a 1994 IUPAC committee recommended that it be named hahnium (Hn), in spite of the long-standing convention to give the
Otto Hahn by Edwin McMillan and Philip H. Abelson in 1940. On 13 July 1938, with the help and support of Hahn, Meitner – born into a Jewish family – escaped to the Netherlands; before she left, Hahn gave her a diamond ring he had inherited from his mother, to be used to bribe the frontier guards if required. Meitner emigrated to Stockholm, and Hahn continued to work with Strassmann. In late 1938 they found evidence of isotopes of an alkaline earth metal in their sample. The metal was detected by the use of an organic barium salt constructed by Wilhelm Traube.