Early Years and Education
Supek was born on April 8, 1915 in Zagreb, Croatia (still nominally under Austria-Hungary). During his high school days, he organized a local section of the Young Communist League of Yugoslavia at his school, and was a member of the League until the Hitler-Stalin Pact. On one occasion, he secretly smuggled a briefcase to a man in Vienna he later found to be Josip Broz Tito. After finishing grammar school in Zagreb in 1934, he continued pursuing his education in Vienna for a brief period, then moved to Zuerich studying mathematics, physics, biology and philosophy. Increasingly interested in quantum physics and its philosophical consequences, he moved to Leipzig where in 1940 he obtained his PhD in physics under Werner Heisenberg. He worked on problems of superconductivity, but ultimately his doctoral dissertation was on electrical conductivity in metals in low temperatures. In March 1941 he was arrested by the Gestapo for being involved in antifascist activity and held in prison for many months. His professors, Heisenberg, Hund and von Weizsäcker intervened to release him from prison. Immediately after being released, instead of returning to Leipzig, he went back to Independent State of Croatia and joined the communist antifascist movement. He would not return to physics research again, focusing on his philosophical and literary work.
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