thumb|right|300px|The inaugural award: [[Max Planck (left) presents Albert Einstein (right) with the Max Planck medal of the German Physical Society, 28 June 1929, in Berlin, Germany.]]
The Max Planck Medal is the highest award of the German Physical Society , the world's largest organization of physicists, for extraordinary achievements in theoretical physics. The prize has been awarded annually since 1929, with few exceptions, and usually to a single person. The winner is awarded with a gold medal and hand-written parchment.
In 1943 it was not possible to manufacture the gold medal because the Berlin foundry was hit by a bomb. The board of directors of the German Physical Society decided to manufacture the medals in a substitute metal and to deliver the gold medals later.
The highest award of the German Physical Society for outstanding results in experimental physics is the Stern–Gerlach Medal.
List of recipients
- 2026 Kurt Kremer
- 2025 Reinhard F. Werner
- 2024 Erwin Frey
- 2023 Rashid A. Sunyaev
- 2022 Annette Zippelius
- 2021 Alexander Markovich Polyakov
- 2020 Andrzej Buras
- 2019 Detlef Lohse
- 2018 Juan Ignacio Cirac
- 2017 Herbert Spohn
- 2016 Herbert Wagner
- 2015 Viatcheslav Mukhanov
- 2014 David Ruelle
- 2013 Werner Nahm
- 2012 Martin Zirnbauer
- 2011 Giorgio Parisi
- 2010 Dieter Vollhardt
- 2009 Robert Graham
- 2008 Detlev Buchholz
- 2007 Joel Lebowitz
- 2006 Wolfgang Götze
- 2005 Peter Zoller
- 2004 Klaus Hepp
- 2003 Martin Gutzwiller
- 2002 Jürgen Ehlers
- 2001 Jürg Fröhlich
- 2000 Martin Lüscher
- 1999 Pierre Hohenberg
- 1998 Raymond Stora
- 1997 Gerald E. Brown
- 1996 Ludvig Faddeev
- 1995 Siegfried Grossmann
- 1994 Hans-Jürgen Borchers
- 1993 Kurt Binder
- 1992 Elliott H. Lieb
- 1991 Wolfhart Zimmermann
- 1990 Hermann Haken
- 1989 Bruno Zumino
- 1988 Valentine Bargmann
- 1987 Julius Wess
- 1986 Franz Wegner
- 1985 Yoichiro Nambu
- 1984 Res Jost
- 1983 Nicholas Kemmer
- 1982 Hans-Arwed Weidenmüller
- 1981 Kurt Symanzik
- 1980 not awarded
- 1979 Markus Fierz
- 1978 Paul Peter Ewald
- 1977 Walter Thirring
- 1976 Ernst Stueckelberg
- 1975 Gregor Wentzel
- 1974 Léon Van Hove
- 1973 Nikolay Bogolyubov
- 1972 Herbert Fröhlich
- 1971 not awarded
- 1970 Rudolf Haag
- 1969 Freeman Dyson
- 1968 Walter Heitler
- 1967 Harry Lehmann
- 1966 Gerhart Lüders
- 1965 not awarded
- 1964 Samuel Goudsmit and George Uhlenbeck
- 1963 Rudolf Peierls
- 1962 Ralph Kronig
- 1961 Eugene Wigner
- 1960 Lev Landau
- 1959 Oskar Klein
- 1958 Wolfgang Pauli
- 1957 Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker
- 1956 Victor Weisskopf
- 1955 Hans Bethe
- 1954 Enrico Fermi
- 1953 Walther Bothe
- 1952 Paul Dirac
- 1951 James Franck and Gustav Hertz
- 1950 Peter Debye
- 1949 Lise Meitner and Otto Hahn
- 1948 Max Born
- 1945–1947 not awarded
- 1944 Walther Kossel
- 1943 Friedrich Hund
- 1942 Pascual Jordan
- 1939–1941 not awarded
- 1938 Louis de Broglie
- 1937 Erwin Schrödinger
- 1934–1936 not awarded
- 1933 Werner Heisenberg
- 1932 Max von Laue
- 1931 Arnold Sommerfeld
- 1930 Niels Bohr
- 1929 Max Planck and Albert Einstein
See also
- List of physics awards
- Max Planck