Physical research in Leipzig dates back to 1557 when a professorship for physics was established. In the 18th century, even Saxon princes traveled from Dresden to witness impressive demonstrations of electrical charges and discharges. In 1835, the University of Leipzig (UL) established “one of the first, if not the first, state physics institutes in Germany” (according to Otto Wiener). In 1905, the largest physics institute building in Germany at the time was inaugurated on Linnéstraße. In the 1920s, the institute was led by Peter Debye (Nobel Prize 1936), Werner Heisenberg (Nobel Prize 1933), and Friedrich Hund. The fundamental principles of quantum mechanics and its applications in solid-state physics, nuclear physics, and chemistry were largely developed in Leipzig. After World War II, Gustav Hertz (Nobel Prize 1925) rebuilt the building and the research operations.