Springer Nature restores Max Planck’s mysteriously retracted papers, citing ‘human error’
More than a decade after two 1940s papers by Max Planck, the founder of quantum theory and 1918 Nobel laureate in physics, were quietly removed from the scientific record by Springer Nature, the publisher has reversed course. On July 6, the papers were reinstated with a new notice attributing the original retraction to “human error.”
The reversal marks a dramatic conclusion to a controversy that erupted in May when historians Yves Gingras and Mahdi Khelfaoui discovered the retractions while browsing Retraction Watch’s list of Nobel laureates with retracted papers. Their investigation, posted as an arXiv preprint in May, argued that the retractions constituted a “distortion of the scientific record”, the result of applying modern copyright and duplicate-publication standards to work from an era when republication across journals, languages, and formats was normal and legitimate.
On June 29, 1ban.news covered the original story as the case unfolded: A journal retroactively retracted two 1940s Max Planck papers, not for fraud, but for duplicate publication.
Now, the ending has changed.
The reversal
The two papers, “Naturwissenschaft und reale Außenwelt” (1940) and “Sinn und Grenzen der exakten Wissenschaft” (1942), both published in Naturwissenschaften (now The Science of Nature), had been retracted on December 23, 2011 for alleged “copyright violation.” Springer Nature replaced the articles with blank pages and empty PDFs, and the retractions went largely unnoticed for over a decade.
On July 6, 2026, both papers were restored. Each now carries a layered notice:
> *”23 December 2011 This article has been withdrawn due to copyright violation.
> 06 July 2026 This article has been reinstated. It was retracted as a result of human error in 2011.”*
The papers are fully accessible on SpringerLink with functioning PDFs.
Springer Nature’s head of research integrity, Tim Kersjes, told Gizmodo and other outlets that the retraction was “a human error” and that no software or automated system was involved. Records are limited, he added, because “the individuals involved have mostly left the company.”
Historians remain skeptical
Gingras, who co-discovered the retractions, greeted the reversal with satisfaction but expressed skepticism about the “human error” explanation. He noted that the original retractions were applied mechanically, the retraction notices for both papers were identical, suggesting a template, and that it strains credulity to believe a human in 2011 manually browsed decades of archival journals and decided to retract two Planck papers on copyright grounds.
“Who can believe that in 2011 someone at Springer manually browsed decades of archived journals and happened to discover two short papers by Planck that allegedly presented a copyright issue?” Gingras told Science.
He continues to suspect some form of automated screening, perhaps a copyright or duplicate-detection algorithm, flagged the papers, with a human making the final decision. The distinction matters, Gingras and Khelfaoui argue, because it points to a broader problem: when commercial publishers control the digital infrastructure of science, decisions made by poorly-understood automated systems can erase history.
A story with layers
The case resonated far beyond the narrow question of two old physics papers. It raised uncomfortable questions about retroactive judgment, whether contemporary standards of copyright, self-plagiarism, and publication ethics should be applied to work from the 1940s, when the academic publishing culture was fundamentally different. It also highlighted the fragility of historical scientific records in the hands of commercial publishers: during the years the papers were retracted, they remained freely accessible through the nonprofit Internet Archive, while Springer Nature’s own platform displayed blank pages.
Both restored papers are open-access. The 1940 paper, in which Planck discusses the relationship between natural science and the “real external world,” has been viewed more than 1,500 times since reinstatement. The 1942 paper, based on a Berlin lecture exploring the meaning and limits of exact science, has been accessed over 2,000 times.
Sources:
1. Brainard, J. & Kean, S. “Springer Nature restores Max Planck’s mysteriously retracted papers.” Science, July 8, 2026. https://www.science.org/content/article/springer-nature-restores-max-planck-s-mysteriously-retracted-papers
2. Retraction Watch. “Springer Nature un-retracts Planck papers, citing ‘human error.'” July 7, 2026. https://retractionwatch.com/2026/07/07/springer-nature-un-retracts-planck-papers-citing-human-error/
3. Gingras, Y. & Khelfaoui, M. “The curious case of Max Planck’s ‘retracted’ papers.” arXiv:2605.17534 (2026). DOI: 10.48550/arXiv.2605.17534
4. 1ban.news. “A journal retroactively retracted two 1940s Max Planck papers, not for fraud, but for duplicate publication.” June 29, 2026. https://1ban.news/max-planck-naturwissenschaften-retraction-duplicate-publication/