 Being a conservative member of parliament for the democratic "Zentrumspartei", Dessauer opposed the National Socialists' rise to power and was then forced to emigrate in 1934.His successor, Dessauer's colleague and long-standing collaborator, Boris Rajewsky was the first director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Biophysics.Rajewsky firstly coined the term "Biophysics" and consequently the institute became one of the first to be known by this name.