 The experiment of Meitner and Kösters was the first in a series of experiments where the discrepancy between experimental and predicted differential cross sections for elastic scattering by heavy atoms were interpreted in terms of Delbrück scattering.From the present point of view these early results are not trustworthy.Reliable investigations were possible only after modern QED techniques based on Feynman diagrams were available for quantitative predictions, and on the experimental side photon detectors with high energy resolution and high detection efficiency had been developed.