Biologists Under HitlerOn the subject of science in Nazi Germany, we are apt to hear about the collaboration of some scientists, the forced emigration of talented Jewish scientists, the general science phobia of leaders of the Third Reich - but little detail about what actually transpired. Biologists under Hitler is the first book to examine the impact of Nazism on the lives and research of a generation of German biologists. Drawing on previously unutilized archival material, Ute Deichmann, herself a biologist, not only explores what happened to the biologists forced to emigrate but also investigates the careers, science, and crimes of those who stayed in Germany. Biologists under Hitler combines exhaustive research with capsule biographies of key scientists to overturn certain assumptions about science under the Nazi regime. Biological research, for instance, was neither neglected nor underfunded during World War II; funding by the German Research Association (DFG) in fact increased tenfold between 1933 and 1938 and genetic research in particular flourished, especially botanical and zoological studies of radiation and mutation. Deichmann shows that the forced emigration of Jews had a less significant impact in biology than in other fields. Furthermore, she reveals that the widely observed decline in German biology after 1945 was not caused primarily by the Third Reich's science policy nor by the expulsion of biologists but was due to the international isolation of German scientists as part of the legacy of National Socialism. Her book also provides overwhelming evidence of German scientists' conscious misrepresentation after the war of their wartime activities. In this regard, Deichmann's capsule biographyof Konrad Lorenz is particularly telling. Certain to be regarded as the most thorough and comprehensive account of biological science in Nazi Germany, Biologists under Hitler will interest historians of science, historians of the Nazi era, and biologists, as well as those who wish to learn about the relationship between scientific truth and political realities. |
Contents
The Expulsion and Emigration of Scientists 19331939 | 10 |
NSDAP Membership Careers and Research Funding | 59 |
Research Funding for Biologists at Universities and Kaiser | 97 |
Copyright | |
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Ahnenerbe animal appointment Berlin Biochemistry biological warfare biologists biology Blome born botany Breeding Research Brücher cancer collaboration concentration camp cultivated plants Delbrück director dismissed Dozent emigration Ernst example experimental experiments field Friedrich Frisch führer full professor funding genes geneticists German German scientists Göttingen Habilitation Hamburger head of dept Heidelberg hereditary Himmler human Ibid Inst Jewish Kaiser Wilhelm Institutes Kaiser Wilhelm Society Karl Konrad Konrad Lorenz Kühn KWI for Biology KWI for Brain KWI for Breeding lecturer Lehmann Lorenz Lysenko Max Planck Max Planck Society medicine Ministry Munich Münster mutation Nachtsheim National Socialism National Socialist Nazi Nobel prize Notgemeinschaft NSDAP Otto party phage phil physiology political Posen Prof race racial racial hygiene radiation Reich Rudolf Schäfer Schramm scientific Section Soviet Spemann Stubbe studies Technical College Timoféeff-Ressovsky tion Tübingen Ubisch Univ University Vienna Volk Wettstein zoologist zoology