Emigrierte deutsche Historiker in den USA

German Refugee Historians in the United States. - After the Nazi seizure of power in 1933, some twenty historians left Germany. They had lost their academic positions for political and/or ?racial”? reasons. Most of them immigrated to the United States, and here they launched their second academic career. This intellectual immigration promoted the study of German and intellectual history and strengthened the development of comparative approaches in American historical scholarship. Many German refugee historians became interested in incorporating social science concepts into historical writing and thereby contributed to the advancement of a ?Social History of Ideas.”? Although some were originally skeptical of the democratic process, in emigration these historians absorbed and accepted the political value system of a democratic and liberal republic, a change that is reflected in their historical studies. Despite the fact that almost all refugee historians chose to stay in the United States, their books and guest professorships left their mark on the course of West German historiography.     

Disziplinentwicklung und Wissenschaftstransfer - Deutschsprachige Psychologen in der Emigration

(Discipline development and the transfer of science - German-speaking psychologists in the emigration). In this essay recently developed ideas from the social history of science, in particular the notion that there are historically conditioned ?national professional styles”? in science, are applied to the transfer of psychological theory - and of scientific psychologists - from German-speaking lands to the United States before and after 1933. After an overview of the scope and structure of the emigration in psychology, an analysis of the transfer process is offered focusing upon Gestalt theory.     

Politisch motivierte Emigration deutscher Ärzte

In 1933 the nazis had immediately started to reorganize the health service and the medical profession on the basis of eugenics and efficiency. For everybody who had been engaged in the institutions of social medicine or social hygiene in the Weimar Republic the inhibition of medical practice, misery, distress, persecution, imprisonment or at the best emigration had been the consequence of it, for political and mostly also for racial reasons. But for these physicians who had to flee from Nazi-Germany the situation in the immigration countries had not been a good one in most of the cases. Therefore it is only possible to speak - if you neglect the special situation of the psychiatrists in the U.S.A. - in particular cases of transfer of medical science into the immigration countries from Germany. Most of the immigrants stayed after the war in their new homelands. The loss of these progressive aspects of social hygiene caused by the emigration of these physicians 1933 and afterwards from Germany can be noticed in this field of medicine and public health service in Western Germany until now.     

Nuclear Physicists in a New World. The Émigrés of the 1930s in America

Kernphysiker in einer neuen Welt: Die Emigranten der dreißiger Jahre in Amerika. - Unter der großen Anzahl derjenigen, die durch Nationalsozialismus zur Emigration gezwungen wurden und zwischen 1933 und 1941 in die Vereinigten Staaten von Amerika einwanderten, befanden sich auch mehr als hundert Physiker, und unter ihnen einige der genialsten Kernphysiker der Welt. Die Physik in Amerika hatte damals den Status einer voll ausgereiften Wissenschaft erreicht, und so kam es zu einem bedeutsamen und facettenreichen Zusammenwirken zwischen den emigrierten und den einheimischen Kernphysikern, zumal sie die verschiedenen Forschungsgebiete vertraten, die sich durch die Entdeckungen und Erfindungen des Jahres 1932 (Neutron, Deuterium, Positron, Cockcroft-Walton-Beschleuniger, Zyklotron) aufgetan hatten. Von besonderer Bedeutung Für die Konsolidierung und Entwicklung der gesamten Kernphysik war dabei die Veröffentlichung von drei Artikeln in den Reviews of Modern Physics von 1936 und 1937, bekannt als die ?Bethe-Bibel”?. Nach der Entdeckung der Kernspaltung von 1938 und dem Ausbruch des Krieges 1939 in Europa wirkte die Befürchtung, daß Hitler eine Atomwaffe erhalten könnte, als mächtige, Emigranten und Nicht-Emigranten gleichermaßen erfassende einigende Kraft unter den Atomphysikern in Amerika, und die meisten von ihnen stellten ihre Fähigkeiten in den Dienst der US-Regierung und arbeiteten am Manhatten-Projekt und an anderen militärischen Forschungsvorhaben mit. Bei Kriegsende waren die in den dreißiger Jahren emigrierten Kernphysiker wie so viele Flüchtlinge vor ihnen Amerikaner geworden, und keiner von ihnen kehrte in sein Geburtsland zurück. Among the large number of refugees from Nazism and Fascism entering the United States between 1933 and 1941 were more than 100 physicists, including some of the most gifted nuclear physicists in the world. By that time physics in America had come of age, and a remarkable and multifaceted symbiosis occurred between the émigré and native-born nuclear physicists as they pursued the many avenues of research opened up by the discoveries and inventions of 1932 (neutron, deuterium, positron, Cockcroft-Walton accelerator, cyclotron). Of particular importance for the consolidation and development of the entire field of nuclear physics was the publication in 1936–37 of the three articles in the Revieus of Modern Physics known as the ?Bethe Bible”?. With the discovery of nuclear fission in 1938 and the outbreak of war in Europe in 1939, the fear that a nuclear weapon might fall into Hitler's hands served as a powerful unifying force among nuclear physicists in Amerika, émigrés and non-émigrés alike, and most placed their talents in the service of the United States Government working on the Manhattan Project and other wartime research. By the end of the war, like so many refugees before them, the émigré nuclear physicists of the 1930s had become Americans, and not one of them returned to the country of his birth.     

Technische Intelligenz im Exil. Zum Einfluß emigrierter deutschsprachiger Ingenieure auf die Ingenieurwissenschaften in Großbritannien 1933 bis 1945

This article deals with the emigration and the experiences of the professional group of engineers in their British exile, trying to evaluate the influences these refugee engineers had on the British engineering science. The approach is not limited to engineering research at universities or technical colleges, but tries to include the aspect of research and development on the level of the firm. Limits and constraints of gaining influence in British engineering are discussed, such as different values and traditions as well as the different traditions in technical education and the role of the engineering graduate in industry. Finally attempts are made to establish some fields of engineering where an identifiable influence can be traced without exaggerating the general influence of these German speaking refugee engineers. Those identifiable fields are machine tools, fuel technology and district heating.     

Österreichische Ärzteemigration 1934-1945 - Zwischen neuem Tätigkeitsgebiet und organisierten Rückkehrplänen

Information on emigrant doctors and university teachers of medicine from Austria is rather poor up to now. This article is a preliminary sketch to give a first impression of the problems, quantity and quality of the doctors' emigration. First, there is made a distinction between different groups of emigrants, who emigrated at different times owing to the political changes in Austria (civil war and ?Anschluß”?). Then the emigration prior to the political set-ups during the thirties is discussed. The assertion is made, that the reasons for emigrating during the twenties are very much the same than in later years. Hostility against Jews, socialists, democrats and foreigners made living and working conditions increasingly unbearable. Concerning the influence of emigrated scientists on science and learning in immigration countries some theoretical and clinical sub-specialties of medicine are examined, e.g. social medicine, internal medicine, pharmacology, orthopedic surgery and child psychiatry. Whereas in some cases the influence is minimal, e.g. social medicine, other disciplines have been influenced enormously, e.g. child psychiatry. Finally there follows a short examination of the organisations of Austrian doctors and medical scientists in the United States and Great Britain.     

Strukturwandel der Wissenschaft im Nationalsozialismus

National Socialism brought about profound changes for the German academic system. Forced emigration not just sent outstanding scholars into exile, thus closing down promising research venues. In fact, it changed the entire climate of scientific inquiry by removing intellectual outsiders from the scene, whose absence usually precludes any success of innovative research. In most disciplines this led to a dominance of just a few academic ‘schools’ and paradigms, which severely harmed intra‐discipline accountability and innovation. The academic bureaucracy worked more effectively than has been assumed for a long time: practice‐oriented research enjoyed massive state support, and huge research projects outside the universities flourished. At the same time the National Socialists looked ambivalently at the universities themselves. They savored the legitimizing functions of the arts and sciences, and yet they distrusted the professors as exponents of the bourgeois world of old. Contrary to the blooming sciences such as biology, chemistry, and physics, the arts and humanities had a hard time demonstrating their practical applicability. In order to prove their worth by means of giving advice to the political sphere, they formed interdisciplinary combines, which were massively funded by the ‘Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft’. The ‘Deutsche Wissenschaft’, which has been incorrectly marginalized in numerous accounts, served in part to provide a Weltanschauung justification for these networks. While the German academic community in 1945 tried to pick up the threads of the a‐political self‐ understanding of the 1920s, in fact there were numerous continuities to academic life before and after 1945. Among them were the encompassing loss of international contacts, the strengthening of hierarchical structures, and the importance of feasibility criteria for the culture of innovation. The arts and humanities (Geisteswissenschaften) could not regain the lost territory of significance, which they had suffered during the Third Reich. It is mainly their development which showed an amazing persistence of national socialist patterns of view and of concepts of the enemy, which in turn as late as 1968 inspired in part the anti‐bourgeois thrust of the critique of the academic world.     

Akzentverschiebung - Zur Geschichte der Semitistik und Islamwissenschaft während des ‚Dritten Reichs’︁

Fifty years after World War II the history of Semitic and Islamic Studies during the period of nazism has more or less remained ‘terra incognita’. The article shows that academic activities in this field did not remain uninfluenced by that period. In addition to the banishment of Jewish scholars, a concentration on Arabian Studies took place and scholars contributed for the weltanschauung of the Third Reich. To date not all the outcomes can be presented. Yet, one of them is easily observable: The study of Jewish religion, history and culture became a special branch, it is no longer part of Oriental studies.     

Die Emigration der Kulturwissenschaftlichen Bibliothek Warburg und die Anfänge des Universitätsfaches Kunstgeschichte in Großbritannien

Aby M. Warburg (1866- 1929) the famous art historian, critic and great promoter of cultural history collected a unique research library which became a semiofficial part of the newly founded University of Hamburg called ?Kulturwissenschaftliche Bibliothek Warburg”? in 1920. At the end of 1933 this library and its staff left Germany in order to prevent the Nazis from destroying this Jewish foundation. Great Britain gave home to it and at the end of 1944 London University incorporated the library now named The Warburg Institute. The Warburg Institute efficiently helped to promote art history as an academic discipline in Great Britain though its actual aims are of interdisciplinary nature and go far beyond art history as it has been the case since the days of Warburg.     

Das türkische Exil als Geschichte von Frauen und ihr Beitrag zum Wissenschaftstransfer in die Türkei von 1933 bis 1945

When the National‐Socialists from the year 1933 forced jewish civil‐servants and professionals to leave their jobs with restrictive laws against different professional groups, among those who left the country in order do find new openings were many women. For many of them the exile meant the break up of their academic career. However, those who found a new occupation in the Turkish university reform the Turkish state started in 1933 made an important contribution to a successful project of science transfer the large group of emigrants from Germany and Austria carried out in Turkey between 1933 and 1945. The article shows how exiled German and Austrian women especially in the medical professions took part in the innovational shift of science and learning of the Turkish universities and the clinical practice in the institutions of public health.     

Vom Nationalsozialismus vertriebene Wissenschaftler auf dem Markt. Die Arbeitsvermittlung des englischen Academic Assistance Council (SPSL) am Beispiel von Türkeiemigranten

After 1933 many scientists and university teachers were obliged to relinquish their posts in the universities of Germany because of national-socialist laws. Organizations-in-aid like the Academic Assistance Council in Great Britain tried to ‘defend science and learning’ raising funds and finding new openings for the expelled academics. But as immigration laws were tight and jobs were scarce in the host countries the AAC and the other organizations had to select the most qualified from among the applicants for support. – The questions the article tries to answer are: What kind of criteria were applied in this selection? Who were the experts? How were the placements made? How did the applicants react to the decisions? Taking for example the AAC, it examines measures to assist a group of scientists who, having tried to settle down in England, finally emigrated to Turkey.     

Zoologische Gärten in Stadtkultur und Wissenschaft im 19. Jahrhundert

The foundation and administration of European Zoological gardens in the 19^th century is analized. It is significant of such new institutions, that they are founded in the large cities, and that most of the founders looked at the great models in Paris and London, which are described first. Further it is shown that the change from princely menageries to public Zoological Gardens is caused both by common interests in people's education and pleasure and by scientific aims which leaded to choose the name Zoological “garden” in analogy to botanical gardens. It seems to be characteristic of such public institutions created by citizens in the 19^th century that they are mostly supported by commercial or scientific local societies. This is exemplified by describing the administration of the Zoological gardens of Berlin (1841), Frankfurt (1856) and Hamburg (1863), which initiated also research for acclimatization of wild animals.     

Folgen der Emigration deutscher und österreichischer Wissenschaftstheoretiker und Logiker zwischen 1933 und 1945

The paper begins by delimiting the scope of ‘logic’ and ‘philosophy of science’ and goes on to present the biographies and select bibliographies of 36 émigré scholars from Germany and Austria working in these fields. An evaluation of this material, and of data on societies, congresses, lecture series, books and periodicals on logic and philosophy of science, is then undertaken. Against the rich background of activity in the 20s and 30s of our century, there is manifest a rapid decline of high-ranking research in the philosophy of science and (to a lesser degree) in logic in Germany and Austria. Since, with one exception, émigré logicians and philosophers of science did not return after the breakdown of the Third Reich, recovery in these fields has been extremely slow. Pertinent knowledge had to be re-imported, and a satisfactory level has been reached only with the coming of a new generation.