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The University of Strasbourg and World Wars

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Sciences in the Universities of Europe, Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries

Part of the book series: Boston Studies in the Philosophy and History of Science ((BSPS,volume 309))

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Abstract

The history of the University of Strasbourg during the first half of the twentieth century was high drama. Upon the Alsace reverting to France in 1919, cut off from its recent glorious past as one of the crown jewels of German imperial universities, the Université de Strasbourg did not resume life as a French provincial university among others. It would reacquire an intellectual stature second to none, except for the Parisian Sorbonne and Collège de France. Forced to forgo its ties to Germanic centers of learning, it forged new links with Anglo-Saxon universities. Its main originality though came from pushing its faculty staff into creating new disciplines and sub-disciplines. Such pioneering was in keeping with the culture of the Rhineland as a whole: to trade in ideas as a natural accompaniment of commerce in goods, in masterpieces of arts and crafts and in printed documents. After an impressive rebuilding during the interwar period, the Université de Strasbourg retreated from 1940 to 1944 to Clermont-Ferrand, in central France, where it came under attack by the Nazis, intent upon totally destroying it. To give coherence to the narrative, it focuses on chemistry at the University of Strasbourg, from 1919 to the aftermath of World War II.

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Acknowledgments

I am grateful to the staff of both the Archives départementales du Bas-Rhin in Strasbourg , and the Archives départementales du Puy-de-Dôme in Clermont-Ferrand, where I was given access to original documents. The late Professeur Guy Ourisson (1926–2006), who in the process became a personal friend, invited me to Strasbourg a number of times, from the early 1960s until the end of the century. In so doing, I gained first-hand knowledge of the Université Louis Pasteur, of which he was the first president, from 1971 until 1976. During his career, this Alsatian organic chemist opened several subdisciplines, such as organic geochemistry and dermatochemistry, besides setting up the GECO (Groupe d’étude de chimie organique), holding yearly conferences and initiating the GERSULP group for science studies. I dedicate this paper to his memory.

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  1. “Clouds Rest”, Prades, 12320, Sénergues, France

    Pierre Laszlo

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  1. Interuniversity Center for the History of Science and Technology (CIUHCT), Faculty of Sciences/University of Lisbon, Campo Grande, Lisboa, Portugal

    Ana Simões

  2. Interuniversity Center for the History of Science and Technology (CIUHCT), New University of Lisbon (FCT/NOVA), Lisbon, Portugal

    Maria Paula Diogo

  3. Department of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Athens, Athens, Greece

    Kostas Gavroglu

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Laszlo, P. (2015). The University of Strasbourg and World Wars. In: Simões, A., Diogo, M., Gavroglu, K. (eds) Sciences in the Universities of Europe, Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. Boston Studies in the Philosophy and History of Science, vol 309. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-9636-1_6

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