Research for Autarky

Abstract

The nazis are usually presumed to have hindered the development of science by limiting its freedom:¹by throwing Jewish and leftist scholars out of their jobs, by imposing ideological dogmas (like the ‘arische Physik’ or the ‘deutsche Mathematik’) and indirectly by causing the isolation of German scholars from the international scientific community. The Minister of Education was considered incompetent and science policy seemed to have fallen into a polycratic chaos.² The Nazi regime in general was seen as hostile towards science and its politicians as anti-intellectual. From this perspective the majority of German scientists suffered from Nazi policy without playing any active role, so they survived the Swastika without being compromised. According to a widespread (self) image, they retreated into an ivory tower or into non-politicized marginal spheres of science, doing their serious research while only a very few, who mostly did bad or pseudo-science, were involved in Nazi policy. The participation of scientists in crimes such as euthanasia and medical experiments on prisoners in concentration camps is considered a brutal or even perverse exception. What is considered to be problematic is science being involved with politics and being utilized or ‘abused’ by the Nazi politicians. Science in general, however, remained comparatively intact: The major part of science seems to have been apolitical, far away from practice, politics and crimes and therefore easily transferable into another political system.