Product Description

On 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" examines 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, explores not only what happened to the biologists forced to emigrate but also the careers, science and crimes of those who stayed in Germany. "Biologists Under Hitler" combines 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. 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 or 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 evidence of German scientists' conscious misrepresentation after the war of their wartime activities. In this regard, Deichmann's capsule biography of Konrad Lorenz is telling. "Biologists Under Hitler" should 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.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1229237 in Books
• Published on: 1999-05-05
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 480 pages

Review
An exhaustive chronicle of biologists and their research under the Nazis...[Readers] will find painstaking detail, a clear understanding of the scientific subject-matter and determination to expose the amoral behaviour of scientists who worked under a criminal regime. -- Richard Bessel "Times Literary Supplement"