Science in the Third Reich

Margit Szöllösi-Janze9781859734162, 1859734162

How true is it that National Socialism led to an ideologically distorted pseudo-science? What was the relationship between the regime funding “useful” scientific projects and the scientists offering their expertise? And what happened to the German scientific community after 1945, especially to those who betrayed and denounced Jewish colleagues? In recent years, the history of the sciences in the Third Reich has become a field of growing importance, and the in-depth research of a new generation of German scholars provides us with new, important insights into the Nazi system and the complicated relationship between an elite and the dictatorship. This book portrays the attitudes of scientists facing National Socialism and war and uncovers the continuities and discontinuities of German science from the beginning of the twentieth century to the postwar period. It examines major disciplines such as eugenics and pathology, as well as technologies such as biotechnology and area planning.