Hans Nachtsheim, A Human Geneticist Under National Socialism, and the Question of Freedom of Science

Abstract

Scientists in Germany after World War II faced a short period of international isolation. There was no official boycott comparable to the one that was implemented after World War I. But in many cases, scientific connections with Germans were cut, Germans were not invited to international congresses, or they were invited only individually, according to their assumed integrity during the National Socialist (NS) past. In particular, geneticists — above all, human geneticists — were criticised for having supported the ideological ends of Nazi Germany and for having provided the scientific basis for genocide programs. Hermann Muller used the term “prostitution of science”¹ to describe the readiness with which many geneticists in Germany used their field to support the Nazi ideology and murderous practice. To name only the leading human geneticists who were criticised in this respect: Eugen Fischer, professor of anthropology in Berlin, and who, until 1942, was director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute (KWI) for Anthropology, Human Genetics, and Eugenics; Otmar von Verschuer, professor of genetic care and race hygiene, who became Fischer’s successor in the KWI in 1942; and Fritz Lenz, professor of race hygiene and department head of the KWI. All three men were known to have supported not only racial hygiene but also the anti-Jewish and racist views and laws of the regime. The extent of the close cooperation of von Verschuer with Joseph Mengele in Auschwitz became known only much later.

This paper is based on my larger study Biologists Under Hitler (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996).