Scientific organisation and science policy in imperial Germany, 1871?1914: The foundation of the imperial institute of physics and technology

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In the years between 1871 and 1914 there were three distinct phases in the promotion of science by the Imperial Government. In the first years of the empire, the scientific institutions and projects which were helped were those which had already been financed by the North German Confederation, and particularly by Prussia. Among these were the General Standards Committee ( Normaleichungskommission ), which was founded in 1868 as a Prussian institution, the RomanGermanic Museum in Nuremberg which had been in existence since 1852 and which was subsidised by the state of Bavaria and later also by Prussia, and the various naval and military research institutions: the National Survey (Landesvermessungwesen) in the General Staff, the United Artillery and Engineering College ( Vereinigte Artillerie und Ingenieurschule) and the Technical Artillery Institute ( Technische Institut der Artillerie). These institutions, which we regard as scientific, were automatically taken over by the Imperial Government without any debate in the Reichstag regarding matters of jurisdiction. The Roman-Germanic Museum in Mainz (which appeared in the budget for the first time in 1873) provided the occasion for the first parliamentary discussion of cultural policy. The Mainz museum had been started originally by private citizens with the support of individual princes and municipal authorities. The takeover by the state was justified by the precedent of the state support of the Nuremberg museum, and the traditional cultural policy of the North German Confederation: it was said that the "life of the whole nation" was involved in such a project, and for that reason it was a concern of the central political authority. The Imperial Government took over from Prussia the Society for Early