The Financial Support and Political Alignment of Physicists in Weimar Germany

Abstract

THE Weimar republic originated in military defeat and political and social revolution. These political events and the attitudes of German academics toward them were important factors in the scientific life of the period. The economic situation in the aftermath of war and revolution had, however, both directly and indirectly, a greater impact on the personal welfare and the research of German scientists. In the year immediately following the armistice, the mark sank to less than 10 per cent. of its pre-war value and remained there until the summer of 1921. Then began the runaway inflation which the government brought to an abrupt end late in 1923, after the economy and society had been brought to the verge of chaos. Professorial salaries in terms of their purchasing power lagged far behind their pre-war levels, institute budgets still further behind, and savings, whether personal wealth or institutional endowment, were wiped out. 1 In these circumstances, and in large measure in response to them, a variety of new institutions were created to help support German science and scholarship. Two of the most important of these foundations were the Notgemeinschaft der deutschen Wissenschaft (NGW) and the HelmholtzGesellsehaft zur Ftirderung der physikalisch-technischen Forschung. The Notgemeinschaft was the dominant source of funds of the Weimar period. Constitutionally, it was a self-governing union of institutions of research and higher education. Most of the funds which it distributed in support of research and publication in all fields of science and scholarship came however from the central government. 2 The Helmholtz-Gesellschaft, established concurrently and in competition with the Notgemeinschaft, was, legally, an association of the large industrial firms which supplied its funds.