Abstract
Abstract. It took almost 20 years from the first proposal for the foundation of a German primate centre to the final establishment of an institute for research on primates. Since 1964, the German science community had considered the idea of founding a national primate centre in the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) following existing models in the USA. In 1967, the project received a significant boost from the outbreak of the lethal Marburg virus infections, which was transmitted from African green monkeys to humans. However, a memorandum from Hans-Jürg Kuhn, at that time at the University of Frankfurt, facilitated a breakthrough in 1970. He conceived an interdisciplinary institute that would both conduct its own scientific research and be a service institute for other German institutions. After highly charged debates on a suitable location, the federal government decided on Göttingen, and in 1972 the University of Göttingen provided the necessary ground. With the certificate of incorporation in 1977, the federal government and the German state Lower Saxony appointed Professor Kuhn as the first scientific director. Based on his memorandum, a research and service institute was developed with several scientific departments associated with primate husbandry, and full operation began in 1984.
Highlights
The originator of the idea to establish a primate centre in Germany is difficult to determine
It is certain that this idea had been discussed within the German science community since the early 1960s
Hofer, who had worked at the Tulane National Primate Research Center in Covington (Louisiana, USA) since 1965, contributed knowledge from his experience there (Fig. 1)
Summary
In October 1965, an extended panel of experts unanimously voted to establish a primate centre in Germany They proposed the realization of a central institute with a small staff and plenty of room for visiting scientists. The mission resulted in an architectural design for the institute, with an increased cost of approximately DEM 12.5 million (Fig. 2) This was calculated to require a maximum of 10 years to realize, based on the experiences of comparable centres in the USA. Dr Julius Speer, the DFG Senate convened a commission on primate research in October 1967 This commission consisted of 20 scientists from the Federal Republic of Germany, Austria, Switzerland and the Netherlands.. The DFG Commission decided on an exclusively national approach
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