Von der Wissenschaftsverwaltung zur Wissenschaftspolitik. Friedrich Althoff (19. 2. 1839‐20. 10. 1908)

Abstract

Friedrich Althoff (1839–1908) was one of Germany's three great administrators of science and humanities between Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767–1835) and Carl Heinrich Becker (1886–1933). He was perhaps the most prominent representative of Prussian bureaucratic liberalism and the first eminent politician of culture or — in the words of W. H. Dawson — “the most enlightened but also the most dictatorial Minister of Education Prussia has ever had”. Althoff dominated the state administration of higher education in Prussia between 1882 and 1907, serving as Ministerial director over higher educational affairs under at least four ministers. The so‐called “Althoff system”, that he built pushed the development of German science and scholarship to a dominant position in the world, rationalized the universities and further subordinated them to state or ministerial policy through a rigid control of professional appointments, started the mobilization of private capital in support of German scientific hegemony (founding of Kaiser‐Wilhelm‐Gesellschaft), and put forward the Prussian tradition — ultimately an unsustainable one — of strong personal administration, by which Althoff systematically manipulated or overrode the very bureaucratic apparatus he had helped to create. On the other hand his policy defended academic freedom, patronized Catholic and Jewish scholars against reactionary university faculties as well as the so‐called Kathedersozialisten against the influences of big business and laissez‐faire capitalism. As a creator of german cultural foreign policy he paved the way for more international understanding and peace policy, an alternative to the war‐aims policy of Imperial Germany on the eve of the Great War.