Biologists Under Hitler

On the subject of science in Nazi Germany, we are apt to hear about the collaboration of some scientists, the forced emigration of talented Jewish scientists, the general science phobia of leaders of the Third Reich - but little detail about what actually transpired. "Biologists Under Hitler" examines the impact of Nazism on the lives and research of a generation of German biologists.

Drawing on previously unutilized archival material, Ute Deichmann, herself a biologist, explores not only what happened to the biologists forced to emigrate but also the careers, science and crimes of those who stayed in Germany. "Biologists Under Hitler" combines research with capsule biographies of key scientists to overturn certain assumptions about science under the Nazi regime.

Biological research, for instance, was neither neglected nor underfunded during World War II; funding by the German Research Association (DFG) in fact increased tenfold between 1933 and 1938, and genetic research in particular flourished.

Deichmann shows that the forced emigration of Jews had a less significant impact in biology than in other fields. Furthermore, she reveals that the widely observed decline in German biology after 1945 was not caused primarily by the Third Reich's science policy or by the expulsion of biologists but was due to the international isolation of German scientists as part of the legacy of National Socialism.

Her book also provides evidence of German scientists' conscious misrepresentation after the war of their wartime activities.

In this regard, Deichmann's capsule biography of Konrad Lorenz is telling. "Biologists Under Hitler" should interest historians of science, historians of the Nazi era, and biologists, as well as those who wish to learn about the relationship between scientific truth and political realities.