Kaiser Wilhelm Society

Former Kaiser-Wilhelm-Institut for Chemistry in Berlin, the place at which nuclear fission was detected
Former Kaiser-Wilhelm-Institut for Biology, Berlin

The Kaiser Wilhelm Society for the Advancement of Science (German Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gesellschaft zur Förderung der Wissenschaften) was a German scientific institution established in the German Kaiserreich in 1911. During the Third Reich it was involved in Nazi scientific operations, and after the Second World War was wound up, its functions being taken over by the Max Planck Society. The Kaiser Wilhelm Society was an umbrella organization for many institutes, testing stations, and research units spawned under its authority.

Constitution

Opening of the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Institut in Berlin-Dahlem, 1913. From right: Adolf von Harnack, Friedrich von Ilberg, Kaiser Wilhelm II, Carl Neuberg, August von Trott zu Solz

The Kaiser Wilhelm Gesellschaft (KWG) was founded in 1911 in order to promote the natural sciences in Germany, by founding and maintaining research institutions formally independent from the state and its administrations. The institutions were to be under the guidance of prominent directors, which included luminaries such as Walther Bothe, Peter Debye, Albert Einstein, Fritz Haber, and Otto Hahn; a board of trustees also provided guidance.

Funding was ultimately obtained from sources internal and external to Germany. Internally, money was raised from individuals, industry, and the government, as well as through the Notgemeinschaft der Deutschen Wissenschaft (Emergency Association of German Science).

External to Germany, the Rockefeller Foundation granted students worldwide one-year study stipends, for whichever institute they chose, some studied in Germany.[1][2][3] In contrast to the German universities with their formal independence from state administrations, the institutions of the Kaiser Wilhelm Gesellschaft had no obligation to teach students.

The Kaiser Wilhelm Institute and its research facilities were involved in weapons research, experimentation and production in both World War I and World War II.

After World War II

By the end of World War II, the KWG and its institutes had lost their central location in Berlin and were operating in other locations. The KWG was operating out of its Aerodynamics Testing Station in Göttingen. Albert Vögler, the president of the KWG, committed suicide on 14 April 1945. Thereupon, Ernst Telschow assumed the duties until Max Planck could be brought from Magdeburg to Göttingen, which was in the British zone of the Allied Occupation Zones in Germany. Planck assumed the duties on 16 May until a president could be elected. Otto Hahn was selected by directors to be president, but there were a number of difficulties to be overcome. Hahn, being related to nuclear research had been captured by the allied forces of Operation Alsos, and he was still interned at Farm Hall in England, under Operation Epsilon. At first, Hahn was reluctant to accept the post, but others prevailed upon him to accept it. Hahn took over the presidency three months after being released and returned to Germany. However, the Office of Military Government, United States (OMGUS) passed a resolution to dissolve the KWG on 11 July 1946.

Meanwhile, members of the British occupation forces, specifically in the Research Branch of the OMGUS, saw the Society in a more favorable light and tried to dissuade the Americans from taking such action. The physicist Howard Percy Robertson was director of the department for science in the British Zone; he had a National Research Council Fellowship in the 1920s to study at the Georg-August University of Göttingen and the Ludwig Maximilians University of Munich. Also, Colonel Bertie Blount was on the staff of the British Research Branch, and he had received his doctorate at Göttingen under Walther Borsche. Among other things, Bertie suggested to Hahn to write to Sir Henry Hallett Dale, who had been the president of the Royal Society, which he did. While in England, Bertie also spoke with Dale, who came up with a suggestion. Dale believed that it was only the name which conjured up a pejorative picture and suggested that the Society be renamed the Max Planck Gesellschaft. On 11 September 1946, the Max Planck Gesellschaft was founded in the British Zone only. The second founding took place on 26 February 1948 for both the American and British occupation zones. The physicists Max von Laue and Walther Gerlach were also instrumental in establishing the Society across the allied zones, including the French zone.[4][5]

Presidents

Institutes, testing stations, and units

Kaiser Wilhelm Institutes

Kaiser Wilhelm Society organizations

Institutions outside Germany

Other

Bibliography

External links

Notes

  1. ↑ Macrakis, 1993, 11-28 & 273-274.
  2. ↑ Hentschel, 1996, Appendix A; see the entries for the Kaiser Wilhelm Gesellschaft and the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Fluid Dynamics Research.
  3. ↑ List of Kaiser Wilhelm Institutes in summary of holdings, Section I (Bestandsübersicht, I. Abteilung), on the website of the Max Planck Gesellschaft Archives (in German). Retrieved 2015-08-29.
  4. ↑ Macrakis, 1993, 187-198.
  5. ↑ Hentschel, 1996, Appendix A; see the entries for the Kaiser Wilhelm Gesellschaft and the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Fluid Dynamics Research.
  6. ↑ Kunze, Rolf-Ulrich (2004). Ernst Rabel und das Kaiser-Wilhelm-Institut für ausländisches und internationales Privatrecht 1926-1945. Göttingen: Wallstein. p. 13.
  7. ↑ Kunze (2004), p. 47-48.

See also

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