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TRENDS IN THE TWENTIETH-CENTURY GERMAN RESEARCH ENTERPRISE Alan D. Beyerchen The Ohio State University INTRODUCTION A good way to begin our discussion is to make two pairs of observations. The first pair of observations relates to scale-not so much Germany's scale, but Japan's. Approximately half the size of the United States in population, Japan has about 120 million inhabitants. The Federal Republic of Germany has approximately 60 million. In fact, it would take the Federal Republic of Germany, the East German Democratic Republic, and a sizeable portion of the United Kingdom to equal one Japan. I would like to put that in relief, at a time when we are becoming increasingly conscious of the value of human potential. In terms of scale, the Germany of today is not the Germany of legendary academic yore. We hold the Federal Republic of Germany today often to the same standards that we came to expect for a Germany that was significantly larger in, say, 1910. Imperial Germany occupied much more of the map, but the population in the course of the 20th century has been pretty much constant due to the truncation of territory. There were about 60 million Germans in 1910 as well, at a time when there were about 90 million Americans. So Germany's relative size has dropped from about two-thirds of America's population to about one quarter. The second pair of preliminary points has to do with paradoxes that loom large in the German mind concerning both the threat and the richness of fragmentation. One level of fragmentation is political and economic. The Germans are constantly aware of this. The memories of the Thirty Years War of the 17th century and the Napoleonic wars of the early 19th century have left Germans with a sense of vulnerability as inhabitants of the land in the middle. This land occupies a crossroads between East and West that can all too easily become a battleground in which the various parties fight each other to the last German. Out of this position, however, also comes a rich heritage of diversity and cultural achievement, as the Germans have exchanged goods and ideas with each other and with the peoples around them. There is a fierce resistance in Germany, even today, to the idea of homogenization. People protect their local customs and dialects and take pride in them. This legacy of political fragmentation ---remember that as late as 1800 there were still over 300 different principalities and powers in the German area underlies the intricate federal- state relationship that regulates and nurtures the veritable forest of research institutions that dot the German landscape. In many cases the states were quite independent realms. They were sovereign countries' so that states' rights, especially in cultural matters, are more deeply imprinted upon German life than upon American. There is also another kind of fragmentation, a social fragmentation. It plays out as the legacy of the cleavages between the landed aristocracy, the middle class in cities and in industry, and the lower classes in the countryside and in the factories. The threat of political change in 19th and 20th century Germany has predominantly been feared as coming from below, rather than from rival factions among the upper classes. That lower element has been represented to a very large extent by the Marxist Social Democratic Party of Germany, the SPD. The educational system has long reflected the cleavages along what has been called 79
Alan D. Beyerchen Germany's `'most important sociopolitical frontier," that is, between the upper and middle classes on one side, and the lower classes on the other.) But there is richness here too, in this social fragmentation. The boundary has been firm enough so that a prestige system has come to exist on both sides of it. Rather than working just to leave the lower classes, laborers have drawn upon the craftsman tradition to compete with each other for achievement and a sense of accomplishment. This has much to do with the fact that the pursuit of excellence in Germany has not been limited to university-trained elites, but has occurred within each layer of German society. Excellence on the job shop floor is every bit as important as in the Nobel Prize calibre laboratory. One relevant consequence is that managers trained in engineering or the sciences often feel they should be able to prove the mettle of their own skills in front of workers who have high standards against which to measure performance.2 A different implication has been the high level of consciousness among government officials of the need to consider the social impact of technological change. Domestic peace has been a very high priority for the Germans in positions of authority. RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS IN AN EXPORT ENVIRONMENT The research that came to fruition in the pre-1914 era of export posture had a long tradition. The research enterprise had been initially characterized in the 19th century by the academies of science, which were fundamentally 18th century phenomena. They were soon surpassed by the older universities, which underwent major reform in a movement led by Wilhelm von Humboldt at Berlin University around 1810. His goal was to marry teaching and philosophical inquiry, which produced the much vaunted notion of German Wissenschaft, which we often translate as "science," but which I prefer to translate here as "scholarship," because it does not connote just the physical or natural sciences. Philosophical inquiry mated with teaching produced a fundamental challenge to the older faculties of medicine, theology, and law. As the new model spread in the early 19th century (keep in mind that all German universities have been and are state institutions), philosophical inquiry became the heart of the humanistic research tradition. That tradition has been the basis for the university near-monopoly on the research Ph.D. degree that persists today. Mathematics and the natural sciences ultimately set the character of the changes, as the research "institute" emerged as virtually a fief of the professorial chair in a given university. I say the chair because there was one full professor of mathematics, one professor of chemistry, one professor of physics or astronomy, etc. These people were selected from a pool of researchers who had finished a second research project, one beyond the Ph.D. Since the appointment process essentially had the resources of the entire state behind it, first-rate researchers could demand that imposing conditions be met in order to accept an appointment. Research in the physical sciences, or in medicine, however, often had utilitarian impact. In the face of criticism from their humanistic colleagues, scientists usually extolled a pure science ethic which bolstered their claims of the divorce between basic research and application.3 The pure science rubric, however, along with its justification, was under pressure from extra-university research institutions in the late 19th century. The chemical industry, for example, produced laboratories that very effectively availed themselves of academic expertise and personnel. By the end of the 19th century they were doing basic research of university calibre. The institutes of technology, the Technische Hochschulen, were engineering schools that 80
Federal Republic of Germany by 1899 had acquired formal co-equal status with the universities. There was a proliferation of government laboratories; for example, the institutes for Robert Koch and Paul Erlich were set up as medical research laboratories with a basic research impetus involved in them, but with work too applied for the university pure science ethic. Extra-university institutes were justified in very explicit terms by men such as Werner von Siemens, who was involved in setting up a national bureau government of standards. At one point in the debate about funding he argued: In the present and vigorously conducted struggle of peoples, the country that opens new paths and creates or enlivens important branches of industry has a decisive superiority. . . The patronage of natural scientific research is thus in eminent degree an advancement of the material interest of the country.4 One could not get much clearer than that. Chancellor Otto von Bismarck actually got engaged in some of these funding matters, apparently because he had come to share the view that enhanced technical prowess led to increased national wealth. He needed that wealth to help pay for innovative social legislation that was designed to undercut the appeal of revolutionary Marxism among German workers. Although Bismarck's commitment to social legislation was tactical and paternalistic, Siemens and others had more profound ideas. Siemens announced that: . engineering based on physical science would increasingly obviate the needs for demanding bodily labor and make material abundance available to all. Consequently, the practical ends of social democracy would be attained without a violent overthrow of the existing order solely by the undisturbed progress of the age of science.s The issue of international competitiveness became acute as Germany industrialized, urbanized, and experienced rapid population growth. Germany, particularly Prussia, had been a major exporter of grain in the first half of the 19th century. But Russian grain came into the German market more and more cheaply toward the end of the century and American grain came across the Atlantic more and more readily. Due to the costs of artificial fertilizers in intensive cultivation of the land, the price of German grain was rising while the price of grain coming from the outside was falling. After those lines crossed, Germany not only lost its export status, soon was no longer able to feed itself adequately with its own agricultural production. Tariffs were enacted in 1879 reflecting this fact, and were raised higher after the turn of the century mostly to protect Prussian landowners. It was clear that Germany could achieve economic security only by excelling at export trade. The iron and coal ("first industrial revolution" technologies) and chemical, pharmaceutical, machine tool, and electrotechnology industries ("second industrial revolution" technologies) did exactly that, excelling with a vigor that startled the British, dismayed the French, and set a model for the Americans. These industries were supported by a research enterprise comprising an extensive university system, several federally supported institutes, industrial laboratories, dozens of professional societies and domination of scholarly publication in many fields. The sheer magnitude of the organized German assault on the frontiers of knowledge was awesome. 81
Alan D. Beyerchen TABLE 1 GERMAN RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS (Pre-1914) Academies Universities Industrial Labs TH (institutes of technology) Government Labs Kaiser Wilhelm Society (KWG) (1914-1945) German Research Association (DFG) Helmholtz DAAD Humboldt $$Rockefeller Foundations* National Ministers of Education (193445) Nazi Four-Year Plan (193640) (Post-1945 West Germany) Max Planck Society (Formerly KWG) Fraunhofer Society Stifterverband Battelle and AIF DAAD and Humboldt refounded Thyssen and Volkswagen (Ministry for Atomic Energy) (Ministry for Scientific Research) (Ministry for Education and Science) (1972) Federal Ministry for Federal Ministry for Research and Technology Education and Science Big Science Establishments Regional Science Parks International Cooperative Projects 82
Federal Republic of Germany I have argued elsewhere that the key ingredient in the German research success story in this period was not the university system as commonly believed today. Instead, it was the creation of those new institutions intended to stimulate or bypass the institutions moving too slowly for the rushing times. (See Table 1.) Competitiveness was sustained through the institutionalization of a synergistic system that functioned in a very modern manner, blurring the distinctions among pure science, applied science, and technology. In particular, in an organization such as the Kaiser Wilhelm Society erected in 1911, there was a dual legitimation of basic research. The justification was of basic research as pure science when it was undirected, and as applied science when it was directed, even if the same person in the same institute would be doing the same work under discussion. A profound and very useful ambiguity allowed the government and certain far-seeing university professors to extol the virtues of the science-technology interaction when they were discussing financial matters with industrialists or government figures, while stressing the distance of basic researchers from application when addressing the concerns of their more culturally conservative colleagues in the universities.6 RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS IN AN ENVIRONMENT OF AUTARKY The period 1914 to 1945 was characterized in general terms by the ascendance of autarky over trade as a means to economic security. One can view the entire period 1914 to 1945 the way Winston Churchill did, as a second Thirty Years War with a 20-year armistice separating periods of military combat at both ends. A key German goal in this long siege was delineated in the now infamous September Program of 1914. The goal was to establish a '`Middle European Empire" subjugating or exploiting the rest of Europe's lands in order to be able to compete on a world stage with the United States and with the British empire. During the war, university classrooms were emptied. Science and technology were called upon primarily for military research and military application such as munitions production, gas warfare, or Ersatz and synthetic materials. As an indication of their fundamentally ambiguous nature, the Kaiser Wilhelm Society's institutes were largely switched over to military research. The Weimar Republic, which emerged in 1918 - 1919 and lasted until 1933, faced very serious constraints imposed upon it by the allies. In a combination of treaties and other agreements, Germany attempted in effect to play East off against West in the 1920s and 1930s, leaving itself essentially isolated between the two. Within this context, the leaders of German organized science in the 1 920s often referred to science as a Machtersatz, as a "power surrogate." Military and economic might had been toppled, but the prestige of Germany's science continued to stand unscathed.7 The rigidities of the university system were also left unscathed in the 1920s. Efforts to open access to women, for example, achieved limited success, and the full professors continued to be dominant. The states continued to have responsibility for science as a cultural dimension of German life and again changes came from outside and around the universities. A number of new science institutions appeared. In particular, there emerged the grant dispensing agencies, such as the German Research Association (which had another name at the time), the Helmholtz Society, the Emil Fischer Society and a number of others, some of which did not last. There were other institutions that were designed to foster exchange programs, namely the Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (DAAD) and the Humboldt Foundation. (The Humboldt's roots went back much farther but it was very important here in the 1920's.) Also, 83
Alan D. Beyerchen the Rockefeller Foundation's agencies were engaged in fostering exchange and building important research institutes. The Rockefeller people put about $350 million into their Foundation up to the end of World War Two; approximately $47 million of that went to western Europe, about $4 million to Germany. Approximately $400,000 went into one set of institutes in Gottingen alone.8 The idea was to identify and enhance the best work the Rockefeller people said they wanted to "make the peaks higher" and the Germans talked about Spitzenforschung. During the Weimar Republic, professional autonomy was not seriously challenged by the government itself, but the inflation and the depression still erased any confidence in the democratic regime. When the Nazis came to power, they immediately challenged the autonomy and the authority of the professoriate. There was, after all, less need for a "power surrogate" under a regime that fully intended to restore Germany's military might. Dismissals were implemented for persons who were Jewish or otherwise "politically unreliable," as the phrase went. Ideological attacks were launched upon objectivity and the "pure science" ethic as bourgeois frauds that allowed scientists to do whatever they wanted without being responsible for their actions. The Nazis also attacked basic research as inherently too slow; the new Third Reich was in a hurry to pursue its racist and expansionist goals. Few scientists and engineers emigrated voluntarily. Like professionals in other fields, most made the compromises necessary to continue their work and careers amid the welter of competing Nazi agencies. New professors had to withstand three credential checks: a check of their professional credentials (by the Ministry of Education), a check of their political credentials (by the Party headquarters), and a check of their ideological credentials (by the office of the"Party ideology chief).9 Scientific institutions reflected the contradictory policies of the Nazi era. A national Ministry of Education was erected in 1934, but it remained weak. The states still wanted to have control over cultural affairs and fought centralization despite the fact that they were reorganized on Nazi lines. A Four-Year Plan to help prepare Germany for war emphasized very important scientific and technological dimensions useful to economic autarky, particularly synthetic materials. This entwined the Four-Year Plan very tightly with I.G. Farben's activities, specifically its projects in synthetic gasoline and Buna (synthetic rubber). Technical research was favored over basic in every field by the Nazi regime. RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS IN A NEW EXPORT ENVIRONMENT After a difficult initial period, the post-1945 West German environment has again been one of export.10 Allied occupation in 1945 to 1949 occurred in a time when Germans were living under miserable conditions. Allied occupation meant Allied "exploitation and control" as well, before aid like the Marshall Plan came on line. Exploitation was embodied in programs such as FIAT (Field Information Agency Technical) that sent teams to occupied Germany in order to assess the technical achievements of the Germans by examining patents, looking over machinery, interviewing researchers, and all sorts of things. Operation Paperclip was involved in bringing Germans to the United States. Control was embodied in things such as dismantling of I.G. Farben, or promulgating Allied Control Authority Law 25. This law generally permitted teaching of science and engineering, but specified that only basic research be 84
Federal Republic of Germany allowed in most fields and prohibited entirely research in fields such as nuclear physics, rocketry, aerodynamics, and mathematics with importance for cryptography. During this period the universities were de-Nazified. More exactly, Nazi personnel were removed, but the structure was basically left intact. The Kaiser Wilhelm Society reemerged as the Max Planck Society. Various groups of German scientists tried to determine how to set up a science policy to deal with the increased scale of science. A tension emerged between rival organizations of scientists, some stressing the need for decentralization to keep the government out of decision making. Other groups argued that the government ought to be involved because of the scale of projects, and felt that they would probably be able to control how the government was involved. Gradually, all of this led to the reemergence of the German Research Association as the primary grant dispensing agency. It was largely exempt from federal control for a quite a while, and still retains considerable insulation in professional scientific affairs. The economic miracle that lasted from 1949 arguably all the way into the 1960s began at a time when the Cold War had already begun with the currency reform of 1948 and the Marshall Plan. With Economics Minister Ludwig Erhard's emphasis on export trade, an economic upsurge occurred. Erhard argued that the key to economic security lay in exports and in his conception of a mixed economy. By "mixed," he meant a reconciliation of competition and social expenditures: Competition ensures that all ad vantages which result from higher productivity will eventually be enjoyed. Along the road of competition socialization, in the best sense of the word, of progress and profit is best realized. In addition, personal incentive for higher productivity will remain alive. . . Prosperity for all and prosperity through competition are inseparable. The former marks the aim, the latter the path leading to it. 3 Erhard's conception of a social market economy continues today to provide the framework within which all economic and social issues are addressed in the Federal Republic. In essence, productivity creates the expansion that generates the wealth to meet social needs. International competitiveness and a favorable export trade are once again crucial, and West Germany's exports amount to one-fourth of its GNP. Economic security is now defined in terms of domestic equity and international interdependence rather than rivalry or autarky. There seems to me a great deal of merit in the argument that the Germans actually made a virtue of necessity with their Wirtschaftswunaier (economic miracle). Most physical plant had actually survived: contrary to popular belief the destruction figures hardly ever reached 25 percent of the industrial facilities in a given industry. The Allies had basically also blocked or prohibited many new technologies. So the Germans resorted to familiar materials and improved techniques and used existing or restored plant as a basis for generating the capital needed for updating. They had no choice initially.~4 They thus became the unchallenged masters of innovation in the "second industrial revolution" technologies (such as chemicals, electrotechnology, and machine tools), at both the researcher and craf tsman levels. This f it very well with the general German style of technological innovation and adaptation, which has really been more fundamentally "tychophobic" than "tychophilic" (my neologisms meaning risk-fearing and risk-loving) than is popularly thought. The big banks have not offered high-risk venture capital, preferring 85
Alan D. 13eyerchen along with most managers to pursue proven formulas for success formulas such as excellent craftsmanship, technically proficient management, high quality goods, on-time delivery, and excellent after-sales service. The support for science mushroomed in the postwar period. Science appeared as the key to competitiveness and, perhaps, once again, prestige. Some organizations of the 1920s had folded, such as the Helmholtz Society, but most persister} or were refounded. There were organizations funded by industry such as the Fraunhofer Society, the Stifterverband, Battelle (which does contract research for small corporations) and the AIF (that also basically works for small corporations as a consortium). Organizations for the promotion of scholarly exchange such as the DAAD and the Humboldt were refounded. Private foundations such as the Thyssen Foundation and the Volkswagen Foundation emerged as, to some extent, a replacement for the Rockefeller Foundation that was no longer as heavily engaged in German affairs. In terms of government activities, a federal ministry for atomic questions finally emerged In 1955 when Allied control restrictions were finally lifted, and conflict immediately ensued between Federal and State governments over the funding of what were called the "Big Science Establishments." (That's one word in German,of course: Grossforschungseinrichtungen.) These meant large projects in areas such as nuclear, space, and cancer research, along with a number of others, including data processing. The state governments, however, continued to fund the universities. With billions of marks at stake annually, and the growing perception that the relations between science and technology should be a matter of public concern, science policy has become a matter of hotly contested debate. A coordination network has emerged to adjudicate the fights and advise on policy. The centers of this network are the Federal-State commission that worries about relations between those two sets of funding agencies, and the advisory body of notables called the Science Council, neither of which has been immune from criticism in the fray. The situation today emerged after 1969, when an SPD government came into power. The Federal Ministry concerned with science had gone through a series of name and authority changes, and finally, in 1972, split into a Ministry for Research and Technology (which includes the Max Planck Society's nearly fifty institutes, the Fraunhofer Society, and various international cooperative projects such as the EUREKA Project) and a second Ministry for Education and Science, in which the German Research Association as a grant dispensing agency is located. Furthermore, the university structure still funded primarily by the state governments was altered finally at the end of 1975 to offer enhanced access and to dilute the power of the full professors by lowering student entrance prerequisites, by bureaucratically codifying academic job descriptions, by erecting in some places American-style departments, and by building more universities and other kinds of institutions of higher learning such as teachers' colleges.~5 Student enrollments have, however, nearly tripled since 1975, with over 25 percent of the relevant age group finishing secondary education and taking the requisite exams to go to the universities, versus only about 7 percent in 1968. The results have been emphatically mixed, with enormous teaching loads and erosion of morale driving many of the best researchers from the universities to other institutions. Over the years, by and large, the relationships among funding sources have remained relatively constant. As a crude approximation, research has been funded 50 percent by government and 50 percent by industry, with science funded five-eighths by government and 86
Fed eral Re public of Germany three-eighths by the private sector. A diagram in one of the reports on German research put out by the government of the Federal Republic divides destination of resources into university research, extra-university research, and economic (i.e. process and product) research of various sorts. The states provide the bulk of the funding for the universities. The federal government provides little for the universities, but offers most of the funding for the extra-university research institutions (including the Max Planck Society and the Big Science Establishments), and a fair amount for economic research. Industry provides relatively little, although something, to the first two cate6gories, but funds most of the economic research that we might call design and development.) With encouragement by the European Community and the national government, municipal governments have recently begun to take an active hand in the erection of research parks or innovation centers, and various European Community cooperative research projects (such as EUREKA) are drawing German industrial and government-funded researchers together.~7 PROSPECTS It is appropriate to address prospects for a few moments. First, the implications of the prowess of the Germans in "second industrial revolution" technologies should be considered. Such prowess, seen positively, means that the Germans can go slowly and cope with the social impact of change. The German tradition is really one of gradualism. It goes all the way back to the time of Bismarck's social legislation, which was supported by both labor and business. Viewed negatively, however, the Federal Republic is dependent on markets in countries that need high-quality "second industrial revolution" goods and services. Where are those markets? They lie in Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union, and the Third World. How vulnerable does this make Germany, does it make NATO, does it make the European Community? In a book that has recently come out, a Frenchman has written that the Common Market does not have a European problem facing it in 1992; it has a German problem-the~qull eastward, and perhaps even backward, by the Germans upon the rest of the Community. Developments in Eastern Europe and East Germany since the summer of 1989 have if anything underscored this concern. Some commentators have stressed the initially enormous cost to the West Germans of restructuring the East German economy, but the primary concern here is the relationships among research institutions. Since the early 1970s, the politically dominant East German institution has been the Academy of Sciences of the GDR, which is an amalgamation of the erstwhile Prussian Academy of Sciences and the Russian model of an academy of sciences with a system of institutes. A set of councils has determined policy and personnel allocations for the Academy and the other primary research institutions such as the universities. If Article 23 of the West German Basic Law were ever invoked, allowing an East German Land to join the Federal Republic, then the universities and various institutes of technology that predated the segregation of the German states in 1949 would probably be readily assimilated into a unified German research system. If Article 146 were to come into play, rewriting a unified German governmental structure from the top down, the Academy system and councils would become more assimilable than otherwise. Second, why have the Germans not leaped into "third industrial revolution" technologies? The mastery of innovation of the "second industrial revolution" technology and the 87
Alan D. Beyerchen consequent unwillingness to depart from successful patterns is only part of the problem. There are other factors. The fundamental prime mover in the first industrial revolution had been steam, in the second was electricity, and in the third is information. Let us consider briefly three key areas that offer insight into how the Germans are doing in information- driven technologies. In cybernetics and robotics, the Germans have lagged significantly behind the lead of Japan and the United States. The impetus for robots in Japan came from a labor shortage and projected demographic trends for an aging human workforce. In the United States, it has been said that the demand for innovation came from the desire to shift away from fractious blue collar workers to more congenial "steel collar', workers. The Federal Republic has had, thanks largely to government efforts to cope with the social impact of technologies, relatively good labor-management relations. That is what the social market economy constructed Erhard has been all about, providing a positive social context for industrial development. West Germany, too, has faced a labor shortage, but it has solved it with a traditional German method: the Gastarbeiter (guest workers). Instead of a robot, there has been a Yugoslav or a Turk on the job. The computer is another '6third industrial revolution" technology. The mathematics infrastructure for computer development is there, certainly, as well as the computer graphics and other innovations necessary for pursuing numerical techniques in nonlinear science, where many important future developments will occur.~9 But perhaps there is something deeper involved here. The "third industrial revolution," as I have said, has information as its prime mover. Initiative in information technology perhaps requires the context of a society within which information flows readily, even if that society is closed to outsiders. Germany has seemingly permeable boundaries at its borders. But the internal flow of information has a hulk "viscosity" level due to a cultural structure that understands all too well that knowledge is power and information is empowerment. We tend to focus on the permeability of legal or cultural boundaries, but this may be less appropriate than looking at the information viscosity within a given society. The USSR and Japan have less porous borders than either the U.S.A. Or the~Federal Republic, and we tend to lump countries together as protectionist or free- trade. Yet West Germany and the Soviet Union on the one hand and the U.S.A. and Japan on the other have some interesting similarities when seen from the perspective of sluggishness of internal information flow. The Japanese, sensing this, frequently refer to theirs as an `'information society." Biotechnology also belongs to the "third industrial revolution." Two historical streams form a cultural confluence that impedes German developments, despite considerable government funding and plenty of scientific expertise. One is a powerful ecological movement that responds to genetic technologies as a form of industrial production that threatens the environment. The other is the memory of the pre-1945 eugenics movement discredited by its prominence in the Third Reich and by Nazi efforts to exterminate supposedly inferior and selectively breed supposedly superior "races." The result is that the context for biotechnology is likely to remain restrictive for some time.20 The Germans are slow to begin changing, but once they do, their industriousness and thoroughness make them very formidable competitors. I think they will become so. Although for a time their energies and investments may be absorbed Eastward, there interest for the U.S.A. and the West in general to wean the Federal Republic from its second 88 - is perhaps an · . #, -
Federal Republic of Germany industrial revolution" technologies and the markets to which the Federal Republic is most attracted as a consequence. Such pressures may come into play.2i The German style of research organization seems unwieldy and nearly organically overgrown as a thicket of institutions and agencies all competing with each other and needing multiple coordinating bodies. Yet that may not be such a bad thing. "Living systems have a tendency to become more complex rather than more simple over time. Life, by its very nature, is resistant to simplification," said the physicist Freeman Dyson recently in a lecture, whether "on the level of single cells or ecological systems or human societies."22 By this criterion, the enormously complex and historically luxurious German system for the organization of research seems very lively indeed. NOTES 1. On this class boundary as a socio-political "frontier," see J. Sheehan, Siennas Liberalism in the Nineteenth Century, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978, p 282. On the impact of the skill level of German craftsmen and managers, see J. A. Limprecht and R. H. Hayes, "Germany's World-class Manufacturers," Harvard Business Review, (November/December 1982), pp. 137 45; and F. D. Weiss, The Structure of International Competitiveness in the Federal Republic of Germany, World Bank Staff Working Papers, No. 571, Washington, D.C.: The World Bank, 1983. There is an extensive literature on the development of the German universities and the growth of the German research enterprise. Particularly germane here is the recent look at the professionalization of scientists provided by R. S. Turner, "The Great Transition and the Social Patterns of German Science," Minerva, Vol. 25 (Spring-Summer 1987), pp. 56-76; J. Ben-David's suggestive interpretation in Me Scientist's Role in Society, Englewood Cliffs, NJ.: Prentice-Hall, 1971, pp. 108-38; and the work on the technicians of the period offered by P. Lundgreen in Techn~ker in Preussen waehrend der fruehen Industrialisierung, Berlin: Colloquium Verlag, 1975, and "Education for the Science- based Industrial State? The Case for Nineteenth-century Germany," History of Education, Vol. 13 (1984), pp. 59~7. 4. Werner von Siemens to Reich Minister of the Interior Heinrich van Boetticher, 20 March 1984, in W. Siemens. W`ssenschaftliche und Technische Arbeiten, Vol. II, Springer: Berlin, 1891, pp. 579 80. 5. Werner van Siemens, Inventor and Entrepreneur: Recollections, London: Lund Humphries, 1966, p. 266. 6. ~ Beyerchen, "On the Stimulation of Excellence in Wilhelmian Science," Another Germarry: A Reconsideration of the Imperial Era, edited by J. Dukes and J. Remak, Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1988, pp. 139 68. A similar view based predominantly on medical research is expressed by T. Lenoir, "A Magic Bullet: Research for Profit and the Growth of Knowledge in Germany Around 1900," Minerva, Vol. 26 (Spring 1988), pp. 66 88. See B. Schroeder-Gudehus, "Deutsche Wissenschaft und internationals Zusammenarbeit 1914-1928," (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Geneva, 1966, pp. 33-49~; and P. Forman, "Scientific Internationalism and the Weimar Physicists: Lee Ideology and Its Manipulation in Germany after World War I," Isis, Vol. 64 (June 1973), pp. 69-71. 8 Rockefeller Archive Center, Rockefeller Foundation, RG 3, Series 900, F 172, "The Foundation Versus Japan," October 1, 1937, and F 174, "Report of the Special Committee on Program and Policy, Dec 3-4, 1946," p. 56. 9. Some of these matters are discussed in ~ Beyerchen, Scientists Under Hitler: Politics and the Physics Con~ni~ in the Third Reich, New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1977. See also Natunvissenschaft, Technic und NS-ldeologie, edited by H. Mehrtens and S. Richter, Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp, 1980. On the consequences of the regime's policies for businesses oriented toward research, see especially P. Hayes, Indusoy and Ideology: IN Farben in the Nazi Era, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987. 89
Alan D. Beyerchen 10. A useful survey by a key participant is L. Erhard, Deutschlands Ruechkehr Sum Weltmarkt, Duesseldorf:ECON- Verlag, 1953. Only West German developments will be covered below, but a pertinent source on East Germany is R. Bentley, Technological Change in the German Democratic Republic, Boulder, CO:Westview Press, 1984. 11. On some of the implications and context of the Allied prohibitions, see ~ Beyerchen, "German Scientists and Research Institutions in Allied Occupation Polipy," History of Education Quarterly, (Fall 1982), pp. 289-99. For the most up-to-date analysis of FIAT and Paperclip, see J. Gimbel, Science, Technology and Reparations: Exploitation and Plunder in Postwar Germany, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, (1990~. On the postwar treatment of I. G. Farben, see R. Stokes, Divide and Prosper: The Heirs of I. G. Farben under allied Authonty, 1945-1951, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1988. 12. See T. Stamm, Zwischen Staat und Selbstverwaltung Die deutsche Forschung im Wederauphau 1945-1965, Cologne: Verlag Wissenschaft und Politik, 1981; and W. Krieger, "Zur Geschichte von Technologiepolitik und Forschungsfoerderung in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland: Eine Problemskizze," Verteljahrshefte fuer Zeitgeschichte 35, Heft 2 (April 1987), pp. 247-71. Also of interest is the paper delivered by David Cassidy at the History of Science Society meeting in Cincinnati, December 1988, "Overcoming the Past: The Search for a Science Policy in Postwar West Germany," (manuscript kindly made available by its author). 13. L. Erhard, Prospenty through Competition, New York: Praeger, 1958, pp. 1-3. 14. On these points, see R. G. Stokes, "Technology and the West German Wrtschaftswunder," Technology and Culture, (in press). 15. Max Planck Institute for Human Development and Education, Das Bildungswesen in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Reinbeck bei Hamburg: Rowohlt, 1979, translated as Between Elite and Mass Education, Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1983. 16. Bundesminister fuer Forschung und Technologie, Bundesbericht Forschung Vl, Bonn: Bundesministerium fuer Forschung und Technologie, 1979, p. 13. ]7. See J. Allesch, "Innovation Centres and Science Parks in the Federal Republic of Germany," Science Parks and Innovanon Centres: Their Economic and Social Impact, edited by J. M. Gibb, Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1985, pp. 58-68. 18. ~ Minc, La Grande Illusion, Paris: B. Grasset, 1989. See also B. Nussbaum, The YMorld After Oil, New York, Simon and Schuster, 1983, pp. 77-103. See, for example, Heinz-Otto Peitgen and S. Richter, The Beauty of Fractals, New York, etc: Springer Verlag, 1986; or Ordnung aus dem Chaos, edited by Bernd-Olaf Kueppers, Munich: Piper, 1987. On some of the historical implications of nonlinear science, see ~ Beyerchen, "Nonlinear Science and the Unfolding of a New Intellectual Vision," Rethinking Pattems of Knowledge, Papers in Comparative Studies (1988-89), Vol. 6, edited by R. Bjornson and M. Waldman, pp. 2549. 20. A provocative discussion of the German dimensions of ecology (and some of its implications in the Third Reich) is provided by ~ Bramwell, Ecology in the 20th Century: A History, New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1989. A brief discussion in English of the legacy of discredited eugenics for German genetic research is R. Zell, "History Feeds German Fears on Gene Technology," New Scientist (2~ August 1989), pp. 26-28. 21 For an argument that West Germany is not lagging behind in new technologies, but is just incorporating them selectively into its competitive posture, see Gerd Junne, "Competitiveness and the Impact of Change: Applications of 'High Technologies,' " in Industry ar~d Politics in West Germany, edited by P. J. Katzenstein, Ithaca and London, Cornell University Press, 1989, pp. 249-74. 22. F. Dyson, Origins of Life, Cambridge, etc, Cambridge University Press, 1985, pp. 75-76. 90
Federal Republic of Germany BIBLIOGRAPHY Allesch, J. "Innovation Centres and Science Parks in the Federal Republic of Germany." Science Parks and Innovation Centres: Their Economic and Social Impact. Edited by J. M. Gibb. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1985. Ben-David, J. The Scientist's Role in Society. Englewood Cliffs, NJ.: Prentice-Hall, 1971. Bentley, R. Technological Change in the German Democratic Republic. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1984. Beyerchen, ~ "German Scientists and Research Institutions in Allied Occupation Policy." History of Education Quarterly. (Fall 1982), pp. 289-99. Beyerchen, ~ "Nonlinear Science and the Unfolding of a New Intellectual Vision." Rethinking Patterns of Knowledge, Papers in Comparative Studies. Vol. 6 (1988-1989~. Edited by R. Bjornson and M. Waldman. Beyerchen, ~ "On the Stimulation of Excellence in Wilhelmian Science." Another Germany: A Reconsideration of the Imperial Era Edited by J. Dukes and J. Remak. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1988. Beyerchen, ~ Scientists Under Hitler: Politics and the Physics Community in the Third Reich. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1977. Bramwell, ~ Ecology in the 20th Century: A History. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1989. Bundesminister fuer Forschung und Technologie, Bundesbericht Forschung VI. Bonn: Bundesministerium fuer Forschung und Technologie, 1979. Erhard, L. Deutschlands Ruecklcehr zum ~eltmarkt. Duesseldorf: ECON-Verlag, 1953. Erhard, L. Prosperity through Competition. New York: Praeger, 1958. Forman, P. "Scientific Internationalism and the Weimar Physicists: The Ideology and Its Manipulation in Germany after World War I." Isis, Vol. 64 (June 1973), pp. 69-71. Gimbel, J. Science, Technology and Reparations: Exploitation and Plunder in Postwar Germany. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, (1990~. Hayes, P. Industry and Ideology: IG Farben in the Nazi Era Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987. Krieger' W. "Zur Geschichte von Technologiepolitik und Forschungsfoerderung in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland: Fine Problemskizze." Vierteljahrshefte fuer Zeitgeschichte 35, Heft 2 (April 1987~: pp. 247-71. Kueppers, Bernd-Olaf, editor. Ordnung aus dem Chaos. Munich: Piper, 1987. Lenoir, T. "A Magic Bullet: Research for Profit and the Growth of Knowledge in Germany Around 1900." Minerva Vol. 26 (Spring 1988), pp. 66-88. 91
Alan D. Beyerchen Limprecht, J. ~ and R. H. Hayes. "Germany's World-class Manufacturers." Harvard Business Renew (November/December 1982), pp. 13745. Lundgreen, P. "Education for the Science-based Industrial State? Ike Case for Nineteenth~entury Germany." History of Education Vol. 13 (1984), pp. 59~7. Lundgreen, P. Techniker in Preussen waehrend der fruehen Industnalisien~ng. Berlin: Colloquium Verlag, 1975. Max Planck Institute for Human Development and Education, Das Bildungswesen u' der Bundesrepublik D~utschland. Reinbeck bei Hamburg: Rowohlt, 1979. Trans. as Between Elite and Mass Education. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1983. Mehrtens, H. and S. Richter, editors. Naturwissenschaft. Technik and NS-Ideologie. Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp, 1980. Mine, ~ La Grande Illusion. Paris: B. Grasset, 1989. Schroeder-Gudehus, B. "Deutsche Wissenschaft und internationals Zusammenarbeit 1914-1928" (Ph.D. dissertation, Universitv of Geneva, 1966) Sheehan, J. German Liberalism in the Nineteenth Century. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978. Siemens, W. Inventor and Entrepreneur: Recollections. London: Lund Humphries, 1966. Siemens, W. ~ssenschaftliche and Technische Arbeiten, Vol. II. Berlin: Springer, 1891. Stamm, T. Zwischen Stuat und Selbst~erwaltung: Die deutsche Forschung im Wederaufbau 1945-1965. Cologne: Verlag Wissenschaft und Politik, 1981. Stokes, S. Divide and Prosper: The Heirs of I. G. Farben under Allied Authonty, 1945-1951. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1988. Stokes, R. G. "Technology and the West German ~rtschaftswunder." Technology and Culture. (In press). Turner, R. S. "The Great Transition and the Social Patterns of German Science." Minerva Vol. 25 (Spring-Summer 1987), pp. 56-76. Weiss, F. D. The S - cture of International Competitiveness in the Federal Republic of Germany. World Bank Staff Working Papers, No. 571, Washington, D.C.: Lee World Bank, 1983. Zell, R. "History Feeds German Fears on Gene Technology." New Scientist (2~ August 1989), pp. 26-28. 92
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