The Academy of Sciences in Vienna 1938 to 1945

256 Pages·2013·77.404 MB·English

by  Johannes Feichtinger, Stefan Sienell, Heidemarie Uhl

JOHANNES FEICHTINGER, HERBERT MATIS,
STEFAN SIENELL, HEIDEMARIE UHL (EDS.)
THE ACADEMY OF SCIENCES IN VIENNA 1938 TO 1945
AUSTRIAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCES
JOHANNES FEICHTINGER, HERBERT MATIS,
STEFAN SIENELL, HEIDEMARIE UHL (EDS.)
The Academy of
Sciences in Vienna
1938 to 1945
together with Silke Fengler
Translation from German:
Nick Somers, Cynthia Peck-Kubaczek
Translation of the exhibition catalog
Johannes Feichtinger, Herbert Matis, Stefan Sienell, Heidemarie Uhl (eds.)
Die Akademie der Wissenschaften in Wien 1938 bis 1945. Katalog zur Ausstellung (Vienna 2013).
ISBN 978-3-7001-7367-0
Illustrations on the cover:
Background: ÖNB, Bildarchiv, Sign. L32608C
Seal: AÖAW, Siegelsammlung
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Printed on chlorine-free bleached cellulose, acid free, non-ageing paper
Alle Rechte vorbehalten / All rights reserved
ISBN 978-3-7001-7537-7
Copyright © 2014 by
Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften / Austrian Academy of Sciences
Wien / Vienna
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http://hw.oeaw.ac.at/7537-7
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Printed and bound in the EU
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Preface to the English edition (The Editors) .................................................... 7
Preface (Helmut Denk) .................................................................................. 9
I. The “AnsChluss” And nAzI Rule .............................................. 11
The “Anschluss” and Nazi Rule. Austria 1938–1945 (Arnold Suppan) . 13
The initial reactions to the “Anschluss” in the Academy of Sciences
(Stefan Sienell) ..................................................................................... 21
I. 1. The ProTagonIsTs ........................................................................... 27
The Presiding Committee of the Academy during the Nazi Era
(Herbert Matis) .................................................................................... 27
Heinrich (von) Srbik (1878–1951) and the Academy of Sciences
(Martina Pesditschek) ........................................................................... 35
The two careers of Fritz Knoll. How a botanist furthered
the Nazi Party’s interests after 1938 – and successfully lived it down
after 1945 (Klaus Taschwer) ................................................................. 45
I. 2. ConsequenCes of The “ansChluss” ................................................. 53
Exclusion of members (Herbert Matis) ................................................ 53
Filling of vacant positions following the exclusion of ordinary members
(Stefan Sienell) ..................................................................................... 61
Consequences for the academic staff. The case of Leo Hajek
(Marlene Wahlmüller) .......................................................................... 69
Administrative staff (Stefan Sienell) ...................................................... 77
The revision of the Statutes (Herbert Matis) ......................................... 87
I. 3. new ProgrammaTIC and sTruCTural orIenTaTIon ............................ 93
Speeches by Academy President Heinrich (von) Srbik at the
Ceremonial Sessions (Herbert Matis) ................................................... 93
Expelled, burnt, sold, forgotten, and suppressed. The permanent
destruction of the Institute for Experimental Biology
and its academic staff (Klaus Taschwer) ................................................ 101
Transformations in research policy (Johannes Feichtinger) ................... 113
Science “in the service of the German people” (Johannes Feichtinger) .. 123
6 Table of Contents
I. 4. naTIonal and InTernaTIonal InTerConneCTIons ............................. 133
The “national honor” of German Academies. The Vienna Academy
caught between national and international academic cooperations
(Felicitas Seebacher) ............................................................................. 133
“Increase the achievements of German science by all available means”.
The National Socialist Project of the Reich Academy of German
Sciences (Felicitas Seebacher) ............................................................... 141
II. deAlIng wITh nATIonAl soCIAlIsm AfTeR 1945 ................ 149
Tasks and areas of responsibility of the new Presiding Committee
(Johannes Feichtinger/Dieter J. Hecht) ................................................ 151
Denazification at the Academy of Sciences
(Johannes Feichtinger/Dieter J. Hecht) ................................................ 163
1945 and after. One break and two continuities
(Johannes Feichtinger/Dieter J. Hecht) ................................................ 181
Centennial anniversary of the Academy of Sciences 1947.
Austrian identity – new positioning in the international scientific
community – suppression of the Nazi era (Heidemarie Uhl) ................. 191
III. shoRT BIogRAphIes .................................................................... 201
IV. AppendIx .......................................................................................... 251
Abbreviations ........................................................................................ 253
Bibliography ......................................................................................... 254
Table of figures ...................................................................................... 263
Index of names ...................................................................................... 265
Notes on contributors ........................................................................... 270
preface to the english edition
Some preliminary remarks are necessary to ensure the correct use and better under-
standing of the English translation of the German edition published in March 2013.
The use of quotation marks (“ ”) denotes a quote taken from a published source or a
citation from a scholarly work, for which a footnote indicating that source will always
be given. Quotation marks will also be used for specific National Socialist expressions
and jargon. In as far as these terms are already widely understood in (American)
English, they will be printed in normal script, otherwise in italics. Furthermore, all
quotes from unpublished primary sources will be italicized.
All quotations, be they from scholarly works or from unpublished texts, have been
translated into English, even though the original texts were, as a rule, in German!
The term “Academy of Sciences” as the translation for “Akademie der Wissen-
schaften” appears frequently in the text. The editors are aware of the fact that the
English term “sciences” is generally used to denote the natural sciences only, whereas
the German term “Wissenschaften“ also includes the “Humanities and Social
Sciences.” However, since the (albeit inadequate) English designation “Austrian
Academy of Sciences“ is well established for the “Österreichische Akademie der
Wissenschaften,” this has been adopted in the present volume.
The translation “full member” for “wirkliches Mitglied” and “ordinary member”
for “ordentliches Mitglied” is ambivalent insofar as both the two German terms and
the two English terms can be used synonymously. Their difference lies only in that
with the so-called “Vorläufige Satzung” (Provisional Statutes) of July 1938, the term
“ordinary member,” then in force in the German Reich, was adopted in favor the
Austrian term “full member“ used until that point. With the reinstitution of the
Academy Statutes of 1922/1925, the term “full member” was once again used in
Vienna from 1945 on.
For the translation of specific National Socialist terminology, Robert A. Michael
and Karin Doerr’s Nazi-Deutsch. An English lexicon of the language of the Third Reich
= Nazi German (Westport/Conn., 2002) was consulted.
The editors would like to thank Nick Somers and Cynthia Peck-Kubaczek for the
translation as well as Joanna White for copy-editing.
The Editors
preface
The “Anschluss” of Austria with the National Socialist German Reich in March 1938
signified a profound break for the Academy of Sciences in Vienna. On 18 March
1938 the longtime Academy President Oswald Redlich resigned; on recommenda-
tion of the remaining members of the Presiding Committee, the Academy General
Assembly of 25 March requested corresponding Academy member Fritz Knoll to
safeguard “the interests of the regional administration of the Nazi party in Austria with
regard to the Academy of Sciences until the final regulation of the Academy Statutes.” The
botanist Knoll was an illegal Nazi and, on 15 March, had become the commissarial
rector of the University of Vienna. “Meritorious” Nazis were immediately appointed
as directors of the Academy institutes. Under the newly elected President Heinrich
Srbik, the Academy of Sciences was “enthusiastically and dutifully at the exclusive
service of the Greater German Volksstaat [people’s State],” as Srbik declared in his
inaugural speech in November 1938. The scholarly activities should stand – as stated
programmatically in the new Statutes – in “the service of the German people.”
With the Nazis’ seizure of power, Academy members and staff members were
forced to leave the Academy for political and “racial” reasons. They were persecuted
and expelled; they died in Nazi concentration camps. Not only were human tragedies
connected to this, but also irretrievable losses for Austrian scholarship. Academy
Organizations like the Institute for Radium Research, the Institute for Experimental
Biology (Vivarium), and the Phonogram Archive lost their key research personnel;
worldwide pioneering research programs and international research collaborations
were broken off.
With the restoration of democracy and the rule of law in 1945, freedom of research
became the maxim of the Academy of Sciences. Regaining the status of a scientific
institution of international standing and emphasizing the Austrian focus of research
were priorities, the latter also reflected in the name being changed to “Austrian
Academy of Sciences” (in 1947).
The year 1945 was not a “zero hour.” In addition to breaks, there were also conti-
nuities in the research institutes as well as the association of scholars. In dealing with
Nazism, the Academy took an ambivalent stance, albeit on a legal basis: In the early
postwar period, the membership of former Nazis was provisionally ruhendgestellt, or
held in abeyance. A few years later – pursuant to the Amnesty Law of 1948 – practi-
cally all former Nazi party members, even high-ranking officials, were re-admitted as
members.
It took decades before the Academy dealt more intensively with its history during
the Nazi era. In 1997, on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the Academy’s
founding, the publication of the essay by Herbert Matis entitled Zwischen Anpassung
und Widerstand. Die Akademie der Wissenschaften in den Jahren 1938–1945 [Between
10 Preface
Accommodation and Resistance. The Academy of Sciences in the years 1938–1945]
provided a first critical historiographical account.
In 2013, the Academy is using the 75th anniversary of the “Anschluss” in March
1938 as an occasion to present an exhibition and publish a catalog investigating the
reactions of the Academy to the Nazi power takeover, the Academy’s involvement in
the Nazi domination apparatus, and the impact this had on the postwar period.
Special attention has been devoted to the members and staff of the Academy who
were victims of Nazi persecution. A plaque dedicated to them was unveiled on
11 March 2013 in the main building of the Academy. Their names and biographies
will be made available in a virtual memorial book on the Academy website.
In dealing critically with the history of its own institution, the Academy is con-
sonant with the other Academies of Science in the German-speaking world. And it is
in the very bringing together of recent and ongoing research upon which the exhibi-
tion and catalog are based, as well as in collaborating in research projects at Academies
of Science in Germany, that it becomes clear that a comprehensive scholarly analysis
of the history of the Austrian Academy of Sciences during the twentieth century
remains a desideratum.
Helmut Denk,
President of
the Austrian Academy of Sciences
I. The “Anschluss”
And nAzI Rule