Jeffrey Allan Johnson

German women in chemistry, 1925–1945 (part II)

The paper traces the role of German women into the chemistry profession from 1925 to 1945, examining their relative numbers and experience in higher education, in academic and industrial careers as well as in professional organizations such as the Verein Deutscher Chemikerinnen. The paper examines the effect of the 1930s Depression, National Socialism, and World War II on women chemists, considering both general trends as well as the experiences and achievements of several individual women in a variety of situations. Finally, it considers the longterm consequences of these developments, such as the Nazi expulsion of Jewish women, destruction of women’s organizations and devaluing of women’s achievements, in limiting the recognition and participation of German women chemists after 1945.

The academic-industrial symbiosis in German chemical research, 1905–1939

It is commonly asserted that the German chemical industry achieved world leadership during the late nineteenth century in large part because it was the first to develop a truly symbiotic relationship with German academic chemists—i.e., a close, mutually profitable cooperation on many levels. Yet many aspects of that cooperation and the origins of industrial research itself remain obscure, their details only beginning to emerge from industrial and academic archives.1 Despite a few useful earlier studies, until recently the development of the academic-industrial symbiosis after 1914 was even more obscure.2 Critical developments in the shaping and reshaping of the symbiosis occurred in four periods: the decade before World War I; the later war years and postwar crisis from 1916 to 1923; the political-economic crisis years from 1929 to 1933; and finally the Nazi years after 1933.

Dilemmas of 19th-century Liberalism among German Academic Chemists: Shaping a National Science Policy from Hofmann to Fischer, 1865–1919

Summary This papers primary goal is to compare the personalities, values, and influence of August Wilhelm Hofmann and Emil Fischer as exemplars and acknowledged leaders of successive generations of the German chemical profession and as scientists sharing a 19th-century liberal, internationalist outlook from the German wars of unification in the 1860s to Fischers death in 1919 in the aftermath of German defeat in World War I. The paper will consider the influence of Hofmann and Fischer on the shaping of national scientific institutions in Germany, from founding of the German Chemical Society in 1867 to the first institutes of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society founded in 1911, their academic leadership in other areas including the shaping of a successful academic-industrial symbiosis in organic chemistry, and finally their response to war as a force disruptive of scientific internationalism. All of these developments posed serious dilemmas, exacerbated by emerging strains of nationalism and anti-Semitism in German society. Whereas Hofmanns lifework came to a relatively successful end in 1892, Fischer was not so fortunate, as the war brought him heavy responsibilities and terrible personal losses, but with no German victory and no peace of reconciliation – a bleak end for Fischer and the 19th-century liberal ideals that had inspired him.

Military-Industrial Interactions in the Development of Chemical Warfare, 1914–1918: Comparing National Cases Within the Technological System of the Great War

This chapter examines the development of chemical warfare on the Western Front in the context of the large-scale technological systems developed by each of the major powers—Germany, France, Britain, and later the United States—in order to coordinate their industrial, academic, and military resources. As chemical warfare intensified from the tentative, small-scale experiments of 1914–1915 to the massive bombardments of 1918, it also changed qualitatively. Each side’s innovations forced similar responses from their opponents, in an escalating arms race in which military exigencies increasingly overrode ethical concerns while tending to institutionalize chemical warfare. This process exemplified the war’s increasingly “total” nature as a technological meta-system integrating the fighting fronts and home fronts on each side and across the lines. On the verge of permanently institutionalizing chemical warfare and militarizing its supporting industries, the process abruptly ended as the German system collapsed. But by then the war had transformed the image of chemical science and technology from a progressive force to one associated with the horrors of war.

Chemiker im “Dritten Reich”: Die Deutsche Chemische Gesellschaft und der Verein Deutscher Chemiker im NS-Herrschaftsapparat

exclusively on his previous work on the subject, and the transconfessional nature of alchemy. The final section is titled “Survivals of Alchemy: 19–20 century.” Here Kahn attributes the decline in alchemical texts after the eighteenth century to Lavoisier and the Enlightenment “triumph of reason.” He argues that after these events “we can only speak of survivals” (p. 51). The exhibition claims to encompass “books and manuscripts from the sixteenth to the twentieth century”; however, sixty-three of the seventy-eight featured texts are from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The concluding section alludes to a post-Lavoisier chemical paradigm shift. If that is the case, alchemical texts from that era must be treated differently than pre-Lavoisier texts, and perhaps should not have been included in an exhibit featuring majority early modern alchemical books and manuscripts. While this catalogue is an excellent introduction to the history of alchemy for the nonadept, at points Kahn loses the reader in complicated microhistorical details. For instance, section eight (“The Quarrels of the Paracelsians”) gives a very detailed account of exchanges between Jacques Aubert, Joseph du Chesne, Jean Riolan the elder, Jean Riolan the younger, and Paul Reneaulme (the latter worked in Blois, a catchy connection for the exhibition). This in-depth relaying of individual people and arguments is strikingly specific compared to the broad overview of the other sections obviously aimed at a popular readership. Kahn covers a lot of ground in this slim exhibition catalogue, showcasing the books and manuscripts as he breaks down complex narratives in the history of chemistry for a lay audience. He is certainly successful in making esoteric and rare texts accessible to a general readership, while creating a short history of alchemy that can stand on its own.

Between Nationalism and Internationalism: The German Chemical Society In Comparative Perspective, 1867–1945

One-hundred fifty years ago, on the eve of German unification, about one-hundred people gathered in Berlin to found the German Chemical Society (DChG) under the charismatic leadership of August Wilhelm von Hofmann, who attracted a large international membership by promoting modern organic chemistry. By 1892, when Emil Fischer succeeded Hofmann, the DChG was the worlds largest chemical society. Under Fischer the Society promoted international collaboration with foreign societies, and in 1900 it opened an impressive headquarters, the Hofmann House, where it centralized its greatly expanded literary activity including abstracts and reference publications. Yet a half-century later, after war and racial-national extremism, the house lay in ruins and the Society had ceased to exist. In remembering the Society, one may well ask why its auspicious beginning should have led to this ignominious end.

Progressive Enlightenment: The Origins of the Gaslight Industry, 1780–1820

The word ‘gaslight’ normally recalls a mid-nineteenth-century era of Victorian urban culture; for decades, however, the question of its origins in a much earlier period has suffered undeserved scholarly neglect, for as Leslie Tomory’s book ably demonstrates, those origins represent a well-nigh ideal example of his titular phenomenon, ‘Progressive Enlightenment’. The notion of progress was, of course, a characteristic product of the Enlightenment, positing the use of science and reason for the gradual improvement of the human condition. The gaslight industry arguably represented precisely this sort of progress, though the developments traced by Tomory frequently reveal human beings acting in a less than rational manner. And while gaslight did ‘enlighten’ cities, its social impact is not Tomory’s major concern, although he does allude to this aspect at various points, particularly in his final chapter. Instead his primary interest is the ways in which the science-based technology of gas lighting moved from laboratory to workshop to a nascent industry, and then developed into one of the first modern, capital-intensive technological networks as part of the ‘second wave’ of Western industrialization (pp. 2–3). It should also be noted that Tomory’s background is not a purely academic one. He is described on the dust jacket as ‘an aerospace engineer, a historian, and a consultant in the nonprofit sector’, a background reflected in his careful attention to technical details throughout this welldocumented book. In his introduction, Tomory addresses the continuing debate among historians on the role of Enlightenment science in the early Industrial Revolution. Here he primarily supports the view best represented by Joel Mokyr on the significance of the Enlightenment to the British Industrial Revolution and more broadly of a long-standing interaction of science and technology for the emergence of the Western ‘knowledge economy’, as against those who would minimize the role of science in early industrialization and in the origins of Western technological dynamism. But whereas