Science and ideology: The case of physics in Nazi Germany

Authors

  • Philip Ball Science writer and author (London, UK).

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.7203/metode.7.7665

Keywords:

Nazism, German physics, science and politics, Peter Debye

Abstract

Science is not «above» politics and ethics: it is intrinsically political, and constantly raises ethical dilemmas. The consequences of evading such issues were made particularly clear in the actions of scientists working in Nazi Germany in the 1930s and 40s. The accusation in 2006 that Dutch physicist Peter Debye was an opportunist who colluded with the Nazis reopened the debate about the conduct of physicists at that time. Here I consider what those events can tell us about the relationship of science and politics today. I argue that an insistence that science is an abstract, apolitical inquiry into nature is a myth that can leave it morally compromised and vulnerable to political manipulation.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Author Biography

Philip Ball, Science writer and author (London, UK).

Science writer and author (London, UK). He previously worked as an editor at Nature , and his many books on science and its interactions with the broader culture include Serving the Reich: The struggle for the soul of physics under Hitler (2014).

References

Ball, P. (2014). Serving the Reich. London: Bodley Head.

Berg, P. (1980). Asilomar and recombinant DNA. Nobel Lecture. Retrieved, from www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/chemistry/laureates/1980/berg-article.html

Beyerchen, A. D. (1977). Scientists under Hitler: Politics and the physics community in the Third Reich. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Cassidy, D. C. (2009). Beyond uncertainty: Heisenberg, quantum physics, and the bomb. New York: Bellevue Literary Press.

Eickhoff, M. (2008). In the name of science? P. J. W. Debye and his career in Nazi Germany. Amsterdam: Aksant.

Goudsmit, S. (1948, 20 September). Letter to W. Heisenberg (box 10, folder 95). Samuel Goudsmit Papers, American Institute of Physics.

Haberer, J. (1969). Politics and the community of science. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold.

Heilbron, J. L. (2000). The dilemmas of an upright man: Max Planck and the fortunes of German science. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Heisenberg, W. (1948, 5 January). Letter to S. Goudsmit (box 10, folder 95). Samuel Goudsmit Papers, American Institute of Physics.

Hoffmann, D. (2005). Between autonomy and accommodation: The German Physical Society during the Third Reich. Physics in Perspective, 7(3), 293–329. doi: 10.1007/s00016-004-0235-x

Hoffmann, D., & Walker, M. (March 2006). Peter Debye: A typical scientist in an untypical time. Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft. Retrieved from www.dpg-physik.de/dpg/gliederung/fv/gp/debye_en.html

Hoffmann, D., & Walker, M. (Eds.). (2011). «Fremde» Wissenschaftler im Dritten Reich. Die Debye-Affäre im Kontext. Göttingen: Wallstein Verlag.

Macrakis, K. (1993). Surviving the swastika: Scientific research in Nazi Germany. New York: Oxford University Press.

Mosse, G. L. (Ed.). (1966). Nazi culture: Intellectual, cultural and social life in the Third Reich. New York: Grosset & Dunlap.

Powers, T. (2000). Heisenberg’s War. Boston: Da Capo.

Rammer, G. (2012). «Cleanliness among our circle of colleagues»: The German Physical Society’s Policy toward its past. In D. Hoffmann, & M. Walker (Eds.), The German Physical Society in the Third Reich. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Renneburg, M., & Walker, M. (Eds.). (1994). Science, technology and national socialism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Rispens, S. I. (2006). Einstein in Nederland: Een intellectuelle biographie. Amsterdam: Ambo.

US House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. (2007). Political interference with climate change science under the Bush Administration. Retrieved from www.cfr.org/climate-change/political-interference-climate-change-science-under-bush-administration-december-2007/p15079

Van Ginkel, G. (2006). Prof. Peter J. W. Debye (1884-1966) in 1935-1945: An investigation of historical sources. The Netherlands: RIPCN.

Walker, M. (1995). Nazi science: Myth, truth and the German atomic bomb. New York: Plenum.

Walker, M. (Ed.). (2003). Science and ideology: A comparative history. London: Routledge.

Downloads

Published

2017-06-20

How to Cite

Ball, P. (2017). Science and ideology: The case of physics in Nazi Germany. Metode Science Studies Journal, (7), 69–77. https://doi.org/10.7203/metode.7.7665
Metrics
Views/Downloads
  • Abstract
    4655
  • PDF
    918

Issue

Unravelling science: Pulling the thread of knowledge (2017)

Section

Interference. The troubled relationship between science and ideology

License

All the documents in the OJS platform are open access and property of their respective authors.

Authors publishing in the journal agree to the following terms:

  1. Authors keep the rights and guarantee Metode Science Studies Journal the right to be the first publication of the document, licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of authorship and publication in the journal.
  2. Authors are allowed and encouraged to spread their work through electronic means using personal or institutional websites (institutional open archives, personal websites or professional and academic networks profiles) once the text has been published.

Metrics

Similar Articles

<< < > >> 

You may also start an advanced similarity search for this article.