Kaiser Wilhelm Society for the

Six weeks later, with the emperor in attendance, the Kaiser Wilhelm Society for the Advancement of Sciences rose into life, inflated with the hot air of optimism, ambition, and pride. It represented a unique partnership of imperial sponsorship and private wealth. Private money built the institutes and paid most of their bills, but Prussia paid the salary of each institute director. At the first meeting of the society s governing council, chemist Emil Fischer proclaimed science the true land of unlimited possibilities. When Fischer mentioned, as one example of science s gifts, the capture of nitrogen fertilizer from the air, he saw the emperor nod his head in agreement. 

The structure of this institute is the most important of my personal responsibilities as its head. Should current circumstances render this structure unsustainable, apparently because it has become disadvantageous to the Kaiser Wilhelm Society and the institute, which I have led since its foundation, I consider it my duty as director to see through the required reorganization myself because I know best those aspects [of its structure] that are important for science and for the personnel and am best placed to make arrangements with the General Administration. ... 

Although Jews or former Jews accounted for only 1 percent of Germany s population, Jewish bankers were soon underwriting one-fifth of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society and its institutes. Jews gravitated to new fields and institutions where established barriers did not prevent them from getting... 

Haber was slow to grasp the implications of the Nazis rise to power. As Germans boycotted Jewish businesses and Hitler s brownshirts removed Jewish students from university libraries and laboratories, the Nazis passed a law on April 7, 1933, to cleanse the civil service and universities of Jews. By this time, Haber s Kaiser Wilhelm Institute was financed by the government and its employees were treated as civil functionaries subject to the new law. Haber himself was exempt because of war work and seniority. Eager for a chemical warfare center, Nazi authorities singled out Haber s institute and ordered him to fire its Jews. At the same time, the Kaiser Wilhelm Society told Haber to somehow keep his important senior scientists. He had until May 2 to act. 

By the time Haber died, Otto Hahn, acting as provisional director of his institute, had carried out the orders that Haber had resigned over. A Nazi Party member became the institute s director and, in the subsequent Nazi takeover, no other institute of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society suffered as severely as Haber s. The military planned to make the institute a center for poison gas research, and former staff members were not needed. 

Kaiser Wilhelm Society. History of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institutes. hl lp //www. fhi-berlin.mpg.de/history/found.html. Source for fact that Nazis politicized Haber s institute most of all society institutes. 

What were the reasons for the hesitant progress of modern genetics in Germany after World War II The reconstruction of the Max Planck Society (MPS) on the ruins of the former Kaiser Wilhelm Institutes reflects the development of research and technology in general and of molecular genetics in particular, in relation to public and political support. 

The Max Planck Society for the Advancement of the Sciences (MPS) is an independent, non-profit research organization. It was established on February 26, 1948, as the successor organization of the former Kaiser Wilhelm Society. Max Planck Institutes conduct basic research in service to the general public in the areas of natural science, social science and the arts and humanities. 

Following the collapse of the Third Reich, for German science, as for many sectors of public life, the need for a new start was essential. The state of Germany s institutions at the end of the war corresponded to the general chaos accompanying the defeat. The various institutes of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society (KWS) originally founded in 1911, the predecessor of the Max Planck Society, were damaged or housed provisionally at different evacuation sites. The years of... 

Berlin-Buch has a long tradition as a place for medical science, starting with the foundation of the center at the turn of the century which temporarily comprised hospitals with over 5000 beds. In 1928 the former Kaiser Wilhelm Society established an Institute for Brain Research on what nowadays forms the Max Delbriick Center s (MDC) campus. 

Less than a week later, Haber s forebodings became reality. The government unveiled a law ordering the removal within six months of all Jews from the German civil service, except for those Jews who d been soldiers in World War I. The law covered every German university professor and nearly every scientist at the institutes of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society. 

Haber s resignation was not immediately effective. He gave himself and his employers five months, until October 1, 1933, to find a successor. Max Planck, president of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society, tried to reverse Haber s decision. For several weeks Planck shuttled between various government offices, hoping to work out a... 

Several of Haber s friends went to Max Planck, president of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society, and proposed that the society plan a memorial service in Haber s honor. Planck, never a man for open confrontation, was caught between two opposing loyalties—to his friends and to his government. He hesitated, and did nothing for almost a year. Eventually, his better instincts won out. He began preparations for a memorial service to be held on January 29, 1935, tlie first anniversary of Haber s death. 

Three days later, under a cold gray winter sky, a crowd gathered in Dahlem. They stepped across cobblestones dusted with wet snow toward the Harnack House, clubhouse and meeting hall for the Kaiser Wilhelm Society. 

It marked the opening of both the Institute for Physical and Electrochemistry and the adjacent Institute for Chemistry. Participants assembled in the library of the Chemistry Institute. The program was at his Majesty s request, as restricted [in scope] as possible. It included brief addresses from Emil Fischer, Adolf Harnack, Culture Minister August Trott zu Solz and, of course, his royal Majesty. Then came a tour of the Institutes with brief scientific talks and demonstrations. The presentations in the Physical Chemistry and Electrochemistry Institute were supervised by the Director himself, and among other things, included a demonstration of ammonia synthesis, which was presented as a practical application of fundamental chemical principles. At the conclusion of the celebration members gathered in the machine hall of the Physical Chemistry and Electrochemistry Institute for the first general assembly of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society. 

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