The Kaiser Wilhelm Society for the Advancement of Science (
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
**Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ger ...
: ''Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gesellschaft zur Förderung der Wissenschaften'') was a German scientific institution established in the
German Empire
The German Empire (),Herbert Tuttle wrote in September 1881 that the term "Reich" does not literally connote an empire as has been commonly assumed by English-speaking people. The term literally denotes an empire – particularly a hereditary ...
in 1911. Its functions were taken over by the
Max Planck Society
The Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science (german: Max-Planck-Gesellschaft zur Förderung der Wissenschaften e. V.; abbreviated MPG) is a formally independent non-governmental and non-profit association of German research institutes. ...
. The Kaiser Wilhelm Society was an umbrella organisation for many institutes, testing stations, and research units created under its authority.
Constitution
![Bundesarchiv Bild 183-R15350, Einweihung des Kaiser-Wilhelm-Instituts in Dahlem](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/67/Bundesarchiv_Bild_183-R15350%2C_Einweihung_des_Kaiser-Wilhelm-Instituts_in_Dahlem.jpg)
The Kaiser Wilhelm Gesellschaft (KWG) was founded in 1911 in order to promote the
natural sciences
Natural science is one of the branches of science concerned with the description, understanding and prediction of natural phenomena, based on empirical evidence from observation and experimentation. Mechanisms such as peer review and repeatab ...
in Germany, by founding and maintaining research institutions formally independent from the state and its administrations. The institutions were to be under the guidance of prominent directors, which included the physicists and chemists
Walther Bothe
Walther Wilhelm Georg Bothe (; 8 January 1891 – 8 February 1957) was a German nuclear physicist, who shared the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1954 with Max Born.
In 1913, he joined the newly created Laboratory for Radioactivity at the Reich Physi ...
,
Peter Debye
Peter Joseph William Debye (; ; March 24, 1884 – November 2, 1966) was a Dutch-American physicist and physical chemist, and Nobel laureate in Chemistry.
Biography
Early life
Born Petrus Josephus Wilhelmus Debije in Maastricht, Netherlands, D ...
,
Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein ( ; ; 14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist, widely acknowledged to be one of the greatest and most influential physicists of all time. Einstein is best known for developing the theory ...
,
Fritz Haber
Fritz Haber (; 9 December 186829 January 1934) was a German chemist who received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1918 for his invention of the Haber–Bosch process, a method used in industry to synthesize ammonia from nitrogen gas and hydrogen ...
and
Otto Hahn
Otto Hahn (; 8 March 1879 – 28 July 1968) was a German chemist who was a pioneer in the fields of radioactivity and radiochemistry. He is referred to as the father of nuclear chemistry and father of nuclear fission. Hahn and Lise Meitner ...
; a board of trustees also provided guidance.
Funding was ultimately obtained from sources internal and external to Germany. Internally, money was raised from individuals, industry and the government, as well as through the
Notgemeinschaft der Deutschen Wissenschaft The ''Notgemeinschaft der Deutschen Wissenschaft'' (Emergency Association of German Science) or NG was founded on 30 October 1920 on the initiative of leading members of the ''Preußische Akademie der Wissenschaften'' (Prussian Academy of Sciences, ...
(Emergency Association of German Science).
External to Germany, the
Rockefeller Foundation
The Rockefeller Foundation is an American private foundation and philanthropic medical research and arts funding organization based at 420 Fifth Avenue, New York City. The second-oldest major philanthropic institution in America, after the Carneg ...
granted students worldwide one-year study stipends, for whichever institute they chose, some studied in Germany. In contrast to the German universities, with their formal independence from state administrations the institutions of the Kaiser Wilhelm Gesellschaft had no obligation to teach students.
The Kaiser Wilhelm Institute and its research facilities were involved in weapons research, experimentation and production in both the First World War and the Second World War. During the
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
, the group, and in particular
Fritz Haber
Fritz Haber (; 9 December 186829 January 1934) was a German chemist who received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1918 for his invention of the Haber–Bosch process, a method used in industry to synthesize ammonia from nitrogen gas and hydrogen ...
, was responsible for introducing the use of
poison gas
Many gases have toxic properties, which are often assessed using the LC50 (median lethal dose) measure. In the United States, many of these gases have been assigned an NFPA 704 health rating of 4 (may be fatal) or 3 (may cause serious or perman ...
as a weapon. This was in direct violation of established
international law
International law (also known as public international law and the law of nations) is the set of rules, norms, and standards generally recognized as binding between states. It establishes normative guidelines and a common conceptual framework for ...
.
The Holocaust
During World War II, some of the weapons and medical research performed by the KWI was connected to fatal
human experimentation on living test subjects (prisoners) in
Nazi concentration camps
From 1933 to 1945, Nazi Germany operated more than a thousand concentration camps, (officially) or (more commonly). The Nazi concentration camps are distinguished from other types of Nazi camps such as forced-labor camps, as well as concen ...
. In fact, members of the
KWI of Anthropology, Human Heredity and Eugenics, particularly
Otmar von Verschuer received preserved
Jewish
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
bodies and body parts such as eyes for study and display from
Auschwitz. These were provided by his pupil Dr.
Josef Mengele
, allegiance =
, branch = Schutzstaffel
, serviceyears = 1938–1945
, rank = ''Schutzstaffel, SS''-''Hauptsturmführer'' (Captain)
, servicenumber =
, battles =
, unit =
, awards =
, command ...
from prisoners in his charge. He specialized in examining twins, and their genetic relationship, especially for their
eye colour
Eyes are organs of the visual system. They provide living organisms with vision, the ability to receive and process visual detail, as well as enabling several photo response functions that are independent of vision. Eyes detect light and conv ...
and other personal qualities. As the American forces closed in on the relocated KWI, the organization's president,
Albert Vögler
Albert Vögler (8 February 1877 – 14 April 1945) was a German politician, industrialist and entrepreneur. He was a co-founder of the German People's Party, and an important executive in the munitions industry during the Second World War.
V ...
, an
industrialist
A business magnate, also known as a tycoon, is a person who has achieved immense wealth through the ownership of multiple lines of enterprise. The term characteristically refers to a powerful entrepreneur or investor who controls, through perso ...
and early
Nazi Party
The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party (german: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP), was a far-right politics, far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that crea ...
backer, committed suicide, knowing he would be held accountable for the group's
crimes
In ordinary language, a crime is an unlawful act punishable by a state or other authority. The term ''crime'' does not, in modern criminal law, have any simple and universally accepted definition,Farmer, Lindsay: "Crime, definitions of", in Can ...
and complicity in
war crimes.
Post-war
By the end of the Second World War, the KWG and its institutes had lost their central location in Berlin and were operating in other locations. The KWG was operating out of its Aerodynamics Testing Station in
Göttingen
Göttingen (, , ; nds, Chöttingen) is a college town, university city in Lower Saxony, central Germany, the Capital (political), capital of Göttingen (district), the eponymous district. The River Leine runs through it. At the end of 2019, t ...
.
Albert Vögler
Albert Vögler (8 February 1877 – 14 April 1945) was a German politician, industrialist and entrepreneur. He was a co-founder of the German People's Party, and an important executive in the munitions industry during the Second World War.
V ...
, the president of the KWG, committed suicide on 14 April 1945. Thereupon, Ernst Telschow assumed the duties until
Max Planck
Max Karl Ernst Ludwig Planck (, ; 23 April 1858 – 4 October 1947) was a German theoretical physicist whose discovery of energy quanta won him the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1918.
Planck made many substantial contributions to theoretical p ...
could be brought from
Magdeburg
Magdeburg (; nds, label=Low Saxon, Meideborg ) is the capital and second-largest city of the German state Saxony-Anhalt. The city is situated at the Elbe river.
Otto I, the first Holy Roman Emperor and founder of the Archdiocese of Magdebur ...
to Göttingen, which was in the
British zone of the
Allied Occupation Zones in Germany
Germany was already de facto occupied by the Allies from the real fall of Nazi Germany in World War II on 8 May 1945 to the establishment of the East Germany on 7 October 1949. The Allies (United States, United Kingdom, Soviet Union, and France ...
. Planck assumed the duties on 16 May until a president could be elected.
Otto Hahn
Otto Hahn (; 8 March 1879 – 28 July 1968) was a German chemist who was a pioneer in the fields of radioactivity and radiochemistry. He is referred to as the father of nuclear chemistry and father of nuclear fission. Hahn and Lise Meitner ...
was selected by directors to be president, but there were a number of difficulties to be overcome. Hahn, being related to nuclear research had been captured by the allied forces of
Operation Alsos
The Alsos Mission was an organized effort by a team of British and United States military, scientific, and intelligence personnel to discover enemy scientific developments during World War II. Its chief focus was on the German nuclear energy pr ...
, and he was still interned at
Farm Hall
A farm (also called an agricultural holding) is an area of land that is devoted primarily to agricultural processes with the primary objective of producing food and other crops; it is the basic facility in food production. The name is used fo ...
in Britain, under
Operation Epsilon
Operation Epsilon was the codename of a program in which Allied forces near the end of World War II detained ten German scientists who were thought to have worked on Nazi Germany's nuclear program. The scientists were captured between May 1 and ...
. At first, Hahn was reluctant to accept the post, but others prevailed upon him to accept it. Hahn took over the presidency three months after being released and returned to Germany. However, the
Office of Military Government, United States
The Office of Military Government, United States (OMGUS; german: Amt der Militärregierung für Deutschland (U.S.)) was the United States military-established government created shortly after the end of hostilities in Allied-occupied Germany, occup ...
(OMGUS) passed a resolution to dissolve the KWG on 11 July 1946.
Meanwhile, members of the British occupation forces, specifically in the Research Branch of the OMGUS, saw the society in a more favourable light and tried to dissuade the Americans from taking such action. The physicist
Howard Percy Robertson
Howard Percy "Bob" Robertson (January 27, 1903 – August 26, 1961) was an American mathematician and physicist known for contributions related to physical cosmology and the uncertainty principle. He was Professor of Mathematical Physics at the C ...
was director of the department for science in the British Zone; he had a National Research Council Fellowship in the 1920s to study at the
Georg August University of Göttingen
Georg may refer to:
* ''Georg'' (film), 1997
*Georg (musical), Estonian musical
* Georg (given name)
* Georg (surname) George is a surname of Irish, English, Welsh, South Indian Christian, Middle Eastern Christian (usually Lebanese), French, or ...
and the
Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich
The Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (simply University of Munich or LMU; german: Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München) is a public research university in Munich, Germany. It is Germany's sixth-oldest university in continuous operatio ...
. Also, Colonel Bertie Blount was on the staff of the British Research Branch, and he had received his doctorate at Göttingen under Walther Borsche. Among other things, Bertie suggested to Hahn to write to Sir
Henry Hallett Dale
Sir Henry Hallett Dale (9 June 1875 – 23 July 1968) was an English pharmacologist and physiologist. For his study of acetylcholine as agent in the chemical transmission of nerve pulses (neurotransmission) he shared the 1936 Nobel Prize in Ph ...
, who had been the president of the
Royal Society
The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...
, which he did. While in Britain, Bertie also spoke with Dale, who came up with a suggestion. Dale believed that it was only the name which conjured up a pejorative picture and suggested that the society be renamed the Max Planck Gesellschaft. On 11 September 1946, the
Max Planck Gesellschaft
The Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science (german: Max-Planck-Gesellschaft zur Förderung der Wissenschaften e. V.; abbreviated MPG) is a formally independent non-governmental and non-profit association of Germany, German research ins ...
was founded in the British Zone only. The second founding took place on 26 February 1948 for both the American and British occupation zones. The physicists
Max von Laue
Max Theodor Felix von Laue (; 9 October 1879 – 24 April 1960) was a German physicist who received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1914 for his discovery of the diffraction of X-rays by crystals.
In addition to his scientific endeavors with cont ...
and
Walther Gerlach
Walther Gerlach (1 August 1889 – 10 August 1979) was a German physicist who co-discovered, through laboratory experiment, spin quantization in a magnetic field, the Stern–Gerlach effect. The experiment was conceived by Otto Stern in 1921 an ...
were also instrumental in establishing the society across the allied zones, including the French zone.
Presidents
*
Adolf von Harnack
Carl Gustav Adolf von Harnack (born Harnack; 7 May 1851 – 10 June 1930) was a Baltic German Lutheran theologian and prominent Church historian. He produced many religious publications from 1873 to 1912 (in which he is sometimes credited ...
(1911–1930)
*
Max Planck
Max Karl Ernst Ludwig Planck (, ; 23 April 1858 – 4 October 1947) was a German theoretical physicist whose discovery of energy quanta won him the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1918.
Planck made many substantial contributions to theoretical p ...
(1930–1937, 16 May 1945 – 31 March 1946)
*
Carl Bosch
Carl Bosch (; 27 August 1874 – 26 April 1940) was a German chemist and engineer and Nobel Laureate in Chemistry. He was a pioneer in the field of high-pressure industrial chemistry and founder of IG Farben, at one point the world's largest ...
(1937–1940)
*
Albert Vögler
Albert Vögler (8 February 1877 – 14 April 1945) was a German politician, industrialist and entrepreneur. He was a co-founder of the German People's Party, and an important executive in the munitions industry during the Second World War.
V ...
(1941–1945)
*
Otto Hahn
Otto Hahn (; 8 March 1879 – 28 July 1968) was a German chemist who was a pioneer in the fields of radioactivity and radiochemistry. He is referred to as the father of nuclear chemistry and father of nuclear fission. Hahn and Lise Meitner ...
(1 April 1946 – 10 September 1946 in the British Occupation Zone)
Institutes, testing stations and units
Kaiser Wilhelm Institutes
* KWI for Animal Breeding Research, founded in
Dummerstorf
Dummerstorf is a municipality in the Rostock district, in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany.
Geography
The municipality Dummerstorf is located approximately 10 km in the southeast of Rostock.
Districts
The municipality is composed since 7 Ju ...
. Transformed into a research institute of the (East)-German Academy of Sciences.
*
KWI of Anthropology, Human Heredity and Eugenics, founded 1926 in Berlin-Dahlem.
* KWI for Bast Fibre Research, founded 1938 in
Sorau. It was moved to
Mährisch Schönberg in 1941 and to Bielefeld in 1946. After its incorporation into the
Max Planck Society
The Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science (german: Max-Planck-Gesellschaft zur Förderung der Wissenschaften e. V.; abbreviated MPG) is a formally independent non-governmental and non-profit association of German research institutes. ...
in 1948 and two further relocations to Westheim and Niedermarsberg in 1951 it was incorporated into the
Max Planck Institute for Breeding Research
Max or MAX may refer to:
Animals
* Max (dog) (1983–2013), at one time purported to be the world's oldest living dog
* Max (English Springer Spaniel), the first pet dog to win the PDSA Order of Merit (animal equivalent of OBE)
* Max (gorilla) ...
and moved to Köln-Vogelsang. The Institute was closed down in 1957. Its first director was
Ernst Schilling
Ernst is both a surname and a given name, the German, Dutch, and Scandinavian form of Ernest. Notable people with the name include:
Surname
* Adolf Ernst (1832–1899) German botanist known by the author abbreviation "Ernst"
* Anton Ernst (1975- ...
1938–1945 and 1948–1951.
* KWI for Biology, founded 1912 in Berlin and moved to
Tübingen
Tübingen (, , Swabian: ''Dibenga'') is a traditional university city in central Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is situated south of the state capital, Stuttgart, and developed on both sides of the Neckar and Ammer rivers. about one in thr ...
in 1943. It was then the
Max Planck Institute for Biology
The Max Planck Institute for Biology is located in Tübingen, Germany, and has been re-established in January 2022.
The Kaiser Wilhelm Society, the predecessor organization of the Max Planck Society, established various natural science research ...
until 2005.
* KWI for Biochemistry, founded 1912. Nowadays, there exists the
Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry
The Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry (MPIB) is a research institute of the Max Planck Society located in Martinsried, a suburb of Munich. The institute was founded in 1973 by the merger of three formerly independent institutes: the Max Planck ...
, but there is no straight relation between the institutes.
* KWI for Biophysics, formerly the Institut für Physikalische Grundlagen der Medizin of
Friedrich Dessauer
Friedrich Dessauer (19 July 1881 – 16 February 1963) was a physicist, a philosopher, a socially engaged entrepreneur and a journalist.
Friedrich Dessauer was born in Aschaffenburg, Germany. As a young man he was fascinated by new discover ...
was incorporated into the KWG by
Boris Rajewsky in 1937. The Institute is located in
Frankfurt am Main
Frankfurt, officially Frankfurt am Main (; Hessian: , "Frank ford on the Main"), is the most populous city in the German state of Hesse. Its 791,000 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located on its na ...
. It is now the
Max Planck Institute for Biophysics.
* KWI for Brain Research, founded 1914 in Berlin by
Oskar Vogt
Oskar Vogt (6 April 1870, in Husum – 30 July 1959, in Freiburg im Breisgau) was a German physician and neurologist. He and his wife Cécile Vogt-Mugnier are known for their extensive cytoarchetectonic studies on the brain.
Personal life
He w ...
. It is now the
Max Planck Institute for Brain Research
The Max Planck Institute for Brain Research is located in Frankfurt, Germany. It was founded as Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Brain Research in Berlin 1914, moved to Frankfurt-Niederrad in 1962 and more recently in a new building in Frankfurt-Rie ...
.
* KWI for Cell Physiology, founded 1930 in
Dahlem,
Berlin
Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...
by
Otto Heinrich Warburg
Otto Heinrich Warburg (, ; 8 October 1883 – 1 August 1970), son of physicist Emil Warburg, was a German physiologist, medical doctor, and Nobel laureate. He served as an officer in the elite Uhlan (cavalry regiment) during the First World War ...
and the
Rockefeller Foundation
The Rockefeller Foundation is an American private foundation and philanthropic medical research and arts funding organization based at 420 Fifth Avenue, New York City. The second-oldest major philanthropic institution in America, after the Carneg ...
.
* KWI for Chemistry, founded 1911 in Dahlem. It is now the
Max Planck Institute for Chemistry
The Max Planck Institute for Chemistry (Otto Hahn Institute; german: Max Planck Institut für Chemie - Otto Hahn Institut) is a non-university research institute under the auspices of the Max Planck Society (German: Max-Planck-Gesellschaft) in Ma ...
, also known as the Otto Hahn Institute.
* KWI for Coal Research Institute of the KWG, founded 1912 in
Mülheim
Mülheim, officially Mülheim an der Ruhr () and also described as ''"City on the River"'', is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia in Germany. It is located in the Ruhr Area between Duisburg, Essen, Oberhausen and Ratingen. It is home to many compan ...
. It is now the
Max Planck Institute für Kohlenforschung
The Max-Planck-Institut für Kohlenforschung (german: Max-Planck-Institut für Kohlenforschung) is an institute located in Mülheim an der Ruhr, Germany specializing in chemical research on catalysis. It is one of the 86 institutes in the Max Pl ...
.
* KWI for Comparative and International Private Law, founded 1926 in Berlin by
Ernst Rabel
Ernst Rabel (January 28, 1874 – September 7, 1955) was an Austrian-born American scholar of Roman law, German private law, and comparative law, who, as the founding director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Foreign and International Pri ...
. It is now the
in
Hamburg
(male), (female) en, Hamburger(s),
Hamburgian(s)
, timezone1 = Central (CET)
, utc_offset1 = +1
, timezone1_DST = Central (CEST)
, utc_offset1_DST = +2
, postal ...
.
* KWI for Comparative Public Law and International Law, founded 1924 in Berlin; the first director was Viktor Bruns.
[Kunze (2004), p. 47-48.] It is now the
in
Heidelberg
Heidelberg (; Palatine German language, Palatine German: ''Heidlberg'') is a city in the States of Germany, German state of Baden-Württemberg, situated on the river Neckar in south-west Germany. As of the 2016 census, its population was 159,914 ...
.
* KWI for Experimental Therapy, founded in 1915 by
August von Wasserman
August Paul von Wassermann (21 February 1866 – 16 March 1925) was a German bacteriologist and hygienist.
Born in Bamberg, with Jewish origins, he studied at several universities throughout Germany, receiving his medical doctorate in 1888 from ...
.
* KWI for Fiber Chemistry, founded in 1920 by
Reginald Oliver Herzog
Reginald is a masculine given name in the English language.
Etymology and history
The meaning of Reginald is “King". The name is derived from the Latin ''Reginaldus'', which has been influenced by the Latin word ''regina'', meaning "queen". Th ...
, closed in 1934.
* KWI of Flow (Fluid Dynamics) Research, founded 1925.
Ludwig Prandtl
Ludwig Prandtl (4 February 1875 – 15 August 1953) was a German fluid dynamicist, physicist and aerospace scientist. He was a pioneer in the development of rigorous systematic mathematical analyses which he used for underlying the science of ...
was the director from 1926 to 1946. It is now the
Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization
The Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization in Göttingen, Germany, is a research institute for investigations of complex non-equilibrium systems, particularly in physics and biology.
Its founding history goes back to Ludwig Pran ...
.
* KWI for German History, founded 1917 in Berlin. It was later the
Max Planck Institute for History
The Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity (German: ''Max-Planck-Institut zur Erforschung multireligiöser und multiethnischer Gesellschaften'') is located in Göttingen, Germany. It is one of 83 institutes in the Ma ...
, now transformed a Max Planck Institute for multi-ethnic societies.
* KWI for Hydrobiological Research. One of its directors was
August Friedrich Thienemann.
* KWI for Iron Research, founded 1917 in
Aachen
Aachen ( ; ; Aachen dialect: ''Oche'' ; French and traditional English: Aix-la-Chapelle; or ''Aquisgranum''; nl, Aken ; Polish: Akwizgran) is, with around 249,000 inhabitants, the 13th-largest city in North Rhine-Westphalia, and the 28th- ...
and it moved to
Düsseldorf
Düsseldorf ( , , ; often in English sources; Low Franconian and Ripuarian: ''Düsseldörp'' ; archaic nl, Dusseldorp ) is the capital city of North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous state of Germany. It is the second-largest city in th ...
in 1921. It is now the
Max Planck Institute for Iron Research GmbH.
* KWI for Leather Research, founded 1921 in
Dresden
Dresden (, ; Upper Saxon: ''Dräsdn''; wen, label=Upper Sorbian, Drježdźany) is the capital city of the German state of Saxony and its second most populous city, after Leipzig. It is the 12th most populous city of Germany, the fourth larg ...
by
Max Bergmann
Max Bergmann (12 February 1886 – 7 November 1944) was a Jewish-German biochemist. Together with Leonidas Zervas, the discoverer of the group, they were the first to use the carboxybenzyl protecting group for the synthesis of oligopeptides.
...
. It became a part of an institute that later became the
Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry
The Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry (MPIB) is a research institute of the Max Planck Society located in Martinsried, a suburb of Munich. The institute was founded in 1973 by the merger of three formerly independent institutes: the Max Planck ...
in
Martinsried
Martinsried is one of Munich's two science suburbs. It is a section of Planegg municipality in the district of Munich in Bavaria, Germany.
Martinsried is best known as the location of the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry, the Max Planck Inst ...
.
* KWI for Medical Research founded 1929 in
Heidelberg
Heidelberg (; Palatine German language, Palatine German: ''Heidlberg'') is a city in the States of Germany, German state of Baden-Württemberg, situated on the river Neckar in south-west Germany. As of the 2016 census, its population was 159,914 ...
by
Ludolf von Krehl
Albrecht Ludolf von Krehl (December 26, 1861 – May 26, 1937) was a German internist and physiologist who was a native of Leipzig. He was the son of Orientalist Christoph Krehl (1825–1901)
He studied at the Universities of Heidelberg and Le ...
. It is now the
Max Planck Institute for Medical Research
The Max Planck Institute for Medical Research in Heidelberg, Germany, is a facility of the Max Planck Society for basic medical research. Since its foundation, six Nobel Prize laureates worked at the Institute: Otto Fritz Meyerhof (Physiology), R ...
in Heidelberg.
* KWI for Metals Research, founded 1921 in Neubabelsberg. It closed in 1933 and reopened in Stuttgart in 1934. It is now the
Max Planck Institute for Metals Research
Founded on 18 March 2011, the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems (MPI-IS) is one of the 86 research institutes of the Max Planck Society. With locations in Stuttgart and Tübingen, it combines interdisciplinary research in the growing f ...
in
Stuttgart
Stuttgart (; Swabian: ; ) is the capital and largest city of the German state of Baden-Württemberg. It is located on the Neckar river in a fertile valley known as the ''Stuttgarter Kessel'' (Stuttgart Cauldron) and lies an hour from the ...
.
* KWI for Plant Breeding Research, founded in
Müncheberg
Müncheberg is a small town in Märkisch-Oderland, Germany approximately halfway between Berlin and the border with Poland, within the historic region of Lubusz Land.
Geography
Prior to 2003 the area today covered by Müncheberg was organized as ...
in 1929 by
Erwin Baur Erwin Baur (16 April 1875, in Neuried, Ichenheim, Grand Duchy of Baden – 2 December 1933) was a German geneticist and botanist. Baur worked primarily on plant genetics. He was director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Breeding Research (since 1 ...
. It is now the
Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research
The Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research was founded in Müncheberg, Germany in 1928 as part of the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gesellschaft. The founding director, Erwin Baur, initiated breeding programmes with fruits and berries, and basic resear ...
located in
Cologne
Cologne ( ; german: Köln ; ksh, Kölle ) is the largest city of the German western States of Germany, state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) and the List of cities in Germany by population, fourth-most populous city of Germany with 1.1 m ...
.
* KWI for Physical Chemistry and Electrochemistry, founded 1911 in Dahlem, Berlin. It is now the
Fritz Haber Institute of the MPG
The Fritz Haber Institute of the Max Planck Society (FHI) is a science research institute located at the heart of the academic district of Dahlem, in Berlin, Germany.
The original Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physical Chemistry and Electrochem ...
, named after
Fritz Haber
Fritz Haber (; 9 December 186829 January 1934) was a German chemist who received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1918 for his invention of the Haber–Bosch process, a method used in industry to synthesize ammonia from nitrogen gas and hydrogen ...
, who was the director 1911-1933.
* KWI for Physics, founded 1917 in Berlin.
Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein ( ; ; 14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist, widely acknowledged to be one of the greatest and most influential physicists of all time. Einstein is best known for developing the theory ...
was the director 1917-1933; in 1922,
Max von Laue
Max Theodor Felix von Laue (; 9 October 1879 – 24 April 1960) was a German physicist who received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1914 for his discovery of the diffraction of X-rays by crystals.
In addition to his scientific endeavors with cont ...
became deputy director and took over administrative duties from Einstein. It is now the
Max Planck Institute for Physics
The Max Planck Institute for Physics (MPP) is a physics institute in Munich, Germany that specializes in high energy physics and astroparticle physics. It is part of the Max-Planck-Gesellschaft and is also known as the Werner Heisenberg Institu ...
; also known as the Werner Heisenberg Institute.
* KWI for Physiology of Effort (Work)/KWI for Occupational Physiology, founded 1912 in Berlin, moved to Dortmund in 1929. It is now the
Max Planck Institute for Molecular Physiology
The Max Planck Institute of Molecular Physiology (german: Max-Planck-Institut für molekulare Physiologie) is located in Dortmund, next to the Dortmund University of Technology. It is one of 80 institutes in the Max Planck Society (Max Planck Ges ...
in Dortmund.
* German Research Institute for Psychiatry (a Kaiser Wilhelm institute) in Munich. It is now the Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry.
* KWI for Silicate Research, founded 1926 in Berlin-Dahlem by Wilhelm Eitel.
* KWI for Textile Chemistry
* KWI Vine Breeding
Kaiser Wilhelm Society organisations
* Aerodynamic Testing Station (Göttingen e. V.) of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society. The testing unit Aerodynamische Versuchsanstalt (AVA) was formed in 1925 along with the KWI of Flow (Fluid Dynamics) Research. In 1937, it became the testing station of the KWG.
* Biological Station Lunz of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society
* German Entomological Institute of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society
* Hydrobiological Station of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society
* Institute for Agricultural Work Studies in the Kaiser Wilhelm Society
* Research Unit "D" in the Kaiser Wilhelm Society
*
Rossitten Bird Station of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society, founded 1901 in
Rossitten
Rybachy (russian: Рыба́чий, from ''Рыба́к'', "Fisherman", german: Rossitten, pl, Rosity, lt, Rasytė) is a rural settlement in Zelenogradsky District of Kaliningrad Oblast, Russia, located on the Curonian Spit. As of 2010 it has a ...
and integrated into the Kaiser Wilhelm Society in 1921. The ornithological station was ceased at the end of the Second World War, but work continues at the ornithological station
Radolfzell
Radolfzell am Bodensee is a town in Germany at the western end of Lake Constance approximately 18 km northwest of Konstanz. It is the third largest town, after Constance and Singen, in the district of Konstanz, in Baden-Württemberg.
Rado ...
which is part of the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology.
*
Silesian Coal Research Institute of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society, in
Breslau.
Institutions outside Germany
* Bibliotheca Hertziana, founded 1913 in Rome. It is now the
Bibliotheca Hertziana - Max Planck Institute of Art History
Bibliotheca may refer to:
* ''Bibliotheca'' (Pseudo-Apollodorus), a grand summary of traditional Greek mythology and heroic legends
* ''Bibliotheca historica'', a first century BC work of universal history by Diodorus Siculus
* ''Bibliotheca'' ( ...
in Rome.
* German-Bulgarian Institute for Agricultural Science founded in 1940 in Sofia.
* German-Greek Institute for Biology in the Kaiser Wilhelm Society founded in 1940 in Athens.
* German-Italian Institute for Marine Biology at Rovigno, Italy.
*Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Cultivated Plant Research founded in 1940 in Vienna, Austria.
Other
* Institute for the Science of Agricultural Work—founded in 1940 in Breslau.
* Institute for Theoretical Physics
* Research Unit for Virus Research of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Biochemistry and the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Biology
See also
*
Research Materials: Max Planck Society Archive
References
Citations
General bibliography
* Schmuhl, Hans-Walter: ''Grenzüberschreitungen. Das Kaiser-Wilhelm-Institut für Anthropologie, Menschliche Erblehre und Eugenik 1927–1945''. Reihe: Geschichte der Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gesellschaft im Nationalsozialismus, 9. Wallstein, Göttingen 2005,
*
*
External links
*
History of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society in the National Socialist Era- Presidential Commission of the Max Planck Gesellschaft
*
', by David M. States (June 28, 2001) – compilation of articles, including several about the lives and work of Nobel laureates, on the official website of the Nobel Prize
(in German) – Deutsches Historisches Museum
– English portal
*
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Legal history of Germany
Max Planck Society
Nuclear program of Nazi Germany
Organizations of the German Empire