Purges in Comparative Perspective: Rules for Exclusion and Inclusion in the Scientific Communityunder Political Pressure

Richard Beyler,Alexei Kojevnikov,and Jessica Wang*

ABSTRACT

During the intense political upheavalthat dominatedthe middle decades of the twentiethcentury, modem states intensifiedtheir drives to disciplinebroad sectors of society and ensuretheir political reliability.Subjected to such pressures,scientific institutionsfaced the challenge of admittingnew, officially mandatedcriteria into the regulationof scientificlife. We examinethe effects of these policies on the KaiserWilhelm Society in NationalSocialist Germany,the Max PlanckSociety in occupied Germanyafter 1945, the USSR Academy of Sciences throughoutthe Stalinera, and the NationalAcademy of Sciences in early cold warAmerica. In all these cases, while academicelites largelyaccepted the requiredradical changes in the rules for membershipin the scientificcommunity, they also soughtto manipulate the processto theirown institutionaladvantage.

INTRODUCTION

The relationship between state power and professional autonomy has long constituted a major theme in the history of science. Throughout the eras of turmoil that defined their respective nations' politics from the 1930s through the 1950s, the states in Ger- many, the Soviet Union, and the United States became obsessively, at times para- noically, preoccupied with defining and adjudicating their citizens' political, ethnic, or moral acceptability. These concerns frequently resulted in purges from scientific institutions of persons deemed undesirable: "non-Aryans," communists, and socialists in National Socialist Germany; "bourgeois experts" and "cosmopolites" in Stal- inist Russia; "communist sympathizers" and "subversives" in cold war America. Purges of this kind have often been understood as morality plays, with an under- standable emphasis on the victimization of the innocent by the repressive state. In what follows, we attempt to broaden the discussion by going beyond the phenomenon of purges as such. Instead, we examine changes in the rules for inclusion in, and

*Richard Beyler, History Department, Portland State University, P.O. Box 751, Portland, OR 97207; [email protected] Kojevnikov, History Department, University of Georgia,235 LeconteHall, Athens,GA 30602; [email protected]. Jessica Wang, History Department, UCLA, Box 147303, LosAngeles, CA 90095;[email protected]. The authorswish to thankthe membersand staff of the ForschungsprogrammzurGeschichte der Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gesellschaftim Nationalsozialismusfor theirgenerously helpful advice and for stim- ulating discussions, as well as two anonymousreferees for theirclarifying comments. Translations are ours unless otherwisenoted.

?2005 by TheHistory of ScienceSociety. All rightsreserved. 0369-7827/05/2001-0002$10.00

OSIRIS2005, 20: 23-48 23 24 RICHARDBEYLER, ALEXEI KOJEVNIKOV,AND JESSICAWANG exclusion from, the scientificcommunity and the ways these changes redefinedrela- tionships between individual scientists, scientific institutions,and their respective statesin the KaiserWilhelm Society (Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gesellschaft,KWG), the USSR Academy of Sciences (AoS), the AmericanNational Academy of Sciences (NAS), and the Max Planck Society (Max-Planck-Gesellschaft,MPG), the KWG'spostwar successor. Scientists, like membersof any other sector of society, have formaland informal rulesfor regulatinggroup membership that help establishand maintain their community's social structuresand identity.During times of political turmoilin the thirties, forties,and fifties, as statesattempted to bindscience moreclosely to theirdefinitions of nationalinterests and ideology, scientific organizationsfaced difficult decisions abouthow to reconcileprofessional autonomy and ethical principleswith visions of science's nationalimportance. The KWG, the AoS, the NAS, and the MPG, as academic societies with formal governmentalties, mediatedbetween the state and the scientificcommunity over the new boundaryrules, in a complex process of negotia- tion involvingboth coercion and collaboration. In some ways, the societies occupiedsimilar positions in theirrespective countries. All of them claimed to comprise in their membershipstheir nations' most accom- plishedresearchers and thus to represent,formally or informally,the publicface of the scientific elite. They all possessed high-level political connectionsand chartersthat specified in legal terms their relationshipswith, and obligationsto, their respective states.Yet the societies differedconsiderably in their core functions,organizational forms, and administrativeobligations and faced differentkinds and degreesof political pressure.While a comparativeexamination must acknowledgethe significanceof those differences,it also providesan opportunityto overcome,at least somewhat,the historiographicalinsularity that has sometimes affected treatmentsof these events. For all the markedlydisparate conceptions of nationalidentity and the considerable differencesin severityof the purges(e.g., loss of statusvs. physicalviolence), it is still possible to recognize some common institutionalreactions. The history of political repressionis repletewith inhumanityand tragedy,but science as an institutioncan- not be understoodmerely as a passive victimof externalpower. Academic institutions caughtup in turbulentpolitical conditionssought to maintain,as well as they could, traditionalpatterns of internalauthority and to collaboratewith externalauthority. In importantrespects, the KWG, the AoS, and the NAS triedto uphold,and when possible to manipulate,a mutuallybeneficial pact with theirrespective states.

THE KAISERWILHELM SOCIETY IN NATIONALSOCIALIST GERMANY

The NationalSocialists' vision for a new Germanydepended upon the purificationof the Volkcommunity by exclusion of whole categories of people deemed undesirable-not only Jews as definedby NationalSocialist racialideology but also political opponents.Ultimately, this policy resultedin genocide;the "FinalSolution," however, did not appearovernight. Exclusionary measures began in early 1933; the Law for the Restorationof the CareerCivil Service, promulgatedon April 7, provedpar- ticularlysignificant for the scientificcommunity. Its thirdparagraph ordered the dismissal of persons"not of Aryandescent" (defined as havingat least one Jewishgrand- parent), though there were exemptions for anyone who had been in office since August 1914 or before, who had done combat service in the world war, or whose PURGESIN COMPARATIVEPERSPECTIVE 25 fatheror son had died in that war. (Later,especially after passage of the so-called NurembergLaws of 1935, the statusof "non-Aryans"became even moreuntenable.) Paragraphfour allowed for dismissal of persons "whose priorpolitical activitydoes not offer confidencethat they will be always unreservedlyin supportof the national state."Although this meantabove all Communistsor Social Democrats,it could be interpretedmore flexibly. Employment termination procedures were spelledout in de- tail, particularlyas applicableto the special legal statusof Beamten,that is, officials with tenuredappointments.' The administrationof the KaiserWilhelm Society generally,if unenthusiastically, compliedwith these new mandates,though it also practicedselective noncooperation. For some individuals,the KWG was able to at least defer implementationof the law because of its intricacies.Certain Kaiser Wilhelm Institutes (KWIs) could avoid the law altogetheras the majorityof their fundingcame from nongovernmentalsources (such as industrydonations and privateendowments).2 For the most part,however, dismissalswere carriedout in a bureaucraticallycorrect fashion. The KWG soon im- plementedroutine procedures: workers submitted questionnaires on ancestryand political affiliationsto institutedirectors, who sent themon to the KWGadministration, which in turnreported to the supervisingministries. When necessary, the administration admonishedthe directorsto have theirquestionnaires returned.3 Even if no dismissals were necessary, administratorsconsidered it importantto have complete paperwork.As GeneralDirector FriedrichGlum wrote to FriedrichKorber at the Institutefor Iron Research,which apparentlyhad no Jews on its roster,it would be useful to have proof that there was "atleast one KaiserWilhelm Institute which had employed ... no non-Aryans."4When dismissals were necessary,the KWGcarefully terminatedemployment on the datefixed by the law (e.g., holdersof fellowshipswere allowedto continueuntil these fundsran out) and followed regulationsfor severance pay to the letter.In a few cases, dismissals were appealedby local branchesof the NSDAP-affiliatedlabor union, which cast the KWG as the agent of centralizedstate policies.5 This patternof self-coordination,in which the KaiserWilhelm Society becamethe instrumentof the state'sexclusionary mandates (with some notableexceptions), was partlythe productof improvisedreactions to NationalSocialist initiatives.Yet it also reflecteda consensusin the top levels of the KWGabout the importanceof maximiz- ing professionalautonomy in personneldecisions, even if new criteriahad to be taken into account.6The KWGthus attempted to preserve,when possible, the outlinesof its

"Gesetzzur Wiederherstellungdes Berufsbeamtentums,"Reichsgesetzblatt, 7 April 1933, copy in I Abt., Rep. 1A, Nr. 544, folder 1, Archiv zurGeschichte der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft(hereafter cited as MPGA), Berlin. 2 Namely the Institutesfor Chemistry,Iron Research,Coal Research(Miilheim), Metals Research, LeatherResearch, and Cell Physiology; the Silesian Coal ResearchInstitute; and the ResearchInsti- tute for WaterConstruction and WaterPower; see I Abt., Rep. 1A, Nr. 532, folder 2, MPGA. 3 Max Planck to directors,I Abt., Rep. 1A, Nr. 531, folder 3, 71, MPGA. 4 FriedrichGlum to FriedrichKorber, 21 Sept. 1933, I Abt., Rep. IA, Nr. 531, folder 3, 88, MPGA. 5 Sozialamt der DeutschenArbeitsfront, Verbandskreis Heidelberg to [FriedrichGlum], 19 March 1934; Fritz Hebel to [Ludwig Prandtl], 12 April 1934; Kreisbetriebszellen-Leitungder NDSAP, NSBO Heidelbergto Fuhrer[sic], KWI Heidelberg,8 June 1934. All I Abt., Rep. IA, Nr. 547, folder 2, 202; folder 4, 230; folder 4, 256, MPGA. 6 This section is largely informedby Kristie Macrakis,Surviving the Swastika:Scientific Research in Nazi Germany(New York, 1993); and Mitchell G. Ash, "Wissenschaftswandelin Zeiten politischer Umwilzungen: Entwicklungen,Verwicklungen,Abwicklungen," NTM, n.s., 3 (1995): 1-21. It also, in 26 RICHARDBEYLER, ALEXEI KOJEVNIKOV,AND JESSICAWANG pre-1933 relations with its government partners, albeit at the cost of some individuals' careers. However, a few key scientists almost personified the success of the institution. According to the KWG tradition known colloquially as the Harnack Principle (after its founding president, Adolf von Harnack), to get good science one chose the best researchers for directorships and then granted them the widest possible autonomy within their own institutes.7 Particularly threatening, then, would be the forced appointment or promotion of researchers hitherto deemed unacceptable as the result of criteria seen as arising primarily from outside the scientific community. Thus from the frankly authoritarian perspective of the Harnack Principle, the adoption of alien inclusionary principles threatened to render the structure of science unrecognizable, whereas the new exclusionary principles at least preserved the formal structures of scientific institutions. Indeed, after 1945 the claim of preserved sovereignty over the appointment process was a point of pride for MPG spokesmen, particularly when compared with the situation in the Soviet Union. The effects of the civil service law on the KWG and its scientists are difficult to quantify because of its overlapping categories of applicability and exception. More- over, many scientists ostensibly resigned of their own accord when faced with in- creasingly obvious threats to their careers or persons; these departures were not reflected in official statistics and must be extrapolated from other data.8 According to internal statistics from almost a year after the law took effect, out of 767 personnel in institutes with majority government funding, 45 non-Aryans and at least 14 political dissidents had been dismissed, or approximately 8 percent.9 Kristie Macrakis lists 71 former KWG scientists as emigres-a number that includes those who were formally dismissed as well as those who departed officially of their own accord, but presumably does not include scientists who remained in Germany after leaving the institutes.10A recent study by Michael Schuring indicates that the purges affected on the order of 100 KWG personnel.1' The promulgation of the law caught both Glum and President Max Planck on va- cation in Italy during the Easter break. In Heidelberg, site of the KWI for Medical Re- search, actions against Jewish personnel actually started on April 6, the day before promulgation of the law. Back in Berlin, Glum's and Planck's primary assistants, Ernst Telschow and Max von Cranach, at first thought the problem could be contained within conventional channels. Upon receiving the Heidelberg news, the administration notified Theodor Vahlen, an ardent National Socialist in the Prussian Education Ministry, that "according to our conception such matters ought to be carried out generally and through a central decree of the responsible agencies, not spontaneously and

part,elaborates on some materialin RichardH. Beyler, "Reine"Wissenschaft und personelle "Sdu- berungen": Die Kaiser-Wilheln/Max-Planck-Gesellschaft,1933 und 1945, Ergebnisse,no. 16 (Berlin, 2004), 9-14. 7 See Bernhardvom Brockeand HubertLaitko, eds., Die Kaiser-Wilhelm-/Max-PlanckGesellschaft und ihre Institute:Studien zur ihrer Geschichte:Das Harack-Prinzip (Berlin, 1996). 8 One consideredbelow, is thatof Fritz Haber. 9 prominentexample, Minutes ofVerwaltungsausschuss,6 March 1934, I Abt., Rep. 1A, Nr. 532, folder 1, 137, MPGA; similarly in Helmuth Albrecht and Armin Hermann,"Die Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gesellschaftim Dritten Reich (1933-1945)," in Forschungim Spannungsfeldzwischen Politik und Gesellschaft: Geschichte und Strukturder Kaiser-Wilhelm-/Max-Planck-Gesellschaft,ed. Rudolf Vierhausand Bernhardvom Brocke 1990), 356-406, on 364-5. 10 (Stuttgart, Macrakis,Surviving (cit. n. 6), 67. 11 Michael Schtiring,"Vertreibung, Entschadigung und die Vergangenheitspolitikder Max-Planck- Gesellschaft"(Ph.D. diss., HumboldtUniversitat Berlin, forthcoming). PURGES IN COMPARATIVEPERSPECTIVE 27 locally in individual institutes."'2 On the eighth, Telschow wrote to Glum and to Planck that the situation did not require shortening their vacations. Although at some universities "action committees" were being formed among "subordinate persons such as technical assistants," this was not yet the case for any KWIs, and after the initial hubbub in Heidelberg "all the gentlemen were quietly going about their work." Cranach agreed.'3 Others were not so calm. The director of the Institute for Physical Chemistry and Electrochemistry, Fritz Haber, a Jewish scientist with a wartime service exemption, proposed that the society press for the appointment of a "steward"to guide the process rather than waiting for the government to deliver a fait accompli. Telschow rejected this idea as being a formal concession of authority to what he de- scribed as a "state commissar."4 Although Planck received more than one concerned message from Haber, as well as from other KWG personnel, he did not return to Berlin until early May.15 Throughout this critical initial period, Haber continued to dissent conspicuously from the KWG administration's response to the law,'6 yet the administrators strove to protect the director himself from its effects. Haber's was, in fact, one of the cases in which the administration clearly identified the integrity of the institution with the work of a key individual who should be kept in place if at all possible, even if this meant implementing the state's exclusionary demands in general. Following the up- roar in Heidelberg, Cranach met with an Education Ministry official and found him possibly willing to retain "leading scholars" who were Jewish-but only under certain stringent conditions. In the case of Fritz Haber, his Jewish subordinates would have to be dismissed immediately. When he telephoned Haber with this information, however, Cranach received the impression that the director would "create certain difficulties."'7 Although Haber did arrange for the departure of many staff members, on May 31 he submitted his resignation, effective in September, grounding his decision in an unwillingness to change his standards for the selection of his professional associates. Haber's resignation under pressure became one of the most notorious manifestations of the Nazis' anti-Semitic policies-his subsequent death in exile contributed to the sense of tragedy. In its response to the Haber situation, the administration-which sought to be the mediator between the scientific community and the state-revealed its key assumptions about how best to manage the state-science relationship. From the administration's perspective, Haber's attitude amounted to a kind of institutional suicide. The subsequent events at the Institute for Physical Chemistry and Electrochemistry seemed to bear out the administration's conception of the ill effects of noncooperation. For the administration, these would be disastrous-not because of

12 [ErnstTelschow?], Aktennotiz, 7 April 1933, I Abt., Rep. 1A, Nr. 531, folder 1, 3, MPGA. 13 Ernst Telschow to FriedrichGlum, 8 April 1933, and to Max Planck, 8 April 1933; Max von Cranachto Planck, 10 April 1933, and to Glum, 10 April 1933: I Abt., Rep. 1A, Nr. 531, folder 1, la- 8, MPGA. 14Ernst Telschow to FriedrichGlum, 8 April 1933, and to Max Planck,8 April 1933, I Abt., Rep. 1A, Nr. 531, folder 1, la-5, MPGA. 15 Max Planckto Max von Laue, 16 April 1933, andLaue, memoire, 18 Aug. 1948, Nachlass v. Laue, U IX 2, Nr. 1-3, 1933/35, Archiv der Berlin-BrandenburgischeAkademie der Wissenschaften. 16 The following paragraphson Haber rely on Macrakis,Surviving (cit. n. 6), 53-4; Albrecht and Hermann,"KWG" (cit. n. 9), 360-3; and Margit Szollosi-Janze, Fritz Haber 1868-1914: Eine Bi- ographie (Munich, 1998). 17 Max von Cranach,Aktennotiz, 21 April 1933, I Abt., Rep. 1A, Nr. 531, folder 1, 15, MPGA. 28 RICHARDBEYLER, ALEXEI KOJEVNIKOV,AND JESSICAWANG the military'sthinly-concealed plan to turnthe instituteinto a chemical weaponsre- searchfacility, but because of the handlingof the appointmentof Haber'ssuccessor.18 After a brief interimwith Otto Hahnas acting director,the PrussianEducation Min- istry, in cooperationwith the Reich Defense Ministry,but without consulting the KWG,named Gottingen University chemist Gerhart Jander acting director. In the Oc- tober 1933 meetingof the KWGAdministrative Committee, which includedministe- rial representatives,Planck, while offering assurancesthat the KWG was willing to putitself "inthe serviceof nationaldefense," insisted that Jander's appointment could only be provisional.19In a morepublic forum,the KWG's 1934 annualgeneral meeting, Planck warned,"If the KaiserWilhelm Gesellschaft should no longer be in the positionto win researchersof the firstrank for the directionof its institutes... its rea- son for being would be takenaway"-a succinct statementof how seriouslyhe took standardsof inclusion.20 The KWGmobilized support from the InteriorMinistry in the personof ministerial councillorMax Donnevert,who had been the main representativein the ministry's dealingswith the KWGsince earlyin the Weimarera. Donnevert asserted that the In- teriorMinistry, which had generaloversight of the KWGat the Reich level, had been slightedwith Jander'sinstallation, about which it had not been consulted.He argued furtherthat the "purelyscientific character" of the institutehad been diminishedand pointedto the creationof undesirableforeign attention.21 Planck, for his part,argued that even from a militaryperspective, Jander was too mucha specialistto makea long-termcontribution at the institute.Once again,Planck madeit clearthat the KWGobjected not to doing researchof interestto the statebut to compromisingdirectorial prestige. To makehis point,he translatedthe Harack Prin- ciple into the National Socialists' own jargon. "The leadershipprinciple [Fuhrer- prinzip]has always been valid"for the KWG, he wrote to the InteriorMinistry. For an institute'sdirector, Planck explained,the administrationchose the best available scientist in that field and consequentlygave him complete authorityto conduct researchand make personnel decisions. Jander's appointment, however, had broken the chain of authority,and Planck would take no responsibilityfor the acting director's performance.Furthermore, if the militarywanted to dictatethe directionof the institute,then it shouldprovide more of thatinstitute's funding, or at least thereshould be, as a quid pro quo, governmentalsupport for the expansionof otherinstitutes such as the KWI for Physics.22 Severalmonths of negotiationsbetween the governmentministries and the KWG produceda compromiseof sorts:Jander remained on a temporarybasis, with the un-

18Ernst Telschow to FriedrichGlum, 4 Aug. 1933, I Abt., Rep. 1A, Nr. 1169, 13, MPGA. On chemical weapons research in the KWG, see GerhardBaader, Susan E. Lederer, Morris Low, Florian Schmaltz, and Alexander v. Schwerin, "Pathwaysto Human Experimentation,1933-45: Germany, Japan,and the United States,"in this volume. Ironically,Haber himself had played a leading role in developing chemical weapons duringWorld War I. 19 Minutes of Verwaltungsausschuss,18 Oct. 1933; echoed in Max Planck to EducationMinistry, 4 Oct. 1933, I Abt., Rep. 1A, Nr. 541, folder 4, 67, 69, MPGA. 20 Max Planck,Tischrede, [3 June 1934], I Abt., Rep. 1A, Nr. 129, folder 8, 248, MPGA. 21 Max Donnevert,Aktenvermerk (date undetermined),and Aktenvermerk,13 Sept. 1933, Bundes- archiv(hereafter cited as BA) Berlin, R 1501/126790, 48, 50. On the internationalimpact of Haber's dismissal, see also Ronald E. Doel, Dieter Hoffmann,and Nikokai Krementsov,"State Limits on In- ternationalScience: A ComparativeHistory of InternationalScience Congresses in Hitler'sGermany, Stalin's Russia, and Cold WarUnited States"(this volume). 22 Max Planck to Reich InteriorMinistry, 1 Dec. 1933, R 1501/126790, 88-92, BA Berlin. PURGES IN COMPARATIVEPERSPECTIVE 29 derstandingthat a more acceptablereplacement would be found. The Defense Min- istrywould not insist on Janderas long as the desiredwork could be carriedforward.23 Eventually,in 1935, PeterAdolf Thiessenbecame director-admittedly not Planck's first choice (that was Hanns Fischer), but at least acceptableas a scientist.24This choice was, to put it mildly,politically strategic:Thiessen was an "old fighter"who would make the instituteinto a "modelorganization" under National Socialist labor laws.25At least Thiessen had come to the directorshipthrough traditional channels, however,which made him a tolerablechoice from the KWG'sperspective. The con- troversyover Haber'sresignation and its consequencesindicates that the leadersof the KaiserWilhelm Society still wanted to play the bureaucraticgame in the new regime.26 The KWG sometimessought to subvertthe bureaucraticroutine, yet most such at- temptsfailed.27 The case of FannyDu Bois-Reymond,a gardenerat the Institutefor Breeding Researchand granddaughterof the eminent physiologist Emil Du Bois- Reymond,proved particularly poignant. Fanny Du Bois-Reymondwas initially sub- ject to dismissalas being one-quarterJewish, but aftershe made a personalappeal to Planck, Glum discoveredan apparentway out: the grandmotherin questionhad, in fact, been baptized.The InteriorMinistry referred the matterto its expert for racial questions,who determinedthat since the grandmotherhad not been baptizedas an infant,she still countedlegally as Jewish,and hence so did FannyDu Bois-Reymond. Upon learningof the decision, she wroteGlum:

I hardlyneed to say whatit meansto me to haveto leave the communityof the KWG.You will understand... how one dependson this communityinwardly. Here one breathesthe airto which I was accustomedfrom the high scientifictradition of my family.This atmo- spherewas for me, even in my modest position, completely appropriate,so thattoday I hardlyknow how I can exist apartfrom it.28

While admiring such humane efforts to contravene the law, one must still recognize that, generally, special efforts applied primarily to persons in leadership positions- such as KWG for cell physiology director Otto Warburg-or, as in Du Bois- Reymond'scase, for those withpersonal claims going beyondthe merelyprofessional. Controlof informationand the internalrelations of authoritywere also problematic

23 Max Donnevert,Aktenvermerk, 9 Dec. 1933; Max Planck to Reich InteriorMinistry, 16 Nov. 1933; Donnevert,Aktenvermerk, 23 Nov. 1933, R 1501/126790, 61, 82-5, BA Berlin. 24 Minutes of Verwaltungsausschuss,9 April 1934, I Abt., Rep. 1A, Nr. 93, folder 3, 185, MPGA. Fischer also came underdiscussion for the vacantdirectorship at the KWI for Biochemistry(see more below), which eventually went to Adolf Butenandt;Friedrich Glum, Aktenvermerk,5 June 1935, I Abt., Rep. 1A, Nr. 169, folder 7, 257, MPGA. 25 See Christa Eibl, "Der PhysikochemikerPeter Adolf Thiessen als Wissenschaftsorganisator (1899-1990)" (Ph.D. diss., Univ. Stuttgart,1999), 61-110; "Die Wissenschaftsteht nicht zuriick:Zum erstenmalwurde ein wissenschaftlichesInstitut zum Musterbetrieberannt," DerAngriff,4 May 1940, clipping in I Abt., Rep. 1A, Nr. 1175, folder 1, MPGA. 26 An ironic sequel of this controversywas that final governmentalresponsibility for the KWG was transferredfrom the Reich InteriorMinistry to the newly formed Reich EducationMinistry in May 1934. 27 A preliminaryreport, Max Planck to Reich InteriorMinistry, 19 June 1933, alongside nineteen pendingdismissals, lists three"doubtful cases" and five "hardshipcases" with requests for special exemptions,IAbt., Rep. 1A,Nr. 531, folder1,47-51, MPGA. 28 FannyDu Bois-Reymondto FriedrichGlum, 30 March1934, I Abt.,Rep. 1A,Nr. 543, folder3, MPGA.This case and others are discussed in Macrakis,Surviving (cit. n. 6), 62-3. 30 RICHARDBEYLER, ALEXEI KOJEVNIKOV,AND JESSICAWANG issues for the KWG,leading to contentionbetween the society's administrativehier- archyand NationalSocialist activistsin the ranks.In June 1933, the NationalSocial- ist FactoryCell Organization(NSBO) for the institutesin the Berlin neighborhood of Dahlem (site of the largestconcentration of KWIs)claimed the prerogativeof ap- pointingtwo KWGsenators. The KWGSenate, composed of eminentscientists, business figures,and governmentofficials, was nothingif not the embodimentof cooperation between the elite of the scientific communityand its most powerful patrons. Here, as with the directorships,new rules for inclusion were quite unacceptableto the administration.Planck protestedand the InteriorMinistry-again siding with the KWGadministration-ruled againstthe NSBO request.29 In September1933, the Dahlem NSBO leaderasked for a meeting with Glum and the institutedirectors. At the meeting,various institute members-including directors ReginaldHerzog of the Institutefor Fiber Chemistryand CarlNeuberg of the Insti- tute for Biochemistry-were denouncedas racially or politically undesirable.That the requesthad arrivedin the morningand the meeting occurredthat same afternoon testifies to the perceivedurgency of the situation.30Although the meeting did not result in immediatedismissals, eventuallyboth Herzog and Neuberg were forced to leave theirposts, the latterafter a protractedInterior Ministry investigation following an extendedcampaign of denunciationsby a workerat his institute.The specifics of the claim againstNeuberg were discounted,but he had to resign anywayin 1935.31 For a non-Aryan,the affair demonstratedthat any scrutinywhatsoever, even when based on specious claims, posed a danger.Similarly, the KWG learnedthat to maintain any controlat all over the boundariesof the scientificcommunity, it was crucial to avoid externally-conspicuousfaux pas. In the wake of the September1933 Dahlemmeeting and otherexamples of "lackof discipline,"the KWGAdministrative Committee resolved that there needed to be a vigorousreassertion of authority.32The committeeasked the InteriorMinistry to reit- erate its limitationon the power of workers'councils. Similarly,the administration circulateda memo over Planck'ssignature, backed by referenceto relevantReich de- crees, reaffirmingthat any complaints from institute workers must be handledthrough the chainof authorityof the directorsor the KWGpresident-that is, not takento outside agencies such as the NSBO.33 Thus for the KWG leadershipin its initial responseto the 1933 civil service law, maintenanceof the boundariesof, and orderin, the scientificcommunity was of para- mountconcern. The society soughtto minimizeinterference by unqualifiedoutsiders

29 Max Planck to Reich InteriorMinistry, 15 June 1933; ErwinGiersch, Betriebsratvorsitzender,to Planck, 10 June 1933; Polizeiamt Steglitz-Zehlendorfto Fritz Haber,29 May 1933; Max Donnevert, Aktenvermerk,23 June 1933: R 1501/126782/3, 8-16. All BA Berlin. 30Max von Cranach,Aktennotiz, 2 Oct. 1933; Eugen Fischer to Generalverwaltung,30 Sept. 1933. Both I Abt., Rep. 1A, Nr. 532, folder 1, 104-105, MPGA. See also Macrakis,Surviving (cit. n. 6), 60-1. 31 Events of the Neuberg imbroglio are recorded in I Abt., Rep. 1A, Nr. 2035, MPGA, and in R 1501/126786/1, BA Berlin; and discussed in Macrakis,Surviving (cit. n. 6), 61. 32 In additionto the conflicts discussed above, othercases includedtensions at the Institutefor Medi- cal Research,accusations of espionage at the Institutefor Fluid Dynamics (cf. the essay by MoritzEp- ple, Andreas Karachaliosand VolkerR. Remmert,"Aerodynamics and Mathematicsin National So- cialist Germanyand Fascist Italy:A Comparisonof ResearchInstitutes," in this volume), and worker agitationleading to the dismissal of Max Bergmannfrom the Institutefor LeatherResearch. 33 Minutes of Verwaltungsausschuss,18 Oct. 1933, and Max Planck to directors,24 Oct. 1933, I Abt., Rep. 1A, Nr. 532, folder 1, 122, 123a, MPGA. PURGES IN COMPARATIVEPERSPECTIVE 31

and ad hoc organizations of subordinates, while offering comparatively little overt ob- jection to National Socialist exclusionary policies per se. Conversely, from the Na- tional Socialist perspective, the purges were not an attack on the scientific community per se, but an effort to put this community on the same footing as all others in the new Germany. As has been noted by many historians, countervailing forces within the Na- tional Socialist state promoted the viability of science, particularly in fields relevant to rearmament, autarky, and the doctrine of a racially pure Volk. In other words, the Nazi era portended not only new rules of exclusion for science but also some opportunities for growth in accord with the community's perceived self-interest. For example, as Susanne Heim writes, the expansion of institutes, branches, and projects in plant breeding, notably including the appropriation by German researchers of scientific institutes in occupied countries, "provided many opportunities for scientists-in terms of possible discoveries as well as in terms of career."34Such opportunities for expansion contributed to the effectiveness of the KWG's position. By conventional measures, the society proved institutionally successful: its budget almost doubled between 1933 and 1940, and sixteen new institutes or research stations were created between 1933 and 1943.35However, in the context of National Socialism, the corre- late of this institutional "success" was the dismissal of Jewish and politically-suspect personnel: preserving the freedom of science meant purging scientists.

THE USSR ACADEMYOF SCIENCES

Interactions between the scientific and political establishments in the Stalinist Soviet Union were more intense and contradictory than those between the establishments in the United States and Germany. In part, the differences lay in the magnitude of social changes and upheaval caused by the Russian Revolution, as well as the lengthier time period (thirty years of Stalin's rule) during which major policies did not remain stable or consistent but demonstrated dramatic turnarounds. The role of the state was also much more comprehensive in Soviet society, and thus the sphere of issues deemed "political" wider. The USSR ascribed to science a far greater political importance than did any other contemporary government, for both ideological and pragmatic reasons. As a result, Soviet scientists had a strong de facto influence on politics and, in return, experienced a stronger and more diverse spectrum of political pressures.36 The USSR Academy of Sciences (AoS), so renamed in 1925 from the Russian Academy of Science, fulfilled several, not entirely compatible, functions. Symboli- cally, the AoS represented, and spoke in the name of, science, the undisputable authority on knowledge about nature. Honorifically, it was a learned society of the nation's most reputable scholars, elected to membership for life. Because the Soviet

34 Susanne Heim, Researchfor Autarky:The Contributionof Scientists to Nazi Rule in Germany, Ergebnisse,no. 4 (Berlin, 2001), 15. See also, among many otherexamples, Macrakis,Surviving (cit. n. 6); MonikaRenneberg and MarkWalker, eds., Science, Technology,and National Socialism (Cam- bridge, 1994); Ute Deichmann, Biologists under Hitler (Cambridge, 1995); Doris Kaufmann,ed., Geschichteder Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gesellschaftim Nationalsozialismus,2 vols. (Gottingen, 2000); Su- sanneHeim, ed., Autarkieund Ostexpansion:Pflanzenzucht undAgrarforschung im Nationalsozialis- mus (Gottingen,2002); and Helmut Maier, ed., Ristungsforschungin Nationalsozialismus:Organi- sation, Mobilisierungund Entgrenzungder Technikwissenschaften(Gottingen, 2002). 35Albrecht and Hermann,"KWG" (cit. n. 9), 377; vom Brocke and Laitko, KW/MPG(cit. n. 7), 634-5. 36 Alexei Kojevnikov,"Dialogues about Knowledge and Power in TotalitarianPolitical Culture," Historical Studies in the Physical and Biological Sciences 30 (1999): 227-47. 32 RICHARDBEYLER, ALEXEI KOJEVNIKOV,AND JESSICAWANG state did not merely inheritand seek to controlscience but also built up a practically new researchinfrastructure and establishment, AoS membershiptripled over a thirty- year period, rising from roughly 45 full membersto 140, and approximatelythree times as manycorresponding members. In the 1930s, the academyalso receiveda crucial new governmentalfunction, essentially becoming a ministryof science, which the governmentotherwise lacked. In this capacity,the AoS administereda networkof the nation'stop researchinstitutions (whose combinedstaff increased in the periodof Stalin'srule from about 1,000 to more than 10,000), appointeddirectors, and distrib- uted state funds for research.37In this expandingmode, the scientific establishment underwentchanges as a resultmore of policies regulatinginclusion than of exclusion of members. Academicand state functions intertwined so tightlyin the workof the academythat it is not possible for us today (as it certainlywas not possible for contemporaries)to demarcateprecisely one from another.As a learnedsociety, the AoS enjoyed a considerable degree of autonomy from the government.(For example, the academy elected its own members.)Yet as a de facto branchof government,it could experience political pressures,in principle,at any level. Whether,and how much, the state actually interferedwith AoS affairsvaried from situationto situation. Arguably,the Sovietizationof the AoS in 1929 constitutedthe most crucialcase. Until thatpoint, the academy'sforty-odd members and practically all its researchand technicalstaff were so-calledbourgeois specialists, persons raised and educated prior to the revolutionwho were willing to collaboratewith the Bolshevik government qua professionals,but politically did not have to pretendto be Communistallies or sympathizers.For eleven yearsfollowing the revolution,the Bolsheviksfound such a moderatedegree of loyalty quite acceptable.Moreover, they placed bourgeois specialists in importantpositions in manygovernmental agencies-such as Gosplan,the State Commission for National Economic Planning.The outbreakof the "cultural revolution"in 1928 destroyedthe existing pact between politiciansand experts,and the governmentsubsequently demanded more loyal, "red"experts, that is, true sup- porterswho would sharethe regime'sessential values.38 The academycould claim very few such experts at the time-the majorityof its memberswere elected beforethe revolutionaccording to the tsaristgovernment loyalty standards.Like other academic institutions,the AoS faced enormouspressure fromthe state,media, and militantpublic, with some radicalvoices proclaimingit ir- redeemableand demandingits closure. The government'smain strategyfor change reliedon inclusion,rather than exclusion: it aimedto increasethe numberof supporters withinthe AoS andhelp them obtainsome key administrativepositions. The academy received a new statute, which increasedAoS membershipalmost twofold, to eighty-fivefull members.39In the academy'ssubsequent major elections of 1929, vot-

37 AlexanderVucinich, Empire of Knowledge:The Academy of Sciences of the USSR(1917-1970) (Berkeley, 1984); A.V. Kol'tsov, Razvitie Akademii nauk kak vysshego nauchnogo uchrezhdeniia SSSR,1926-1932 (Leningrad,1982). 38 On the change of policy with regardto bourgeoisexperts, see KendallBailes, Technologyand So- ciety under Lenin and Stalin: Origins of the Soviet TechnicalIntelligentsia, 1917-1941 (Princeton, 1978), 69-156; on the notion of culturalrevolution, see Sheila Fitzpatrick,"Cultural Revolution as Class War,"in CulturalRevolution in Russia, 1928-1931, ed. Sheila Fitzpatrick(Bloomington, 1978), 74-140. 39 V. D. Esakov, ed., Akademiia nauk v resheniiakhPolitbiuro TsK RKP(b)-VKP(b),1922-1952 (Moscow, 2000), 48-54, 530. PURGESIN COMPARATIVEPERSPECTIVE 33 ing procedureswere formallyrespected, but intensescrutiny in the press and difficult behind-the-scenesnegotiations affected the nominationprocess and evaluationof candidates.Traditionally, commissions selecting the candidatesnominated for the final ballot only one candidateper existing vacancy. This time, the commissions included,in additionto academymembers, some rank-and-fileresearchers and representativesof the "public"(trade unions and political organizations).Some members,notably Ivan Pavlov, protested this flagrantviolation of academicautonomy, but the majorityconceded to the move, hopingto balancescholarly and political criteria in the pool of finalists.40 The resultingcompromise shifted power within the academyto representativesof the naturalsciences, who subsequentlyoutnumbered members in the humanitiesand social sciences by a factorof two (the reversehad been the case previously).Though most newly elected memberswere still scholarsof the bourgeoisspecialist type, they werenot referredto by this no-longer-respectedterm. For the firsttime, the candidates includedMarxist scholars and partymembers (eight out of the forty-two).Scandal brokeout at the formalelection on January12, 1929, when threecandidates who all happenedto be Communistswere voted down. Under a barrageof media and gov- ernmentcriticism, a horrifiedacademy leadership requested a repeatof the ballot, in violation of statute.The second time, all threecontroversial candidates garnered the necessarymajority. Afterward, combined pressure from the outside and from loyal- ists inside led to the establishmentof a special commission to scrutinizethe academy's staff.The commissionconcluded that after the revolution,far too manyformer nobles andtsarist officers found employment and institutionalprotection in the academy. It fired 128, or about 11 percent,of the AoS full-time staff (mostly library,ad- ministrative,and rank-and-filepersonnel) and more than500 affiliatedemployees.41 In October1929, the commissionuncovered politically sensitive documents in the academy'slibrary, including the originalof Nicolas II's abdicationand the files of the tsarist secret police. This discovery led to accusationsof a "counterrevolutionary monarchistconspiracy" and a series of arrests.Four full membersof the academy (historiansS. F. Platonov,E. V. Tarle,N. P. Likhachev,and M. K. Liubavsky)and five correspondingmembers were sentenced to five-year exiles, while several "co- conspirators"with lesser academiccredentials received harsher sentences. In Febru- ary 1931, the AoS consideredexpulsion of these membersbased on a recently-added statuteprovision that members could be "deprivedof theirtitles by the decision of the GeneralAssembly, if their activitiesare directedto the harmof the Union of Soviet Republics."Despite a protestby PresidentA. P. Karpinskythat the provisionhad been imposedupon the academy,the new permanentsecretary and party member V. P.Vol- gin declaredthe vote unanimous,since nobodyraised a handagainst it.42 Replacement memberswere quickly elected, andby 1932 the totalmembership in the academyhad increasedto ninety-four,which includeda new groupof positionsin the engineering

40 See Loren R. Graham,The Soviet Academy of Sciences and the CommunistParty, 1927-1932 (Princeton,1967); Aleksey E. Levin, "ExpedientCatastrophe: A Reconsiderationof the 1929 Crisis at the Soviet Academy of Science," Slavic Review 47 (1988): 261-79; Feliks F. Perchenok, "'Delo Akademii nauk' i 'velikii perelom' v sovetskoi naulke,"in Tragicheskiesud'by: Repressirovannye uchenyeAkademii nauk SSSR(Moscow, 1995), 201-35. 41 Levin, "ExpedientCatastrophe" (cit. n. 40), 276; Esakov,Akademiia (cit. n. 39), 82; Akademi- cheskoe delo 1929-1933 gg., 3 vols. (St. Petersburg,1993-98), l:xxv-xxvii. 42 Perchenok,"Delo Akademii"(cit. n. 40), 225-6. 34 RICHARDBEYLER, ALEXEI KOJEVNIKOV,AND JESSICAWANG sciences previouslyunrepresented in the academy.While a largemajority of members were nonpartyscholars, as was PresidentKarpinsky, a Communistmember would usuallybe elected to one of the influentialadministrative positions (permanentsecre- taryor vice-president). Practicallyall of the country'sscientists educated before 1917 had been previously assumedto be bourgeoisspecialists, but after 1928 that categorizationhad to be re- considered.The culturalrevolution intensified a generationalconflict within acad- eme, in which the political authoritiestended to side with younger,more recently- educated, and more radical scientists. Most research institutes came to be administeredby a duo or trio that includedat least one experiencedspecialist of the old type and at least one politically-reliableyoung scholaror person from a lower- class background.Many older specialists and academic administrators were demoted, andmany arrested on accusationsof being "wreckers."They typicallyreturned to academic positions after 1931, when the culturalrevolution ended, and rejoinedthe majority of old colleagues who remainedin the professionbut were not called bourgeois specialists anymore. No longer allowed to distance themselves openly from the regime'spolitical values, they were consideredtrue Soviet scientistsand sinceresup- portersof CommunistParty rule. This categorizationrequired of its holders occa- sional declarationsof loyalty and appropriatebehavior.43 The youngergeneration of scientistsand studentscontained a higherproportion of sincere sympathizers.Recruitment and promotion favored certain social groups heretoforeunderrepresented in science: studentswith a proletarianor peasantback- ground,women, Jews and othernational minorities, members of the Komsomol,and laboractivists. Conversely, students from educatedbackgrounds and formerlyprivi- leged classes faced discrimination.The culturalrevolution and the continuingexpan- sion of scientific institutionsled to a quicker-than-usualgenerational change. By WorldWar II, the typical researcherpossessed both a Soviet educationand a Soviet mentality,although AoS membersand the top of the academichierarchy still consisted largely of scientists trainedbefore the revolution.Some of them did join the party,but usuallylater, in the 1940s, in partdue to the patrioticupsurge of the war.A few AoS memberswho workedabroad and refused to returnto the Soviet Union were expelled.44 The second significantwave of purgesin the late 1930s made Communiststhe pri- maryvictims amongthe academymembers. The GreatTerror of 1936-1938 targeted hidden "enemiesof the people" guilty of "terrorism"and "espionage,"both capital crimesthat carried much more severepunishments. The accuseddid not form any co- herentgroup as definedby some social, class, political,or ideologicalposition, but the main culpritsusually happened to be formerSoviet and partyofficials. Although the academicprofessionals suffered only marginallyin comparisonwith military,diplo- matic,and party elites, the generalscale of repressionduring the GreatPurges was so

43 Kojevnikov,"Dialogues" (cit. n. 36). Some expelled scholarswere officially restoredto AoS membership,such as historianE. V. Tarlein 1938, with Stalin's personalapproval. Several other former ar- restees were reelectedto the academyin the late 1930s-1940s; see Esakov,Akademiia(cit. n. 39), 267- 8; Akademicheskoedelo (cit. n. 41), xlix. 44 Sheila Fitzpatrick,Education and Social Mobility in the Soviet Union, 1921-1934 (Cambridge, 1979); V. I. Kuznetsov, "Prevratnostitvorchestva akademikaV. N. Ipat'eva,"in Repressirovannaia Nauka, ed. M. G. Yaroshevsky(Leningrad, 1991), 367-76. PURGES IN COMPARATIVEPERSPECTIVE 35 wide thatthe governmentarrested more full membersof the academy-ten-in those three years thanin any otherperiod of Soviet history.45Most were Communists,including permanentsecretary N. P. Gorbunovand former Politburomember N. I. Bukharin,who were executedafter secret or public trials. The academyhad to reactby formallyexpelling the arresteesby vote at a general assembly.Probably no public debateoccurred on such occasions, andin any case the understandingmust have been thatthe arrestshad more to do with the victims' political careers than with their activities in the academy. Some academicianstacitly gloated about purges now hitting the Communists themselves. Others privately pleadedon behalfof individualnoncommunist victims; in at least one case such a plea succeeded.In 1937, P. L. Kapitzawrote a letterto Stalinabout V. A. Fock, then a cor- respondentmember, who was promptlyreleased from jail and two years laterelected to full membership.46 At the lower levels of the AoS hierarchy,the GreatPurges operated unpredictably. Some academyinstitutes suffered only occasionalarrests; others were hit very hard. The Pulkovo Observatory,for example, lost the majorityof its leading personnelto charges of "wrecking."Since most of the country'sastronomers worked there, the purgesbrought about a severe setbackfor the entirediscipline.47 The arbitraryappli- cation of declaredpolitical and legal categoriesresulted in seemingly illogical prac- tices andhaphazard choices of victims, whose ranksincluded many staunch Stalinists and supportersof the regime.Despite this arbitrariness,some risk factorscan be determined, such as connections with the arrestedparty leaders. Having foreigners amongemployees or extensiveforeign contacts could also easily triggeraccusations of espionage. Even more serious dangercame from internalinstitutional conflicts: power strugglesof any kind almost inevitablybecame politicized in the paranoidat- mosphereand intensifiedto dangerouslevels, usually with tragic consequencesfor bothsides of the conflict.Overall, however, the degreeof unpredictabilityand chaotic irrationalitydistinguishes the purge in the Soviet Union from the one in the United Statesand, especially,the one in Germany.The AoS did not even consistentlyfollow its policy of formallyexcluding arrested members, sometimes simply forgettingand at othertimes preferringto quietly droptheir names from the academy'sroster. Althoughthe new pact withthe Stalinistgovernment required increased loyalty and subordinationon the partof the academy,it also greatlyincreased the rewards.By the end of the 1930s, the AoS had succeededin its long-timedesire to dominatenational science, havingtaken from other commissariats and gatheredunder its own adminis- trativeauspices most of the country'sleading researchinstitutes in fundamentalsci- ence. In its new ministerialfunction, the academyexpanded institutionally and received an increasing share of governmentsupport for scientific research.On the personallevel, resourcesbegan to be distributedmuch more hierarchically during the 1930s thanthey had in the very egalitarian1920s. Electionto the academyeffectively meantmembership in the top Soviet elite and the acquisitionof prestigeand material privilegescomparable to those receivedby high officials in the stateand the military.

45 See the list of repressedmembers of the academyin Tragicheskie(cit. n. 40), 236-52. 46 Alexei Kojevnikov,Stalin's Great Science: The Timesand Adventuresof Soviet Physicists (Lon- don, 2004), 119. 47 RobertMcCutcheon, "The 1936-1937 Purge of Soviet Astronomers,"Slavic Review 50 (1991): 100-17. 36 RICHARDBEYLER, ALEXEI KOJEVNIKOV,AND JESSICAWANG

The largestone-time increase in prestigeand salaries granted to Soviet scientistscame in 1946, along with a furtherstrengthening of the hierarchicalprinciple of distribu- tion. Correspondingmembers of the AoS envied full membersas the gap between them demonstrativelywidened, while universityprofessors and rank-and-filescientists complained of the academicians'excessive privileges. These tensions contributedto postwarconflicts among Soviet scholars. Unlike the 1930s purges, some of the main political campaignsof the late 1940s specificallytargeted the scientificcommunity. However, they typicallyresulted not in arrests,executions, or expulsionfrom academebut in administrativepromotions and demotions.In general,these campaignsconstituted battles between scholars,fought in ideological language. The most notorious such clash, between the followers of T. D. Lysenko and those of "formal"genetics, resultedin the 1948 ban on research on genes and Mendelianinheritance. Having securedStalin's supportfor his views, Lysenkomanaged to silence his scientificopponents, appoint his followersto key ad- ministrativejobs, and censor researchplans at most institutionsin the field. His pri- maryopponents either repented their scientific"mistakes" and changedresearch di- rectionsor were fired.48 A similarbattle in linguisticsended differently:in 1950 a very traditionaland in- ternationalIndo-European approach won out over the idiosyncraticallySoviet school of Nikolai Marr.49Another three major discussions-in philosophy,physiology, and politicaleconomy-also involvedinterference from high-level party authority acting behindthe scenes, but ended with less pronouncedconclusions. In additionto these five majordiscussions, the years from 1947 to 1952 saw hundredsof othermeetings in which rival academicparties tried to settle scores over a varietyof scientific,per- sonal, and institutionalissues. Even when political authoritiesdid not become involved,the participants'rhetoric frequently used whatevermeans were availablefrom the currentpolitical and ideological vocabulary.Some basic rules of the struggles were also borrowedfrom the politicalculture of the time, such as the ritualsof dispu- tation,criticism, and self-criticismcodified withinthe Communistconcept of "intra- partydemocracy."50 Otherpostwar campaigns reflected the intensifyingcold warattempts to strengthen "Soviet patriotism"among scientists, denounce "obsequiousnessbefore the West," and restrictinternational exchanges of informationdeemed "importantfor national security."51The campaign against "cosmopolites"looked primarilyat supposedly unpatrioticpronouncements or denialsof Soviet (andRussian) priority in science and technology.The campaignagainst "nepotism" battled the tendencyof family members to hold academicappointments within the same laboratoryor institute.A high percentageof those demoted in the lattertwo campaignswere Jewish, reflectinga resurgenceof anti-Semitismin the postwarSoviet polity.52

48David Joravsky,The Lysenko Affair (Cambridge, 1970); ValeriiSoifer, Vlast'i nauka, istoriia raz- groma v SSSR 1989); and Nikolai Krementsov,Stalinist Science (Princeton,1997). 49 genetiki (Tenafly, VladimirM. Alpatov,Istoriia odnogo mifa: Marr i marrizm(Moscow, 1991). 50 Alexei Kojevnikov,"Games of StalinistDemocracy: Ideological Discussions in Soviet Sciences, 1947-1952," in Stalinism:New Directions, ed. Sheila Fitzpatrick(London, 2000), 142-75. 51 V. D. Esakov and E. S. Levina, "Delo 'KR': Is iztorii gonenii na sovetskiiu intelligentsiiu,"Ken- tavr 2 (1994): 54-69; Nikolai Krementsov,"The 'KR Affair': Soviet Science on the Thresholdof the Cold War,"History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences 3 (1995): 3-30. 52 Gennadi Kostyrchenko,Out of the Red Shadows: Anti-Semitismin Stalin's Russia (Amherst, 1995). PURGESIN COMPARATIVEPERSPECTIVE 37

With the expansionof Soviet science intensifyingdramatically after the war,dis- criminatorypolicies affectednewcomers more stronglythan existing members.Jew- ish scientists who had alreadyachieved high academicstatus or membershipin the academycontinued to occupyinfluential positions in Soviet science. Electionsof new membersand the careersof manyyounger Jewish scientists, however, were adversely affected.While in the early 1930s the "affirmativeaction" rules for promotionfavored Jews as a vulnerableethnic minority, the postwarpolicy operatedon the premisethat Soviet Jews had alreadyachieved a privilegedstatus in comparisonwith otherethnic groupsand had become overrepresentedin the majorityof culturalinstitutions. The mainagents executing this policy-personnel offices in academicinstitutes-tried to decrease the proportionof Jews in their respectiveinstitutions or at least preventit from growingany further.53Academic directors who wantedto hire or promoteJew- ish scientistslearned to expect resistancefrom personnel officers, who had the power to grantor deny securityclearances. Although results varied greatly from one institute or individualcase to another,in general, it became considerablymore difficultfor Jews to makecareers in Soviet science. Stalin'sdeath put an end to the most egregious cases of stateanti-Semitism, but the lower-keypolicy of discriminationagainst Jews in academecontinued into the post-StalinSoviet Union.54 In the courseof thirtyyears of Stalin'srule, the membershiprules and demograph- ics of the AoS and the wideracademic profession changed dramatically. In comparison with the Germancase, Soviet purgeswere appliedarbitrarily and selectively,tar- geting some individualswhile sparingmany others among the vast majorityof the older academicelite who were politically suspect in Communisteyes. Much more systematicwas the regime'sinsistence on changinginclusion policies to help promote Communistsand their supporters,as well as representativesof the lower classes, women, and ethnic minoritiesinto scholarlyranks. The rapidlyexpanding academic communityduring Stalin's regime changed more throughthis latterprocess of inclusion thanthrough exclusion.

THE NATIONALACADEMY OF SCIENCES

In the United States,the criticalera for definingthe parametersof state controlover science came duringthe cold war.World War II had demonstratedwith deadly effi- ciency the powerof science in partnershipwith the state,and as the UnitedStates pursued a newly expansivecommitment to managingworld affairs at the war'send, it was clearthat science would play a centralrole in adjudicatingthe cold war.Although sci- entistshad attaineda new level of statusand influence, the resurgenceof anticommunism soon threatenedto severely circumscribetheir prerogatives.The American state'sneed for scientificexpertise, however, combined with the state's own internal divisions, providedscientists with opportunitiesto navigatetheir own way through the complex and dynamicpolitical situationof the postwardecade. As in previousyears, Germany and the Soviet Union, botha formallegal apparatus and ad hoc political pressures defined the rules for exclusion and inclusion that

53The policy was not openly announced,and many memoirsby Soviet scientists mentiontheir sur- prise on firstbecoming awareof the existence of such attitudes,usually duringa conversationwith an administrator;see, e.g., Andrei Sakharov,Memoirs (New York, 1990), 160. 54 Kostyrchenko,Out (cit. n. 52); oral history interview with Moisei I. Kaganov (1998), American Instituteof Physics. 38 RICHARDBEYLER, ALEXEI KOJEVNIKOV,AND JESSICAWANG governedAmerican science duringthe early cold war years.In accordancewith anti- communist ideology, the American state concentratedon political acceptability, ratherthan the combinationof politicaland ethnic categories that had concernedNazi Germany.As in the Soviet Union, however,race andethnicity often figuredin the un- writtenrules of determiningU.S. political suitability. Politicalpreconditions for employmentand participation in civic life in the United States were hardlynew in the 1940s. Radicalactivists had long enduredharassment in the workplace,surveillance, and arbitraryarrest-and for anarchistspossible de- portation.55Although the post-WorldWar I Red scare had faded relativelyquickly, some stategovernments, local police forces,businesses, and private organizations had continuedto pursueantiradical measures throughout the 1920s and 1930s.56During the late 1930s and early 1940s, the federalgovernment began to pay renewedatten- tion to Communistsand otherradicals. In 1938, Congressformed the Dies committee (named for its chairman,congressman Martin Dies of Texas), which became a permanentstanding committee, the House Committeeon Un-AmericanActivities (HUAC)in 1945, thoughthe Dies committeedid not in fact sharethe same name as the HUAC.In addition,new federallaws expandedthe scope of loyalty testing. The 1939 HatchAct barredthe governmentfrom hiring members of Communist,Nazi, or Fascist organizations,and the 1940 Smith Act prohibiteddirect advocacy of the overthrowof the governmentby force or violence or membershipin any groupthat endorsedsuch action.U.S.-Soviet cooperation during World War II bluntedthe impact of these two acts, however,and neitherwas enforcedregularly until the cold war. BeforeWorld War II, antiradicalismhad little effect on science in the United States. Academicfreedom cases involved scientistson occasion, but the political discipline of the statedid not generallyextend to science as an institution.Once wartimemobi- lizationdemonstrated the value of science to nationalsecurity, however, the military gainedbroad authority for dealing with scientificpersonnel it consideredpolitically unreliable.57With the rise of the cold war,informal security clearance procedures became formally codified for persons involved in classified research.As anticommunism reboundedfrom its wartimeslump, political tests expandedrapidly from the realm of secret researchto virtuallyall areas of scientific life. In March 1947, the newly createdfederal loyalty program,which establishedloyalty standardsfor all governmentemployees regardlessof national security implications,brought some 60,000 scientistsand engineers within the rangeof the state'spolitical gaze. The Fed- eralBureau of Investigationalso steppedup its surveillanceof scientistsand their political activities,and HUAC targeted scientists it contendedmight pose a dangerto security.By the 1950s, access to grantsand fellowships, as well as the right to travel abroad,were subjectto politicalconditions as well. In this decentralizedinstitutional context,diverse agencies and different branches of the governmentimplemented their

55 See WilliamPreston Jr., Aliens and Dissenters:Federal Supression of Radicals, 1903-1933 (Cam- bridge, 1963); RobertK. Murray,Red Scare: A Studyof National Hysteria, 1919-1920 (Minneapolis, 1955). 56 ChristopherCapozzola, "The Only Badge Needed Is YourPatriotic Fervor: Vigilance, Coercion, and the Law in WorldWar I America,"Journal of AmericanHistory 88 (2002): 1354-82; M. J. Heale, AmericanAnticommunism: Combating the EnemyWithin, 1830-1970 (Baltimore,1990), chaps. 5-6. 57 See Ellen W. Schrecker,No Ivory Tower:McCarthyism and the Universities (New York, 1986); Naomi Oreskes and Ronald Rainger, "Science and Security before the Atomic Bomb: The Loyalty Case of HaraldU. Sverdrup,"Studies in the History and Philosophy of Moder Physics 31B (2000): 309-69. PURGES IN COMPARATIVEPERSPECTIVE 39 own criteria(frequently informal and arbitrary, particularly in the cases of HUACand the FBI) for rootingout disloyalty.A certainamount of unpredictabilitythus charac- terizedthe targetingof victims,although the processwas farfrom being as chaoticand brutalas in Stalinist Russia. The loyalty-securitysystem pursuedCommunists and formerCommunists, but it also lashed out inconsistentlyagainst liberals, middle-of- the-roaders,and persons with limited political involvementswho had in a single in- stance signed a petition,attended a demonstration,or expresseda political view that in any way rancounter to cold war orthodoxy. Confrontedwith the politics of anticommunism,the NationalAcademy of Sci- ences, like the KWGand the AoS, warilynegotiated the science-staterelationship and the conditionsfor certificationof scientists'political loyalty. An organizationof some 400 members,the NAS functionedas both an honorarysociety and an official advisory body. Although the academy lacked the extensive researchempires of the KWGand the AoS, as the mostprestigious scientific organization in the UnitedStates, it possessed considerableauthority and influence, as well as official, government- sanctionedstatus as definedunder its charter.In responseto cold war political pressures, the NAS, like its Germanand Soviet counterparts,struggled to reconcilepro- fessionalautonomy with its obligationsto the state.Unlike the KWGand the AoS, the NAS neverdirectly purged its membership,nor did it encounterdirect pressure from the state eitherto expel or to include particularscientists. Nonetheless, the academy faced similarproblems as it mobilizedits responseto the cold war state'sbroader effort to regulatethe membershipof the scientific communityat large. Here the NAS generallyfailed to mounteffective campaignsto oppose or modify the new rules of inclusion and exclusion being generatedby anticommunistideology. Moreover,in subtle ways, the academyrewrote its own rules, such that cold war institutionalob- jectives came to demarcatethe extent of individualmembers' inclusion and margin- ality within the NAS just as the academydetermined its place within the cold war order. The NAS's responses to anticommunismin three instances-its reactionto the 1948 Condoncase, its battleover the Atomic EnergyCommission (AEC) fellowship programin 1949, and its formationof the Committeeon Loyalty in Relationto Gov- ernmentSupport of UnclassifiedResearch in the mid-1950s-illustrate the circum- scribedrole the academybuilt for itself as an agent of politicalpower during the cold war.In 1948, the public furorover HUAC'sattacks on physicistEdward U. Condon, directorof the NationalBureau of Standardsand an NAS member,led the academy to considera responseto such an overtattack on a prominentscientist. The augustin- stitution'slack of an imaginativepolitical vision, however,led to the most minimalof measures.Academy members who leanedto the liberalleft, such as HarlowShapley, Leslie C. Dunn,Oswald Veblen, and John P. Peters,had pushedthe academyto speak stronglyagainst the attackon Condonand the generalthreat to libertyposed by the cold war.The membershipin generalalso pushedfor a vigorousresponse. In the end, however,the staid academyleadership settled for only a mild expressionof "grave concern"over the Condoncase and a decision to form an ineffectiveCommittee on Civil Liberties.58

58 Congress 1948, Committees, Un-AmericanActivities, Condon Case, NAS Statement,Prepara- tion; NAS, Congress 1948, Committees, Un-American Activities, Condon Case, NAS Statement, 40 RICHARDBEYLER, ALEXEI KOJEVNIKOV,AND JESSICAWANG

In part,the limited measuresarose from NAS presidentA. N. Richards'scharac- teristicallystrict-constructionist reading of the academy'sprerogatives. Although the 1862 Act of Incorporationcalled upon the NAS to give scientific advice to the gov- ernmentwhen requested,Richards worried that the academydid not possess the statu- tory authorityto give unsolicitedadvice. He also feared the repercussionsfrom of- fending HUAC.59Vannevar Bush's machinations,behind the scenes and at the academy'sspring 1948 meeting, contributedto the decision to undertakea general study ratherthan pursue a vigorous defense of Condon.Bush, a confirmedpolitical conservativewho had clashed with Condon over atomic policy, advised Richards against throwingthe weight and prestige of the academy behind the beleaguered physicist.At the springmeeting, Bush steeredthe debatetoward weakening the state- menton the Condoncase as muchas possible.60Subsequently, the Committeeon Civil Liberties,consisting of JamesB. Conant,J. RobertOppenheimer, and Oliver E. Buck- ley, producedonly a brief, vague statement,which was promptlyburied in the files of the White House. Condonhimself weatheredthe political stormwithout NAS assis- tance, but years of subsequentharassment led to his departurefrom governmentser- vice in 1952.61 A yearlater, the academybecame involved in a crisis overthe AEC FellowshipPro- gramand a torturousset of negotiationsbetween the academy,the AEC, andCongress thattook place both behindthe scenes and in the public eye. In mid-1948, when the NationalResearch Council (NRC) and the AEC establishedthe programto support graduateand postdoctoralscience education,they courageouslydecided not to requiresecurity investigations for fellows engaged in nonclassifiedresearch. They did so knowingthat at least one successful applicanthad been a memberof the Commu- nist Partyand that they would likely face severe political consequencesshould this fact become public.62When the media discoveredand brokethe story the following spring,Congress came down hard.After a series of tense and difficultappearances beforecongressional committees, AEC chairmanDavid E. Lilienthal,NAS president Richards,and NRC chairmanDetlev Bronkagreed to requirea loyalty oath and non-

Considerationby NAS Membership;and Transcriptof NAS business session, 27 April 1948, Organi- zation 1948, NAS Meetings, Annual, Business Sessions, Transcript.All in NationalAcademy of Sci- ences (hereaftercited as NAS) Archives,Washington, D.C. A more complete accountof the academy's reactionto the Condon case appearsin Jessica Wang,American Science in an Age of Anxiety:Scien- tists, Anticommunism,and the Cold War(Chapel Hill, N.C., 1999), 183-96. 59A. N. Richardsto members of the NAS Council, 7 April 1948, NAS, Congress, 1948, Commit- tees, Un-AmericanActivities, Condon Case, NAS Statement,Consideration by NAS Membership, NAS Archives. 60 See Wang,American Science (cit. n. 58), 184-92. 61 Jessica Wang, "Science, Security,and the Cold War:The Case of E. U. Condon,"Isis 83 (1992): 260-2. 62 See Draft [of minutes of May 1 joint meeting between the AEC Predoctoraland Postdoctoral Boardsin the Physical Sciences], 3 May 1948, Fellowships 1948:AEC-NRC Fellowship Boards: Post- doctoral:General, NAS Archives; "Fromnotes of meeting of 5/5/48, AEC PostdoctoralFellowship Boardin Medical Sciences,"Fellowships 1948:AEC-NRC Fellowship Boards: Postdoctoral: Medical Sciences, NAS Archives; and Detlev W. Bronk to CarrollL. Wilson, 27 July 1948, Box 28, Folder "AECFellowship General," RG 128, Recordsof the JointCommittee on Atomic Energy,General Cor- respondence,National Archives, College Park, Md.; AEC 4/6, "Extensionof Security Clearance to Fellowships,"16 July 1948, Box 1220, Folder"Fellowship Program," RG 326, Records of the Atomic Energy Commission, SecretariatFiles, National Archives; and David E. Lilienthal, The Journals of DavidE. Lilienthal,vol. 2, TheAtomic Energy Years, 1945-1950 (New York, 1964), 189; discussed in Wang,American (cit. n. 58), ch. 7. PURGES IN COMPARATIVEPERSPECTIVE 41 communistaffidavit for all futureAEC fellows.63Congress went further,demanding FBI investigationsfor all applicantsas well. The NAS failed to act, and mandatory FBI investigationsbecame law. Only then did the academyrecoil from federalstrictures. The NAS leadershipstill advocateda minimalresponse and suggestedrunning the fellowship programunder protest,but time, legal advice (which defusedconcerns about whether the NAS charter allowedthe academyto refusea governmentrequest), and pressure from members ultimatelyled the academyto take a strongerposition and withdrawfrom long-term administrationof the fellowships.64In particular,the strenuousobjections of so many academiciansseemed to emboldenRichards to take a firmstand. The decision, however, did not slow the spread of security requirementsinto science education and unclassifiedresearch. Instead, several regional, university-based consortia agreed to take over the fellowshipprogram under the conditionsspecified by Congress. In 1955, the NAS again steppedinto the fray,when the Eisenhoweradministration requestedthat the academyinvestigate the effects of loyalty tests on unclassifiedresearch,and the NAS formedthe Committeeon Loyalty in Relationto Government Supportof UnclassifiedResearch. Unlike the earlierCommittee on Civil Liberties, the new grouptook its mission seriously,working for monthsto formulatea major statementthat insisted upon the need to end loyalty tests for scientists.65Yet the final versionof the report,released in March 1956, provedconsiderably blander than the original drafts.For example, in an August 1955 draft,the committeehad observed sternlythat "a preoccupation with the idea of securityhas penetratedinto areaswhere it has no relevance"and warnedof dangersthat went far beyond scientific life. The "insidiousidentification" of conformitywith loyalty,the draftstated, "is an evil thing thatmust be combattedby every sincere and thoughtfulcitizen."66 The NAS deleted these and other strongly worded statementsfrom its public report.Gone were the sharplycritical tone andthe emphasison the menaceof conformistpressures. Instead, the finalversion relied upon a bloodlessnarrative about the valueof basic researchand highlightedthe self-regulatingcharacter of science as sufficientprotection for the public interest.67 The committee's report did make a small contributiontoward the Eisenhower administration's1956 decision to end the practiceof loyalty testing for unclassified research. The academy's role was hardly decisive, however. By the mid-1950s,

63 JointCommittee on Atomic Energy,Atomic Energy Commission Fellowship Program, 81st Cong., 1s'sess., 16 and 17 May, 1949; and Senate Subcommitteeof the Committeeon Appropriations,Inde- pendent OfficesAppropriation Billfor 1950, 81st Cong., 1S'sess., 19 and 20 May, 1949. 64NAS: Fellowships 1949:AEC-NRC Fellowship Boards: Security Clearance: NAS: Council State- ments: First: General;Fellowships 1949: AEC-NRC Fellowship Boards: Security Clearance:NAS: Council Statements:First: Comments by NAS Members; and Minutes of the Business Session, 24 and 26 Oct. 1949, NAS: 1949 Autumn Meeting: Minutes of the Business Meeting. All in the NAS Archives. 65 Full records of the committee's work are located in the NAS Archives, under the following file headings:NAS, Organization1955, NAS, Comm on Loyalty in Relation to Govt Supportof Unclas- sified Research;and NAS, Organization1956, NAS, Comm on Loyalty in Relation to Govt Support of Unclassified Research. 66 Committeeon Loyalty in Relation to GovernmentSupport of UnclassifiedResearch, Draft, Final Report,Aug. 1955, in Organization,NAS 1956, Comm on Loyaltyin Relationto Govt Supportof Un- classified Research,Report, NAS Archives. 67 NationalAcademy of Sciences, "Reportof the Committeeon Loyalty in Relationto Government Support of Unclassified Research,"13 March 1956, in NAS, Organization1956, NAS, Comm on Loyalty in Relationto Govt Supportof Unclassified Research,General, NAS Archives. 42 RICHARDBEYLER, ALEXEI KOJEVNIKOV,AND JESSICAWANG

McCarthyismwas on the decline, the SupremeCourt was dismantlingthe more dra- conianaspects of the loyalty-securitysystem, and the UnitedStates was seekinga rap- prochementwith the Soviet Union. In askingthe NAS to weigh in on loyaltytests, the Eisenhoweradministration sought legitimation for a courseof actionit alreadyhoped to take-the initiativelay with the government,not with the academy. These threeincidents indicate the extentto which the NAS, despiteits statusas the most prestigiousscientific body in the United States,failed to influencesubstantially the rules of inclusion and exclusion that defined science-staterelations in the post- WorldWar II decade.Part of the explanationfor this failurelies in the structureof the academyand its own internalregulation of its membershiphierarchy. The NAS never came close to the kinds of purgesthat rocked the KWG and the AoS, in partbecause the U.S. organizationnever had official responsibilitiesover researchinstitutions and largenumbers of rank-and-filescientists, the main arenaaffected by politicalcriteria. Nevertheless,cold war political pressuresdid affect patternsof inclusion and exclusion within the NAS in subtle,but significant,ways shortof outrightexpulsion. The liberal-leftscientists who most wanted to offer an oppositionalvoice did not hold leadershippositions within the academy.Some, such as Shapley and Veblen, had served on the NAS Council in the 1930s, but the academyhad emergedfrom World WarII with the sense that changingtimes requireda politicallysavvy and connected leadership.As FrankB. Jewettinformed Karl T. Comptonin April 1947, "ThePresi- dent of the academy... must be morethan merely a distinguishedscientist. He must be thatand in additiona man who is widely known and respected,who knowsWash- ington, and who has had administrativeexperience."68 Alluding to the new political orderscience faced in the postwarworld, John T. Tateemphasized that the academy neededto be representedby "menwho havehad experienceand responsibility in con- nectionwith the managementof largeenterprises, and who, therefore,have an appre- ciation of the natureof the problemswhich the academyand ResearchCouncil will face."69Whereas the KWGhad struggledfor the preservationof an old order,namely its pre-1933pact with the state,the NAS soughtactively to build a new cold warpart- nershipwith the nationalsecurity state. To do so, the postwaracademy chose for its leadersscientists who could forge ties with government,not critics of the cold war. The NAS recordsdo not indicateinstances of directdiscrimination against progres- sive-left scientists,and they were not frozenout entirelyfrom the academy'sbusiness, but selective pressuresdid keep them from positions of influence.70With the excep-

68 FrankB. Jewettto KarlT. Compton, 15 April 1947, Organization1947, NAS, Com on Nomina- tions, NAS Archives. 69 John T. Tate to FrankB. Jewett, 20 Dec. 1946, Organization1946, NAS, Com on Nominations, NAS Archives. See also Isaiah Bowman to Jewett, 23 Dec. 1946, Organization1946, NAS, Com on Nominations,NAS Archives. 70 In late 1946, Edwin B. Wilson did recommendE. U. Condon for the NAS NominatingCommit- tee, because of his "wide academic, industrialand now governmentcontacts," as did JohnT. Tate,but Condon was not appointedto the committee.Wilson to FrankB. Jewett,n.d. [Dec. 1946]; and Tateto Jewett,20 Dec. 1946. Both in Organization1946, NAS, Com on Nominations,NAS Archives.Harlow Shapley was the academyrepresentative to the boardof Science Service, while Condon served on the Local Committeeon Arrangementsin 1949 and chairedthe AuditingCommittee in 1951; see Council of the Academy Meeting Agenda, 25 April 1948, Organization1948, NAS, Council of the Academy; Meeting of the Council of the Academy,27 April 1952, Organization1952, NAS, Council of the Acad- emy, Meetings; Meeting of the Council of the Academy,Agenda, 24 April 1949, Organization1949, NAS, Council of the Academy, and NationalAcademy of Sciences, Council Meeting,Agenda, 4 Nov. 1951, respectively,NAS Archives. PURGES IN COMPARATIVEPERSPECTIVE 43 tion of LinusPauling, who was a memberof the NominatingCommittee in 1947, the liberalleft wentunrepresented on thatcommittee, on the NAS Council,and in the major offices of the academythroughout the postwardecade. The scientists favored for these positions were more conservativepolitically, as well as heavily integratedinto a network of high-level governmentcommittees. Nearly every significant governmentor military committee dealing with science fielded a seat or two held by a distinguishedacademy member; indeed, afterWorld WarII, membershipon such committeespartly defined inclusion in the scientificelite. In turn,the leadersof the academy-men such as Jewett,Bronk, Richards, Bush, and IsaiahBowman-worked to make the NAS an active player in science-government relationsby seeking out scientistswith the strongestties to the statefor the academy hierarchy.After FrankB. Jewett steppeddown from the presidencyin 1947, for example, the academyhoped to pick a new leaderdirectly from the governmentadvi- sory elite. Harvardpresident James B. Conantand MIT presidentKarl T. Compton, both of whom had been in the thick of wartimescience advising,emerged as the top candidates.Their political eminence promised to continue well into the postwar years;indeed they were so occupiedwith theirpostwar duties that they each declined the NAS presidency,leaving the dutifulRichards as the caretakerfor the time being.71 In general,however, the academysuccessfully engineered a postwarleadership of scientistssteeped in the cold warpolitical establishment. In 1950, Richardswas succeeded by the more dynamicBronk, long-time NRC chairmanand a past memberof the Naval ResearchAdvisory Committee.Jerome C. Hunsaker,chairman of the Na- tional Advisory Committeefor Aeronautics,served as the academy's treasurerfor most of the 1940s, and he was on the NominatingCommittee in the early 1950s. I. I. Rabi, associatedirector of the MIT RadiationLaboratory during the warand a member of the AEC's prestigiousGeneral Advisory Committeeafterward, sat for a term on the NAS Council in the late 1940s. One of Rabi's fellow council memberswas J. RobertOppenheimer, whose postwarpolitical obligations consisted of a seemingly endless arrayof high-level committee assignments,including chairmanshipof the GeneralAdvisory Committee. Although Oppenheimer's politics had run considerably far to the left in the 1930s, duringthe war he had tradedhis leftism for political re- spectabilityand power.Oliver E. Buckley,president, and subsequentlychairman of the board,at Bell Laboratories,held a seat on the council in the early 1950s. Bell had, underBuckley's guidance,become heavily involvedin the developmentof anti- aircraftguided-missile systems for the U.S. Army and atomic weaponsmanufactur- ing for the AEC. Buckley became chair of PresidentTruman's Science Advisory Committeein 1951.Vannevar Bush, who hadheaded the Officeof ScientificResearch and Developmentduring the war and served as first chairmanof the postwarRe- searchand DevelopmentBoard, held no official NAS position beyondserving on the NominatingCommittee, but he exercised considerableinfluence throughpersonal relationships. One would not expect an organizationdirected by such men to confrontpolitical authorityopenly, and indeed,under their influence the academydid not. The consistent desire of the membershipat largeto respondmore forcefullythan the leadership

71 See KarlT. Comptonto FrankB. Jewett, 17 April 1947; Roger Adams to Membersof the Nomi- nating Committee, 31 March 1947, both in Organization1947, NAS. Com on Nominations, NAS Archives. 44 RICHARDBEYLER, ALEXEI KOJEVNIKOV,AND JESSICAWANG to the threatof anticommunismunderscores the politicallyweighted character of the academy'selite and its refusal to countenancepolitical risk. Althougha significant group of the academy'sleaders had serious qualms about the directionof cold war politics-so much so thatBush and Conantwere gently eased out of the federalsci- ence advisoryapparatus by the early 1950s, and Oppenheimerexpelled throughthe withdrawalof his AEC securityclearance in 1954-they also believedin the efficacy of their political connections.To them, insider status and political influence meant maintainingan attitudeof refinementand abstainingfrom open confrontations,especially given the academy'ssymbolic role as the dignifiedrepresentative of the public face of science. Othercircumstances, such as the academy'stendency toward elite modes of action, also underminedthe NAS's capacityto addressanticommunism's effects on science. TheAEC andNRC's initial decision not to requiresecurity investigations for nonsecret fellows took place behindclosed doors.The strategybackfired once news of a fellowship awardto a CommunistParty member hit the media,and the academynever for- mulatedan effective meansof takingits positionbefore the public.The decentralized natureof the Americanscientific infrastructure further diluted the academy'simpact. When the NRC finally withdrewfrom the AEC fellowship program,other parties simply stepped in to take its place. The academy'sformal relationshipto the gov- ernmentalso constrainedits responses.The NAS's "quasi-governmentalstatus," as definedby the charter,prevented it fromacting independently, at least when facingpo- liticalrisk. Richards in particularrelied upon the idea thatthe charterallowed the NAS to respondonly when requestedto do so by the government,not to act as an autono- mous organization.Although Bronk and Jewett laid out a morevigorous agenda, their versionof activismmeant placing the academyat the serviceof the state,and a strongly oppositionalstance on anticommunismwould have compromisedthis mission. Whenit came to the politics of anticommunism,the academymerely reacted to cir- cumstances.The weakness of its response,however, did not signify a failure in its ability to bargainbetween knowledgeand power.Rather, the leadersof the NAS, in effect, tradedquietude on the Red scare for access to the corridorsof power,thereby endorsinga differentpact with the state, one thattied science to the cold war.

THE KAISERWILHELM/MAX PLANCK SOCIETYIN POSTWARWEST GERMANY

As with the NationalSocialist-ordered dismissals, the Stalinistpurges, and the waves of Americananticommunist sentiment, policies of denazificationmandated by theAl- lies in postwarGermany were not directedtoward science as such, but the relationship betweenknowledge and power did requirespecial attention.Following an initial period of suspicion about the potentialmilitary applications of certainkinds of research,Allied policy makerssoon becamepositively disposed toward German scientific institutions.The adventof the cold warwas crucialto a changein attitudetoward the Germanscientists, as it had been towardAmerican scientists at the NAS; the effects, though,were quite different.In Germany,anxiety aboutthe risks posed by la- tent Nazism initiallypredominated, but a growingdesire for stabilityand integration within the Western(or Eastern)bloc contributed,in turn,to a relativediminution of interestin stirringup memoriesof the Nazi past. Insofaras postwarscientists could point to the integrityof social structuresin their communityunder the ThirdReich, participationin that communitycould appearas, ipso facto, a kind of resistanceto PURGESIN COMPARATIVEPERSPECTIVE 45 negativeideologies. In the westernzones, comparisonswith the Soviet case entered stronglyinto this discourse.Thus, while the cold warin the UnitedStates exacerbated concernsabout security and loyalty in the scientificcommunity, in Germanythe scientific communityarguably proved quite successful in presentingitself as partof a new politicalculture.72 These shiftingattitudes underlay the implementationof denazification.Every person who held or desireda positionof responsibilityhad to fill out a detailedquestion- naireconcerning membership in the NationalSocialist Partyand affiliatedorganiza- tions, as well as career path, professional activities, annual income, real estate holdings, pre-1933 voting patterns,and other matters.On the basis of this information, a militarygovernment officer made a provisionaldecision aboutwhether the person could remainin his or her post; Germanpanels then determinedan appropriate categorization:major criminal, implicated,less implicated,fellow traveler,or not implicated.73Alongside the questionnaire,the testimonialletter, colloquially called the Persilschein,was the quintessentialdocumentary embodiment of denazification. (Persilwas-and still is-a popularbrand of laundrydetergent; hence the termtrans- lates roughly as "whitewashingcertificate.") Although denazificationtheoretically followed clearlydefined legal procedures,as with the 1933 civil service law, in prac- tice implementationwas flexible-or, less charitably,inconsistent-thus bearinga similarityto the U.S. and Soviet cases. The skilled deploymentof apologetics in Persilscheineand elsewherehelped createwhat has been called the "fellow-traveler factory":a reductionof variouskinds and degreesof complicityto the least common denominator.74 The exact numberof dismissalsfrom the KWG/MPGis difficultto establish.Sum- mariesfrom February 1947 for institutesin Gottingen,the nucleusof the nascentMax PlanckSociety in the Britishzone, indicatethat out of 108 personnel,8 had been dismissed, or 7.4 percent.75An evaluationof 85 dossiersof KWG/MPGpersonnel in the threewestern zones revealedthat 24 (or 28 percent)involved either a provisionaldis-

72 We focus here on West Germany,but analogousremarks apply to East Germany;see, e.g., Kristie Macrakisand Dieter Hoffmann,eds., Science under Socialism: East Gennany in ComparativePer- spective (Cambridge,1999). For an overview of science policy in the westernzones and early Federal Republic, see David Cassidy, "ControllingGerman Science," Hist. Stud. Phys. Biol. Sci. 24 (1994): 197-235; and 26 (1996): 197-239. 73For the sake of simplicity,the discussion above glosses over variationsin proceduresand policies among the occupationzones and over time. Surveysof denazificationinclude Ullrich Schneider,"Zur Entnazifizierungder Hochschullehrerin Niedersachsen1945-1949," NiedersdchsischesJahrbuchfir Landesgeschichte61 (1989): 325-46; Ian Turner,"Denazification in the British Zone," in Recon- struction in Postwar Germany:British Occupation Policy and the WesternZone, 1945-55, ed. Ian Turner(Oxford, 1989), 239-67; Clemens Vollnhals,ed., Entnazifizierung:Politische Sduberungund Rehabilitierungin den vier Besatzungszonen1945-1949 (Munich, 1991); Mitchell G. Ash, "Verord- nete Umbriiche-Konstruierte Kontinuitaten:Zur Entnazifizierungvon Wissenschaftlemund Wis- senschaften nach 1945," Zeitschriftfur Geschichtswissenschaft43 (1995): 903-23. Revealing case studies include Klaus Hentschel and GerhardRammer, "Physicists at the University of Gottingen, 1945-1955," Physics in Perspective 3 (2001): 189-209; Carola Sachse, "Persilscheinkultur:Zum Umgang mit der NS-Vergangenheitin der Kaiser-Wilhelm/Max-Planck-Gesellschaft,"in Akademis- che Vergangenheitspolitik:Beitrdge zur Wissenschaftskulturder Nachkriegskeit,ed. Berd Weisbrod (Gottingen, 2002), 217-46; Michael Schiring, "Ein 'unerfreulicherVorgang': Das Max-Planck- Institutfur Ziichtungsforschungin Voldagsenund die gescheiterteRuckkehr von Max Ufer,"in Heim, Autarkie(cit. n. 34), 280-99. For furtherdiscussion on denazificationof the KWG/MPG,see Beyler, "Reine"Wissenschaft (cit. n. 6), 16-44. 74 Lutz Niethammer,Die Mitliuferfabrik:Die Entnazifizierungam Beispiel Bayerns (Berlin, 1982). 75 "Betr.:Entnazifizierung," 27-28 Feb. 1947, II Abt., Rep. 1A, Nr. I F 10 (provisionalnumber), binder 1, MPGA. 46 RICHARDBEYLER, ALEXEI KOJEVNIKOV,AND JESSICAWANG missal by the militarygovernment or dismissal due to adversecategorization by the Germanpanels. However, due to the natureof the archivalevidence, this sampleprob- ably containsan overrepresentationof difficultcases (i.e., those thatreceived special attentionby administrators);moreover, in all but 9 cases, these dismissals were re- versedon appeal.76By comparison,data for British-zoneuniversity faculty shows av- erage initial dismissalrates of around26 percent,though rates varied greatly among universities.77 Few absoluterules determined denazification decisions, but some backgroundsdid tip the scales towarddismissal. National Socialist Partymembership prior to 1933 was perhapsmost damaging.SS membershipalso provedproblematic, as did a position of leadershipin the National Socialist Partyapparatus. Major difficulties could ariseas well fromspecific incidents,ranging from those symbolicallycharged-such as claimsthat the subjectregularly used the "HeilHitler" greeting-to those of a more seriousnature-such as assertionsof Gestapocollaboration.78 Even in difficultcases, however,one could often arguesuccessfully for extenuatingcircumstances. In exculpatoryarguments, the continuityof science as an institutionemerged as a dominanttheme. Repeatedly,KWG/MPG affiliates declared themselves devoted en- tirelyto science per se, hence withoutpolitical interests, and driven primarily by professional motives duringthe NationalSocialist era. Giventhe fluid legal statusof the KWG/MPG,this certainly was not a deliberate,institutionally directed strategy.79 Nevertheless,a pervasiveconsensus identified a sense of affiliationwith the scientific communityas self-justification.Even in the face of grave morallapses, a climate of professionalsolidarity largely prevailed.80 In this context,maintenance of traditionalpatterns of inclusionand exclusion during the ThirdReich itself countedas a kind of resistance.For example,in the case of ErnstTelschow, who had replacedFriedrich Glum as generaldirector in 1937, Adolf Butenandt,Carl Neuberg's successor at the Institutefor Biochemistry,wrote that Telschow"stood up for leadershipin the variousinstitutes and their scientific research workthat was free fromparty-political influences. Thus he insistedon exclusivelysci- entific groundsin the appointmentof institutedirectors."81 A variationon this theme held thatparty membership offered a kindof personalsacrifice out of institutionalloy- alty.Thus LudwigPrandtl, director of the Institutefor Fluid Dynamics,asserted that Telschow"entered the [NationalSocialist] Party in fall 1933 only at the wish of his office in orderto makeeasier the unavoidableofficial communication ... withthe Party."82 Althoughthis somewhatevasive responseto denazificationmay seem at odds with

76 Discussed furtherin Beyler, "Reine"Wissenschaft (cit. n. 6). 77 See Schneider,"Zur Entnazifizierung"; Ash, "VerordneteUmbriiche," 908-10. (Both cit. n. 73.) 78 Taken from Nds 171 Hildesheim, Nr. 67024 and Nr. 637, NiedersachsischesHauptstaatsarchiv, Aussenstelle Pattensen(hereafter cited as NHsta-P). 79 On the emergence of the MPG as successor to the KWG, see ManfredHeinemann, "Wiederauf- bau der Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gesellschaftund die Neugriindungender Max-Planck-Gesellschaft(1945- 1949), in Vierhausand vom Brocke, Forschung(cit. n. 9), 407-70; and Otto GerhardOexle, "Wie in Gottingendie Max-Planck-Gesellschaftentstand," Max-Planck-Gesellschaft Jahrbuch, 1994, 43-60. 80 This is shown perhapsmost clearly in the case of Othmarvon Verschuerof the KWI for Anthro- pology as analyzedin, e.g., Sachse, "Persilscheinkultur"(cit. n. 73); see also Baaderet al., "Pathways" (cit. n. 18). 81 Adolf Butenandt,testimonial, 13 Aug. 1946, in Nds 171 Hildesheim, Nr. 12773, NHsta-P; cf. RobertN. Proctor,Adolf Butenandt (1903-1995): Nobelpreistriger, Nationalsozialist und MPG- Prdsident,Ergebnisse, no. 2 (Berlin, 2000), 10-6. 82 Ludwig Prandtl,testimonial, 7 June 1946, in Nds 171 Hildesheim, Nr. 12773, NHsta-P. PURGES IN COMPARATIVEPERSPECTIVE 47 our previousexamples, in which the institutionsof science acted (albeit selectively) as the mediatorsof statemandates, in fact this approachharmonized with the emerg- ing West Germanpolitical climate. Except in a few difficultcases, details of conduct duringthe ThirdReich matteredless thanproven loyalty to a professionof criticalim- portanceto a nationundergoing reconstruction. Both Germanand Allied authorities valued these considerations,particularly as the cold war picked up momentum.De- nazificationdid, indeed,end the careersof some scientistsand proved a majorirritant to many others. Certaincases resultedin unduly harshsanctions; sometimes, however,the law was implementedin an unfairlylax fashion.Such inconsistenciesled to growingcynicism aboutdenazification, and by 1950 the process had largely run its course.The self-presentationof the KWG/MPGas an institutionthat had preserved, as best it could, its integrityas a site of "pure"or "free"science underNazism corre- spondedwell to this cultural-politicalclimate.

CONCLUSION

There is, of course, no novelty in the use of variouscriteria-political, ethnic, reli- gious, class, racial,gender-to regulatethe membershipof the scientificcommunity. Ethnic,racial, and political prejudices have been widespreadin German,Russian, and Americanacademe at most times, not only in the extraordinarycircumstances de- scribedabove. Ultimately, the professionalautonomy of an academiccommunity ex- ists only within the largersocial context and polity that underwritesit. Not just the desires of scientists,but also their ability to appealto otherconstituencies, sanction theircommunity's right to regulateits own borders.The resultis usuallya kindof pact betweenknowledge and power, which may be relativelyexplicit or relativelyimplicit, andwhich may be open to renegotiationdepending on variableassumptions about the separationor overlapof the "scientific"and "political"spheres (compare, e.g., Ger- many and the Soviet Union). The definitionand functioningof this pact are not as clearly visible in "normal"situations, when they are often takenfor granted,as they are in situationsin which the definitionsof the scientific and the political shift dramatically. Such was the case in all three countriesduring the events describedin this essay. The magnitudeof the changesdiffered-from shifts in foreign policy to revolutions thatoverturned the basic foundationsof the society-but in each case the changesin the largerpolity disturbedthe terms of the existing pact between knowledge and powerand pressuredthe scientificcommunity to adaptto new conditionsestablished by state policies. The KWG,the AoS, and the NAS, in theirfunctions as representatives of theirrespective national communities of scientists,responded to stateactions by serving as mediatorsof this pact in their respective countries, and hence also acutelyexperienced their respective states' efforts to transformit. Thus NationalSocialist authorities,moving towardtheir goal of a racially "pure" andpolitically "coordinated" Germany, legally requiredthe dismissalof raciallyand politically undesirableindividuals. While generally complying with these require- ments,the KWGsought to defend, as muchas possible, the freedomof action of key researchersand to bracketoff challengesto internalauthority structures. Represented as a defense of the "freedomof science,"this strategybecame symbolicallysignifi- cantin the postwarprocess of "denazification,"in an erain which "freedom"was sud- denly at a premiumin politicaldiscourse. 48 RICHARDBEYLER, ALEXEI KOJEVNIKOV,AND JESSICAWANG

In contrastto the all-too-clearNational Socialist mandates,the Soviet AoS con- frontedseveral drastic and often mutuallycontradictory oscillations in the regime's politics andideology, which often resultedin dismissalsor even severerpunishments. The more influentialtrend, however, was the introductionof new categoriesof indi- vidualsinto the enlargedscientific elite. The compromisesmade by the Soviet academy reflected,in part,a traditionof cooperationbetween experts and the state. De- spite the relativelylarge demographicchanges in the academyover severaldecades, and despite the harmdone to many individuals,there remaineda set of core values aroundresearch in service of the state. In an intriguingparallel, the leadershipof the NAS in postwarAmerica pursued increased cooperation between scientific institutions and the "nationalsecurity state," presumably to the advantageof each. But this veryeagerness for cooperationinduced a relativequiescence from the NAS leaders- who in any event were not immediatelyresponsible for personneldecisions-when the academy'sgovernmental partners required new tests of loyalty. Althoughtheir leaderswould often describetheir actions as "resistance,"none of the academic societies considered withdrawingfrom the mutuallybeneficial rela- tionshipwith power,some braveprotests of individualmembers notwithstanding. As institutions,they soughtto adaptto the requiredchanges while manipulatingthe process to theiradvantage. A professionalcommunity cannot easily violate basic rulesof acceptabilityset by its broaderconstituencies, even when these protocols shift dramatically.Instead, self-preservation meant reassessing autonomy within the strictures of a changingsocial and political order;despite purges,the possibility of a pact between scientific institutionsand the state remained.Thus these institutionsplayed a dualrole as both advocatesof the scientificcommunity to the governmentand the im- mediatelyeffective agents of new dismissal policies. Their roles precariouslycom- bined representingthe ideals of professionalautonomy and acting as a "neutral"bu- reaucracyto implementconstituents' interests; the formerfunction was, however,the obverseof the latter,and not separablefrom it. Few membersof the scientific com- munitieswe have consideredwelcomed the purges,but a comparativestudy requires us to see science as more than victim or resister.Even underthe most strenuouscir- cumstances,science as an institutionmaintained its viability as both an agent of the state and an active architectof its own fortune.