Portrait of the Academy

The Heidelberg Academy of Sciences and Humanities HAdW) is the state academy of Baden-Württemberg. As a scholarly community and non-university research institution, it serves as the strong, impartial voice of science within the state and beyond. The Academy stands for the outstanding standing of Baden-Württemberg as a center of science and, in the great tradition of academies, offers a special venue for high-level scholarly discourse. It is founded on science-driven processes, serves the scientific community, and recognizes its social responsibility in doing so.

The Heidelberg Academy responded to the challenge posed by National Socialist ideology and its implementation by the state in much the same way as nearly all academic institutions in Germany. The guiding principle behind its actions was organizational survival—the preservation of the institution. To achieve this goal, almost any Prize was Prize , above all the renunciation of legal rights, collegiality, and solidarity with persecuted members, as well as the abandonment of academic standards in new elections. The opportunistic tactic of adapting as much as possible and often preemptively conforming to save a reputation that had become questionable led to culpable failure. Although the Academy did not conduct any research projects typical of the Nazis, five National Socialists were elected in the 1934/35 elections, three of them to vacant seats in disciplines traditionally under the Academy’s purview (astronomy, geology, physiology). The “Nazi faction,” although a small minority among the 37 full members, immediately set about expelling the Jewish members from the Academy under the leadership of the physiologist Johann Daniel Achelis. Since those affected were initially unwilling to yield to the pressure and resign, the Mathematical and Natural Sciences Class came to a complete standstill between the summer semester of 1936 and the end of 1937—meetings no longer took place, and the 1937 annual session was also canceled. Within the “Cartel of German Academies of Sciences,” Heidelberg became a pioneer in pushing for a uniform Reich-wide solution for the expulsion of “non-Aryan” members, while the Reich Ministry of Education, Science, and Public Enlightenment (REM) reserved the right to make the decision in 1936. In February 1937, the secretary of the Mathematics and Natural Sciences Class, Otto Heinrich Erdmannsdörfer, noted that in a survey, a minority of class members still advocated “for the retention of non-Aryans under all circumstances,” even though just a few months earlier the “battle sheet” of the Heidelberg group of the NSDStB, “Der Heidelberger Student,” had sharply attacked the Academy for its outdated understanding of science and demanded the “complete purging” of “Jews and friends of Jews.” In silent protest against the treatment of Jewish members, the botanist Ludwig Jost left the Heidelberg Academy in 1937. The Philosophical and Historical class completely out of these disputes and merely pointed to the necessity of achieving a uniform regulation across the Reich.

On November 15, 1938, a "quick letter" from the REM demanded that the Reich Citizenship Law of 1935 (Reich citizens are "citizens of German or related blood") be applied to regular and corresponding members. Those affected were to be encouraged to resign; if they refused, the ministry would revoke their membership. The order was repeated on February 1, 1939, and then also enforced in Heidelberg for "Jews, Mischlinge, and gentlemen married to Jewish women or Mischlinge of the first degree," albeit not without exceptions.

The result of the forced resignations or removals from the membership list was: Of 37 full members (as of April 1, 1933), seven were expelled from the Academy (four from the Mathematical-Scientific Class, three from the Philosophical-Historical Class); of 38 corresponding/associate members, five were expelled (one from the Mathematical-Scientific Class, four from the Philosophical-Historical Class).

In the elections held in the following years until the end of the war, supporters of the regime, critics of the regime, and those with little ideological exposure were elected. The statutes of 1939, which also introduced the Führer principle and made additional elections dependent on confirmation by the ministry, expanded the catchment area for full members beyond Heidelberg to southwestern Germany and now also included the universities and colleges of Freiburg, Karlsruhe, Darmstadt, and Frankfurt; after the conquest of Alsace, Strasbourg was added. Heads of research institutes and industrialists could also be elected.

The financial situation of the Heidelberg Academy remained precarious, so that only two new major projects could be launched in the Department of Philosophy and History: the edition of the works of Nicholas of Cusa (Cusanus) (1925–2015) and “Die Deutschen Inschriften” covering the period from approximately 500 to 1650 (ongoing since 1935, with preliminary work beginning in 1930)—a project Academy of Sciences and Humanities by nearly all German academies as well as the Austrian Academy of Sciences and Humanities .

For the new beginning after May 8, 1945, two questions arose in particular: How would the Academy treat those members who had been forced out of the Academy as "non-Aryans" during the years of the Third Reich? And how would the Academy treat those members who could be accused of serious misconduct during the twelve years of Nazi rule, in particular active participation in the "purge" of the Academy? The first question was easy to answer. Members who had been expelled or had resigned were invited to rejoin the Academy as corresponding members. Most accepted this invitation, but not all. Apparently, not everyone felt that the Academy had struck the right tone in this delicate re-establishment of ties.

The Academy had a much harder time dealing with members under investigation. It initially resorted to introducing “suspended membership,” which—depending on the denazification proceedings and the university’s decisions—could, but did not necessarily have to, lead to reinstatement. In 1950, the Academy decided to determine the revocation of suspended memberships according to the rules for new elections. In fact, the Mathematical and Natural sciences class rejected the reelection of implicated members Mathematical and Natural sciences class some cases. On the other hand, however, even heavily implicated members were reelected. The Academy did not have the courage to make a clean break, or indeed to make a clear decision at all. In his history of the Heidelberg Academy, published in 1994—which contains an extensive analysis of this topic—the historian Wennemuth described the Academy’s handling of its past as “hesitant, half-hearted.”

However, the past remained present for the Academy well beyond the immediate post-war years, namely in the form of the question of whether it should or even must examine the behavior of candidates of the relevant age during the years of the Third Reich when electing them. As far as can be ascertained, there has never been a fundamental debate on this issue within the Academy. Even in the case of individual admissions, the question of whether a candidate was directly or indirectly involved in the injustices of the Nazi dictatorship was apparently not raised. Even if one acknowledges that there were reasons for the Academy not to link the elections to a kind of second, belated denazification process, one must nevertheless make the critical observation that the Academy apparently saw no reason to fundamentally reflect on its own behavior in this matter and to state the reasons why it behaved as it did.

• Udo Wennemuth, Wissenschaftsorganisation und Wissenschaftsförderung in Baden. Die Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften 1909-1949 (Heidelberg 1994).
• Udo Wennemuth, “The Heidelberg Academy of Sciences and Humanities Third Reich,” in *Acta historica Leopoldina* No. 22 (1995), pp. 113–132.
• Volker Sellin (ed.), The Europe of Academies (Heidelberg 2010).
• Heidelberg Academy of Sciences and Humanities ed.), Members of the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences and Humanities Who Were Deprived of Their Rights and Expelled During the Third Reich Academy of Sciences and Humanities Heidelberg 2009).
• Volker Sellin and Sebastian Zwies (eds.), The Heidelberg Academy of Sciences and Humanities Reflected in Its Inaugural Addresses, 1944–2008 (Heidelberg, 2009), including a list of full members, 1909–2008.
• Volker Sellin, Eike Wolgast, and Sebastian Zwies (eds.), Research Projects of the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences and Humanities Heidelberg, 2009).
• Ditte Bandini and Ulrich Kronauer (eds.), *Fruits from the Tree of Knowledge: A Festschrift in Honor of the Research Associates* (Heidelberg, 2009).
• Herbert von Bose, “The Heidelberg Academy of Sciences and Humanities,” in Jörg Kreutz, Wilhelm Kreutz, and Hermann Wiegand (eds.), *In omnibus veritas: 250 Years Academy of Sciences and Humanities Electoral Palatinate Academy of Sciences and Humanities Mannheim (1763–1806)*, Mannheim 2014, pp. 221–231.
• Tonio Hölscher, “Athena as the Emblem of the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences and Humanities,” *Athena* 1-2021, 6–9.
• Uta Hüttig and Hans-Georg Kräusslich (eds.), The Heidelberg Academy of Sciences and Humanities Reflected in Its Inaugural Addresses, 2009–2023 (Heidelberg, 2024),including a list of full members from 2009 to 2023.
• Matthias Ohm, “The Medals of the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences and Humanities,” Athene 2-2024, pp. 35–37.
• Matthias Ohm, “Academia in Nummis: Medals of the Mannheim and Heidelberg Academy of Sciences and Humanities,” in: Numismatisches Nachrichtenblatt, Issue 11/2024, pp. 413–420.