Population, Family, Individual: Towards a History of Human Genetic Knowledge in the Early Federal Republic of Germany, 1949-1965

该项目提出了在纳粹独裁和西方民主的十字路口的德意志联邦共和国人类遗传知识及其使用(生产、流通、接受)的综合历史。它侧重于行为者、秩序和人类遗传学(以前的种族生物学和优生学)的科学，同时也考虑到人类遗传知识的表示。在调查1945年后作为人类遗传学研究和咨询中心范畴的“人口”、“家庭”和“个人”的使用时，我们期待着制度和研究重组时期的延续和变化--从国家社会主义到民主，从种族科学到人类遗传学，从表型筛选到分子研究。我们的分析集中在联邦共和国的五位人类遗传学家及其各自的研究机构，他们都是在国家社会主义时期开始他们的职业生涯的：奥特马尔·弗莱赫尔(Münster)，Hans Nachtsheim(柏林)，Fritz Lenz(Göttingen)，Wolfang Lehmann(Kiel)和Karl Saller(München)。在第三帝国塑造和实施种族科学之后，他们都成功地在战后继续或重新开始了自己的职业生涯。在联邦德国，这些科学家从零开始建立各自的研究机构，直到20世纪50年代末/60年代初，并在1945年后帮助德国建立了人类遗传学。尽管有这些惊人的个人连续性，但历史研究从未调查过这些种族科学老手在这一关键转型时期使用的人类遗传学方法和途径。因此，我们问：是什么条件允许纳粹政权的前核心科学转变为被广泛接受和国际联系的人类遗传学领域？五个主要行为者使用了哪些方法，研究了哪些主题，处理了哪些研究问题，哪些国际网络重新启动或重新建立？这些人是如何定义“人类基因知识”的(与种族意识形态相比)的？他们是如何塑造他们的学科对社会和政治的态度的？借鉴菲利普·萨拉辛，我们建议以广泛的知识史方法分析人类遗传知识的参与者、顺序和表示。为了了解战后人类遗传学的广泛范围，我们将现代史、科学技术研究、历史认识论和科学史的方法论整合到我们的分析中。我们的主要来源包括五位主要主角及其研究机构的论文和(国际)通信、他们的研究出版物和公开讲座。

The project proposes an integrative history of human genetic knowledge and its use (production, circulation, reception) in the Federal Republic of Germany at the crossroads of the Nazi dictatorship and Western democracy. It focusses on actors, orders and the science of human genetics (formerly racial biology and eugenics) while also taking into account representations of human genetic knowledge. While investigating the use of the terms “population”, “family” and “individual” as central categories of human genetic research and counseling after 1945, we look for continuity and change in a period of institutional and research-based reorganization – the transformation from National Socialism to democracy, from race science to human genetics, from phenotypical screening to molecular research.Our analysis focuses on five human geneticists and their respective research institutes in the FRG who all started their careers in the period of National Socialism: Otmar Freiherr von Verschuer (Münster), Hans Nachtsheim (Berlin), Fritz Lenz (Göttingen), Wolfgang Lehmann (Kiel), and Karl Saller (München). After shaping and implementing race science in the Third Reich, all of them succeeded to continue or relaunch their careers after the war. In the FRG, these scientists built their respective research institutes from scratch until the late 1950s/early 1960s and helped to establish human genetics in Germany after 1945. Despite these striking personal continuities, no historical study has ever investigated the methods and approaches to human genetics used by these veterans of race science in this crucial period of transformation. We thus ask: Which were the conditions that allowed the former core science of the Nazi regime to morph into the widely accepted and internationally connected field of human genetics? Which methods were used by the five main actors, which topics researched and which research questions dealt with, which international networks reactivated or built anew? How did these men define „human genetic knowledge“ as such (compared to race ideology)? How did they shape their discipline’s approach towards society and politics? Drawing on Philip Sarasin, we propose to analyze actors, orderings and representations of human genetic knowledge in a broad history-of-knowledge-approach. To access the broad scope of post-war human genetics, we integrate methodologies of contemporary history, science and technology studies, historical epistemology and history of science into our analysis. Our main sources consist of the papers and (international) correspondences of the five main protagonists and their research institutes, their research publications and public lectures.