The Harnack Principle And The Historical Investigation Of The Kaiser Wilhelm Society(1911-1933)

The predecessor of the Max Planck Society(MPS)in Germany was the Kaiser Wilhelm Society(KWS),which was a new entity research institution in the established German research system in the early 20th century.Concerning the KWS,the official introduction of MPS is that "in the short 30 years of its existence,15 researchers had won the Nobel Prize,which made Germany a leading scientific country in the first half of the 20th century." In view of the importance of the KWS to the development of modern science in Germany,its development history is not only a typical case of the history of scientific research institutions,but also an epitome of the history of German science and technology in the early 20th century,which has full research value.Moreover,due to its outstanding international reputation and wide appeal to scientists,the MPS is regarded as a model of successful scientific autonomous institutions.The success of the MPS was inherited from the construction concept of the KWS,"the Harnack Principle"--a guiding philosophy that ran through the creation and development of the Society.This Harnack Principle not only led the KWS to achieve great success and built it into a well-known institution in the international scientific community in a short time,but also was still the guiding principle of the MPS,which is called the "forging ground of Nobel Prize",and played an important role in the more than 100 years historical description of the KWS.For a long time,although scholars tried to fully explore the history of the KWS and achieved fruitful results on the research of Nazi period(1933-1945),there was no systematic study specifically on the Society history from 1911 to 1933.Based on the combing and analysis of first-hand archival materials and previous research literature,with the Harnack Principle as the main line,this dissertation systematically studied the development history of the KWS from the establishment to the Nazi regime in 1933.On the one hand,the dissertation traced and summarized the Harnack Principle,which had been indistinct but crucial to the Society development for more than 100 years;on the other hand,it studied the influence of the Harnack Principle on the Society development systematically to seek the arcanum of success under complex political and social phases.The dissertation is divided into 7 chapters,and the main parts are from Chapter 2 to Chapter 6.Taking the time as the axis,it conducts systematic study on the Society’s background,the establishment process,and the development in different phases.Chapter 1 is the foreword.Chapter 2 is the background introduction,which sorts and analyzes systematically on the rise of German science in the 19th century,the development of German science in the early 20th century,and the challenges,to answer the question that why special scientific research institutions should be established independent of universities and academies.Chapter 3 is the establishment of KWS,including the introduction of Harnack as the key founder and first president of the Society,the birth of the "Harnack Memorandum",the establishment of KWS,and the summary of the origin of the Harnak principles,to answer the question that how the KWS was established and what the Harnack Principle was.Chapters 4,5 and 6 correspond to the societies of the First World War,the Society of the early Weimar Republic,and the Society of the Golden 20th Generation.Through the analysis of the realization and deviation of the Harnack Principle in different periods,the dissertation explores the influence of the Harnack principle on the development of the Society,in order to answer "how the Harnack principle exerted influence on the development of the KWS".Chapter 7 is the conclusion.Certainly,the history of KWS did not end.After the Golden 20th Generation,the Society encountered the world financial crisis and the Nazi regime.Since then,the development of KWS took a completely different path,and the history of the KWS in this period had always been a hot topic in the western history circle.The relevant research results are numerous and not the focus of this dissertation.According to the study of this dissertation,the KWS during the period from 1911 to 1933,experienced the regime change,fatal financial crisis,international isolation,inflation,the Great Depression of the global economy,and the threat of Nazi totalitarianism owing to the first World War,,but all of them were resolved one by one.The elements of empire and industry,economy and politics,arms and war,ideology and science,played a part in the process.The KWS adopted proactive response strategies to look for ways of breaking the situation when faced with crises.Although there were occasional compromises,it had never given up to pursuit its autonomy and scientific research freedom.In turn,the autonomy and research freedom of scientists advocated by the Harnack Principle were the key to the success,and the success had further become the capital of the KWS to resist crises.Therefore,as a scientific research management idea,the Harnack Principle was not only the"trigger" for the establishment of the KWS,but also the "run-in device" among the government,funders and scientists in the development period,and also the "escort"for leading the success of the KWS.