Nazis and Science
Printed From: History Community ~ All Empires
Category: General History
Forum Name: Science through the Ages
Forum Discription: Discuss science and its effects on the world…
URL: http://www.allempires.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=19858
Printed Date: 24-Apr-2024 at 10:37
Software Version: Web Wiz Forums 9.56a - http://www.webwizforums.com
Topic: Nazis and Science
Posted By: Guests
Subject: Nazis and Science
Date Posted: 20-May-2007 at 10:59
|
Hi all,
I was wondering whether someone could enlighten me on the reasons why the nazis were so advanced scientifically.
Thanks!
 |
Replies:
Posted By: Zagros
Date Posted: 20-May-2007 at 11:06
|
I think you'll have to be more specific. ------------- |
Posted By: ulrich von hutten
Date Posted: 20-May-2007 at 11:07
|
Pease clarify, what do mean with advanced scientifically ?
Do you mean all this pathological science ?
The industrialization of killing ? The subjects of torturing and destroying?
Do you mean the experiments of maniacal medics and their supportors?
Or what doyou mean ?
------------- 
http://imageshack.us"> 
|
Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: 20-May-2007 at 11:09
|
Germans were advanced in science since long time before Nazis arrived. Nothing to do with nazism. If anything, the arrival of the Nazis made many scientists to leave Germany, Einstein between them.
Particularly in rocket technology, physics and chemestry, they were at the top of the world. However, germans were not at the top in computing, radar, control and electronics.
Pinguin
|
Posted By: red clay
Date Posted: 20-May-2007 at 14:28
|
Do you mean before or after they found the secret alien base in the Antarctic? ------------- "Arguing with someone who hates you or your ideas, is like playing chess with a pigeon. No matter what move you make, your opponent will walk all over the board and scramble the pieces". Unknown. |
Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: 20-May-2007 at 14:52
Remember Werner Von Braun was a nazi 
|
Posted By: Paul
Date Posted: 20-May-2007 at 15:46
|
John Wayne was a Nazi.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfQsXrhF2X4 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfQsXrhF2X4
------------- Light blue touch paper and stand well back http://www.maquahuitl.co.uk - http://www.maquahuitl.co.uk http://www.toltecitztli.co.uk - http://www.toltecitztli.co.uk |
Posted By: elenos
Date Posted: 12-Jul-2007 at 23:03
|
Hitler believed in the hollow earth theory! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollow_Earth ------------- elenos |
Posted By: Constantine XI
Date Posted: 13-Jul-2007 at 01:35
|
Germany already had some very advanced industry, their grasp of
engineering and chemical development had always been outstanding and
had allowed them to participate in WWI as well as they did.
------------- |
Posted By: edgewaters
Date Posted: 20-Jul-2007 at 15:46
|
The scientific advancements under the Nazis were not really as great as is often claimed.
German advancements were great in rocketry, but the advancements of the Western allies played a much bigger role in the foundations of postwar technology - including computers, atomic power, radar, and so on. Jet engines were first developed by the Nazis, but there were parallel developments in the West - the British developed a jet fighter during the war called the Gloster Meteor. Although the Me 262 was technically in operation before the Meteor, the Meteor actually saw action prior to the Me 262, in July 1944 (first action involving the Me 262 was in August 1944). |
Posted By: Cywr
Date Posted: 20-Jul-2007 at 17:45
|
Arguably the Nazis took the most scientificly advanced society on the planet at the time, and raped and stunted it in a manner that took a few decades to fix.
-------------  Arrrgh!!"
|
Posted By: Beylerbeyi
Date Posted: 20-Jul-2007 at 18:40
|
Most of the examples you give for the scientific achievements of the nazis are in fact technological achievements. Nazi science was crap. ------------- |
Posted By: elenos
Date Posted: 20-Jul-2007 at 22:26
|
i have never heard that the Nazis, as a political group, did make any scientific advances and can in no way associate any development of any sort of thinking with them, except totalitarianism. What they did was to destroy the scientific standing of Germany in the International community that had previously been held for hundreds of years. In the 18th century most scientific papers were in German as the default language. German intellectuals fleeing the Nazi regime were a dime a dozen for years before the war began. Those remaining got sucked into the Nazi system they were never quite comfortable with. ------------- elenos |
Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: 21-Jul-2007 at 01:05
|
Werner Von Braun was a Nazi. He designed the vehicle that ship man to the moon. |
Posted By: King John
Date Posted: 21-Jul-2007 at 10:01
The only problem with this statement is that inorder to be technologically advanced you need to be scientifically advanced. For instance the advent of the Jet is a technological invention but this technology could not come about with out the mastery of the physics of Jet perpulsion. Technology is born of science, Beylerbeyl. |
Posted By: edgewaters
Date Posted: 21-Jul-2007 at 20:04
Well there's an argument to both sides here. The Nazis certainly didn't advance physics very much, they simply inheirited an understanding of physics and managed not to lose any of it. But Nazism was not so hands-off in other fields of science and in fact caused great damage in certain fields by polluting the science with ideology; biology is a prime example. Biology textbooks from the time are full of absurd fallacies and sprinkled with quotes from Mein Kampf: http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/textbk01.htm - http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/textbk01.htm |
Posted By: Beylerbeyi
Date Posted: 22-Jul-2007 at 08:19
As others wrote, Germany BEFORE the nazi regime was scientifically advanced. That was the base their technological achievements were built on. When nazis came to power, they removed left-wing and jewish academics from their positions, and replaced them with lunatics in many cases. You mentioned physics, so you surely know that the nazis had their doctrine of 'Arian Physics' led by famous physicists Lenard and Stark. They tried to undermine the 'Jewish Physics' of Einstein and others, but needless to say, failed miserably. There is a famous anecdote about these efforts, some journalists old Einstein; 'There is a book in Germany called "100 physicists against Einstein", what do you think about it?' He replied 'If I was wrong, one would have been enough'. When the nazis failed to disprove relativity, they started to claim that it was invented by an arian in the first place (Lorentz). Among other scientific successes of nazi Germany was a project on sending researchers above the arctic circle in order to prove the theory that the earth was a hollow sphere...
There is only one side in this argument and it is mine. Nazi science was crap. ESPECIALLY physics. They also DID manage to lose a lot of the previous understanding. Only advances in science by the nazis were in the field of medicine. AFAIK, they were the first to establish the link between smoking and cancer. In some cases the advances in medicine were due to human testing in concentration camps, and we can surely do without that kind of scientific advancement. ------------- |
Posted By: Aster Thrax Eupator
Date Posted: 23-Jul-2007 at 12:32
They invented the motorway, the supersonic rocket, the first jet fighter, the assault rifle and discovered the link between smoking and cancer. That's not bad at all...
Yes, that was a major obsticle - they removed many famous equations and theorems that were researched by "untermenchen" from the university faculties and school sylabii. They tried to employ Aryan scientists to construct alternate theories which were rubbish. Education minister Bernhard Rust tried to remove such theories from the educational system.
...yes, they were stupid, but they did do some pretty impressive scientific advancements.
------------- |
Posted By: Beylerbeyi
Date Posted: 23-Jul-2007 at 12:48
Technology, not science. Maybe not even technology (I don't know the state of civil engineering at the time) but just an economic idea.
Technology, not science.
Technology, not science. And can be disputed.
Technology, not science. And can be disputed.
This is indeed science.
If you want to compare the scientific achievements of Nazi thousand year Reich (which lasted 12 years), why not compare them to achievements of Weimar Republic (lasted 14 years)? And see for yourself how well they did? ------------- |
Posted By: Aster Thrax Eupator
Date Posted: 23-Jul-2007 at 15:21
|
Yes, but perlimary science went into discovering those technologies. Technology is ultimatley the product of science and scientific research goes into that technology. ------------- |
Posted By: Beylerbeyi
Date Posted: 23-Jul-2007 at 16:43
Yes. But that preliminary science was developed before the nazis came to power. ------------- |
Posted By: gcle2003
Date Posted: 24-Jul-2007 at 09:33
As Beylerbeyi pointed out, with the exception of possibly the latter, that's all technology not science. None of the scientific effort the technology was based on was Nazi. And, most importantly, it was all simply dedicated to warfare.
The only reason the Nazis developed all of these things (including autobahns) is because they were pouring effort and what money they had into rearmament. When other countries were forced into rearmament too, they very swiftly overcame the German lead, except possibly with long-distance rockets, which, in WW2, were a futile waste of time and money anyway.
------------- |
Posted By: konstantinius
Date Posted: 04-Aug-2007 at 16:31
|
The advances of german science and technology are inextricably tied to slave labor and the suffering of thousands of human beings. Germany would not have been able to wage war at all without IG Farben, the huge chemical conglomerate that developed synthetic gasoline and rubber for tires. By 1938 IG Farben had become thoroughly Nazified replacing its head, Carl Bosch who had attempted to retain Jewish scientists in their positions, with the unscrupulous yet brilliant businessman Hermann Schmitz. When the war started wherever the Wehrmact went, IG followed plundering the resources of all the occupied countries from Russia to France. Along the political Third Reich, a chemical Third Reich was set up with its capital at Monowitz (also known as Auschwitz III or "IG Auschwitz"), just outside the Auschwitz complexes. There, approximately 30,000 laborers were worked to death the ones unable to work any longer (verbraucht was the German term, literally "used up") being conveniently shipped for termination to nearby Birkenau (Auschwitz II). The gas by which most of them died, Zyklon B, was a patent of IG Farben and was manufactured in Hamburg by German Company for Pest Control (Degesch for short) 42.5 % of which was owned by IG. Monowitz was IG's property but was set up according to Nazi standards: barbed wire surrounded the vast complex, special cells were constructed that did not allow a human being to either sit, lay down, kneel, or stand up and the row of 45 gallows was seldom empty; the only difference was that instead of SS uniforms, one would see mostly men in white lab coats and civilian German employees. After the war 24 IG Farben execs were put on trial including Hermann Schmitz, Georg von Schnitzler, and Carl Krauch, chairman of IG's supervisory board. Krauch had once recommended to his officials when they complained of labor shortage at IG's plant at Heydebreck that "...Heydebreck must establish a large concentration camp as quickly as possible following the example of Auschwitz. " By the time the trial opened in 1947 the new realities of the Cold War and West's need for an articulate Germany as a barrier to Red expansion in Europe won over moral issues and very light sentences were imposed, Schnitzler receiving five years and Krauch six regardless of the fact that he was found guilty of slavery and mass murder at the trial. IG Farben broke up into its former conglomerates Hoechst, Bayer, and BASF. Former IG execs found employment in the new companies as in the case of Friedrich Jaehne (convicted at Nuremberg of plunder and sentenced to 1 1/2 years in prison) who was elected president of Hoechst's supervisory board in 1955. In 1956 Fritz ter Meer, convicted in Nuremberg for slavery and mass murder and sentenced to seven years, was elected chairman of Bayer. Von braun worked for the US missile program and Claus Barbie, the "butcher of Lyons" found employment with the US counter-intelligence services. The list is unfortunately rather long. Totalitarian regimes with no regards for human rights are proven havens for scientific research and 'progress". Please keep that in mind when you're discussing Germany's technological "miracle" in WW II. Most of the information was derived from Adam Le Bor and Roger Boyes' "Seduced by Hitler: The Choices of a Nation and the Ethics of Survival" Barnes and Noble NY, NY 2000. ------------- " I do disagree with what you say but I'll defend to my death your right to do so." |