On a Lecture Trip to Spain: the Scientific Relations Between Germany and Spain During the Entente Boycott (1919–1926)

Summary

The aim of this paper is to analyse the scientific relations between Germany and Spain during the Entente Boycott (1919–1926) and the German academic policy that fostered it. The study of the international relations of German science during the 1920s has been carried out using as a basis the archives of scientific institutions. Personal initiatives by individual scientists to establish relations have therefore not been taken into account. The relations between the scientific communities of Germany and Spain during the 1920s indicate the importance of such personal relationships and from their transcendence at a political level. They also offer an example of how political strategies could dictate the politics of academic recognition. This paper is based on the analysis of sources found at the Foreign Office Archives in Berlin. It gives us a clear idea about the role of scientific relationships between the two countries in shaping their scientific policies.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Aitor Anduaga, Clare Cullen, Lindy Divarci, Dieter Hoffmann, Leoncio López-Ocón, Helmut Maier, Antoni Malet, Jürgen Renn, Skúli Sigurdsson, and Annette Vogt for their comments and support. I take full responsibility for any possible mistakes. This paper is part of the project ‘Science, Policy and Society: Germany in the International Context of the Late nineteenth century and of the twentieth century’ sponsored by the German Research Foundation (DFG).

Notes

¹Brigitte Schröder-Gudehus, Deutsche Wissenschaft und internationale Zusammenarbeit, 1914–1928 (Genf: Dumaret & Golay, 1966); Eckart Henning, ‘Auslandsbeziehungen der Kaiser-Wilhelm/Max-Planck-Gesellschaft im Überblick (1911–1998)’, Dahlemer Archivgespräche, 5 (1999), 95–118, and the literature referenced there.

²PAAA, R 64979, German Embasy in Spain. Madrid, 7 July 1921, ‘Boycott of German Science’.

³Henning (note 1), 96f.

⁴F. Glum, ‘Die Auslandsbeziehungen der Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gesellschaft zur Förderung der Wissenschaften’, Forderungen u. Fortschritte, 7 (1931), 315–16.

⁵Karl Kerkhof, Der Krieg gegen die deutsche Wissenschaft. Eine Zusammenstellung von Kongressberichten und Zeitungsmeldungen (Wittenberg, 1922), 32.

⁶G. Steinhausen, ‘Der wirtschaftliche Umschwung Deutschlands um die Mitte des 19. Jahrhunderts’, in Karl Remme (Ed.), Deutschland: Lesebuch für studierende Ausländer zur Einführung in die Kenntnis Deutschlands und seines geistigen Lebens (Berlin, ³1929), 157–61.

⁷Fritz Haber, ‘Die deutsche Chemie in den letzten 10 Jahren’, in Karl Remme (note 6), 166–71 (167).

⁸On the German research model, see the contributions in Rainer Chr. Schwinges (Ed.), Humboldt international: der Export des deutschen Universitätsmodells im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert (Basel, 2001).

⁹R. Schaier, ‘Ausländische Studenten an deutschen Hochschulen’, in Michael Doeberl, et al. (Eds.), Das akademische Deutschland (Berlin, 1930), 523–42 (529).

¹⁰Schaier (note 9), 524, 530.

¹¹Volkhard Laitenberger, Akademischer Austausch und auswärtige Kulturpolitik. Der Deutsche Akademische Austauschdients (DAAD) 1923–1945 (Frankfurt, 1976), 17.

¹²F. Montero, ‘La Restauración’, in Angel Martínez de Velasco Farinós et al., Siglo XIX (Madrid: historia 16, 1990) 307–503 (491); Robert Wohl, The Generation of 1914 (Cambridge, MA, 1979), ch. 4.

¹³Enrique Menéndez Ureña, ‘La Institución Libre de Enseñanza y Alemania’, in Jaime de Salas, Dietrich Briesemeister (eds.), Las influencias de las culturas académicas alemana y española desde 1898 hasta 1936 (Frankfurt a.M., 2000), 61–73.

¹⁴José Ortega y Gasset, Obras completas, vol. 1, 1902–1915 (Madrid, 2004), 186.

¹⁵Pedro Carasa, ‘La Restauración Monárquica’, in Angel Bahamonde (ed.), Historia de España. Siglo XX, 1875–1939 (Madrid, 2000).

¹⁶José Castillejo, ‘Neuzeitliche Bildungsbestrebungen in Spanien’, Minerva-Zeitschrift, 4 (1928), 201.

¹⁷Francisco A. Icaza, La Universidad Alemana: su idea, su funcion, su objeto y sus relaciones con la cultura general. (Madrid, 1915), 118ff.

¹⁸Friedrich Paulsen, Geschichte des Gelehrten Unterrichts auf den deutschen Schulen und Universitäten von Ausgang des Mittelalters bis zur Gegenwart (Leipzig: Veilt, 1885; English version 1908).

¹⁹Francisco Giner de los Ríos, Pedagogia Universitaria. Problemas y noticias (Barcelona, 1925, orig. 1910), 63.

²⁰Enrique Menéndez Ureña, K.C.F. Krause: Philosoph, Freimauer, Welbürger. Eine Biographie (Stuttgart, 1991), 14, 292.

²¹Klaus-Michael Kodalle (ed.), Karl Christian Friedrich Krause (1781—1832). Studien zu seiner Philosophie und zum Krausismo (Hamburg, 1985).

²²José Manuel Sánchez Ron, ‘La Junta de Ampliación de Estudios e Investigaciones Científicas ochenta años después’, in José Manuel Sánchez Ron (co-ed.), 1907–1987. La Junta de Ampliación de Estudios e Investigaciones Científicas ochenta años después. (Madrid, 1989), 1–62 (10).

²³Giner de los Ríos (note 19), 63f.

²⁴Sánchez Ron (note 22), 3ff.

²⁵Giner de los Ríos (note 19), 64.

²⁶Also in 1907, the autonomous government of Catalonia created the Institut d'Estudis Catalans (Catalan Studies Institute, IEC in the Catalan acronym) in Barcelona, which, like the JAE, was equipped with research centres outside the university; Albert Balcells, Història de l'Institut d'Estudis Catalans (Barcelona, 2002).

²⁷Carasa (note 15), 234. In comparison, at the time, the agricultural activity in Germany was twenty-seven per cent; see Deutschland in Zahlen (³1929), 198.

²⁸Whalter L. Bernecker, Spanische Geschichte. Von der Reconquista bis heute (Darmstadt, 2002), 135.

²⁹Sánchez Ron (note 22), 9f.

³⁰Margarita Sáenz de la Calzada, La Residencia de Estudiantes: 1910–1936 (Madrid, 1986).

³¹G. Moldenhauer, ‘Spanien’, in Michael Doeberl, et al. (Ed.), Das akademische Deutschland (Berlin, 1930), 97–102 (100).

³²José Carlos Mainér, La Edad de Plata (1902–1939) (Madrid, 1983).

³³PAAA, R 12011, Report ‘Guidelines for our Propaganda in Spain (Richtlinien unserer Propaganda in Spanien)’, 15 November 1919.

³⁴PAAA, R 12011 (note 33).

³⁵Moldenhauer (note 31).

³⁶ Süddeutsche Monatshefte (1919), 162.

³⁷PAAA, R 64720, German General Consulate for Spain, Barcelona, 11 July 1923: ‘In general, trips made by German scientists were as a result of personal invitation (…) Only in very few exceptional cases did scientists travel to Spain with the support of public or private (German) finances’.

³⁸PAAA, R 12011, Report ‘Guidelines for our Propaganda in Spain’, 15 November 1919; PAAA, R 64850, Reichsminister of the Interior to the Reichminister of Economic Affairs, 10 June 1920: ‘ (…) the reawakening of scientific relations particulary in Spain have a special significance (…) not only to the field of science, but has much broader political and cultural implications’.

³⁹PAAA, R 64720, Conference at the Institut d′Orientació Professional, 4 October 1921.

⁴⁰Daniel Hameline, ‘Edouard Claparède (1873–1940)’, in Perspectives: revue trimestrielle d’éducation comparée, 23: 1–2 (1993), 161–73. On the conference, see ‘II Conferencia de Psicotécnica’, in Ibérica, 15 October, 16:397 (1921), 212–13.

⁴¹Walther Moede was the author of the 20 volumes of the Industrielle Psychotechnik (1924–1944).

⁴²Otto Lipman was the author of Grundriss der Arbeitswissenschaft (1926).

⁴³PAAA, R 64720, Conference at the Institut d′Orientació Professional, 4 October 1921.

⁴⁴PAAA, R 64720, German General Consulate, Barcelona, 9 June 1922, ‘Vortragsreisen deutscher Gelehrter nach Spanien’; PAAA, R 64720, German General Consulate for Spain, Barcelona, 11 July 1923.

⁴⁵PAAA, R 64720, German General Consulate, Barcelona, 9 June 1922, ‘Vortragsreisen deutscher Gelehrter nach Spanien’.

⁴⁶PAAA, R 64720, German General Consulate, Barcelona, 21 August 1922.

⁴⁷PAAA, R 65467, ‘Deutsche Stifftung Barcelona 1922’. Letter from the Consul in Barcelona, 23 February 1922; PAAA, R 64850, 29 February 1920.

⁴⁸Walther Killy, Rudolf Vierhaus (Ed.), Deutsche Biographische Enzyklopädie. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft (1998), vol. 7, 113. Meyer-Lübke (1861–1936) was the author of many works on the Romance languages such as Einführung in das Studium der romanischen Sprachwissenschaften (1920); Das Katalanische (1925), and the etymol ogical dictionary in 13 parts Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch (1911–20).

⁴⁹PAAA, R 64720, 14 Februar 1922. Letter from Meyer-Lübke.

⁵⁰ Jahrbuch des Vereins für das Deutschtum im Auslande (1922), 58; Die Weltkultur, vol. 8 (1926), 6; Kölnische Volkszeitung, 718, 28 September 1926; PAAA, R 64720, German General Consulate, Barcelona, 9 June 1922, ‘Vortragsreisen deutscher Gelehrter nach Spanien’.

⁵¹PAAA, R 64720; German General Consulate, Barcelona, 7 April 1922, K.Nr. 64, Anschluß an den Bericht K.Nr. 63 vom 3 April 1922.

⁵³PAAA, R 64720, German General Consulate, Barcelona, 7 April 1922, K.Nr. 64, Anschluß an den Bericht K.Nr. 63 vom 3 April 1922.

⁵²PAAA, R 64720, German General Consulate, Barcelona, 7 April 1922; Barcelona, 11 Juli 1923.

⁵⁴PAAA, R 64720, Anschluß an den Bericht K.Nr. 63 vom 3 April 1922.

⁵⁵PAAA, R 64720, 27 January 1922, Report by Erich Lexer to the German Foreign Office.

⁵⁶PAAA, R 64720, 28 April 1922, German Embassy in Spain, Madrid, Note to the Foreign Secretary.

⁵⁷PAAA, R 64720, 2 March 1923, to the Geheim Legationsrat Dr. Soehring Berlin from Foreign Offices.

⁵⁹PAAA, Madrid 501, Files Albert Einstein.

⁵⁸For the role of German medicine in Weimar foreign politics, see W.U. Eckart ‘Medizin und auswärtige Kulturpolitik der Republik von Weimar—Deutschland und die Sowjetunion 1920–1932’, in Medizin in Geschichte und Gesellschaft, 11 (1993), 105–42 (108).

⁶⁰C. Fernández Ruiz, ‘En el centenario del nacimiento del Profesor Don Sebastián Recasens (1863–1933)’, in Toko-ginecología práctica, 22 (1963), 214–18.

⁶¹PAAA, R 64720, Note from 29 December 1921.

⁶²Due to the high number of German academic visits to Spain, the lectures referenced here is just a small sample.

⁶³PAAA, R 64720, Note from the German Consulate of Barcelona, Barcelona, 23 March 1922.

⁶⁵ Archivos de Medicina, Cirugía y Especialidades. Organo oficial de la Academia Médico-Quirúrgica Española, 11:13, 30 June 1923, I–III.

⁶⁴PAAA, Madrid 499.

⁶⁶PAAA, R 64983.

⁶⁷PAAA, R 64720, Carl von Noorden, 4 Januar 1923, to the Ministry of Education; PAAA, R 64720, Notgemeinschaft der Deutschen Wissenchaft, 1 March 1923.

⁶⁸ Investigación y Progreso, April–May (1940), 2.

⁶⁹PAAA, R 64720, Note from the German General Consul in Barcelona, 23 March 1922; German Embasy in Spain, Madrid, 24 May 1922, J. Nr. 2000/22.

⁷⁰ La Medicina Ibera, 190, 26 June 1921; El Sol, ‘Los profesores extranjeros en España’, 14 April 1922; H. Sacabejos, ‘Médicos, Medicina y Prensa médica del extranjero en España. Innovación y humillación’, in Los Progresos de la Clínia, 121 (1922), xix–xxi.

⁷¹Sacabejos (note 70).

⁷² El Imparcial, 23 July 1922.

⁷³PAAA, R 64981, Dr. Carl Uhlig to the Ministerialdirektor, 4 February 1925.

⁷⁴PAAA, R 64720, 25 August 1922 ‘Auslaendischen Mediziner in Spanien’. There was also the sale of laboratory equipment, which demonstrated the importance of being present in the Spanish market (PAAA, R 64720, R. Zsigmondy, Göttingen ‘Bericht über meine Reise nach Spanien’, 23 November 1922). For other examples of criticism of German behaviour see PAAA, Madrid 499; PAAA, R 64720, Dr. Carl von Noorden, 4 February 1923).

⁷⁵ Los Progresos de la Clínica, 121 (1922) (note 70).

⁷⁶PAAA, R 64720, Madrid, 10 May 1922, J. Nr. 1892/22.

⁷⁷During this research it was possible to identify by name 75 scientists who visited Spain in the years considered here (PAAA R 12004; R 12013; R 12015; R 12018; R 64479–80; R 64720–21; R 64827; R 64849–50; R 64972; R 64979; R 64981–83; R 65519; R 71938–41). The name of another 38 German scientists appear in Georg Schreiber's, Spanien und Deutschland: Ihre kulturpolitischen Beziehungen“, in Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Kulturgeschichte Spaniens, edited by H. Finke (Münster, 1928), 1–92 (34–36).

⁷⁸PAAA, R 64720, German General Consulate, Barcelona, 9 June 1922, ‘Vortragsreisen deutscher Gelehrter nach Spanien’.

⁷⁹PAAA, R 64720, Abschrift a.d. Akten K. u.W. 569 Spanien VIB 950 Ang. I, Berlin, 29 August 1923; Der Auslanddeutsche, VII (1917), 408; Germania, 473, 11 October 1927.

⁸⁰In this strategy the Germans were more concerned with personal than institutional treatment; PAAA, R 64720, Freiburg, 8 September 1922.

⁸¹PAAA, R 64720, Notification 5 July 1922 (Hamburg); R. 64972, Press release from Deutsche Allg. Zeitung, 20 July 1921, ‘Spanische Mediziner in Berlin’.

⁸²PAAA, R 64827, Note 19 June 1925 ‘Aufzeichnung’.

⁸³PAAA, R 64827, Berlin, 6 June 1924, Note from Archaeologisches Institut des Deutschen Reiches to the German Embassy in Madrid.

⁸⁴PAAA, R 64720, Madrid, 5 December 1921, ‘Auszeichnung spanischer Ärzte’; PAAA, Madrid 500, note from 20 July 1926; PAAA, R 64850, German Consulate Representative, Granada, 3 December 1921.

⁸⁵PAAA, R 64720, German Embasy in Spain, Madrid, 2 June 1923, ‘Ehrung fuer Dr. Recasens’; PAAA, R 64827, The Director of the University Women's Clinic, Berlin, 7 July 1924: ‘Professor Recasens has been nominated as an honorary member of both the Berlin Medical Society as well as the Berlin Society for Birth Support and Gynaecology. The faculty rejected my proposal for an honorary Doctorate. I pointed out that in English universities an honorary doctorate for political reasons was not difficult and often bestowed. I however found no positive resonance to this’.

⁸⁶PAAA, R 64720, Note from Dr. Carl von Noorden, 4 January 1923, to Ministry for Education (Unterrichtsministerium); PAAA, R 64721, German General Consulate for Spain to the Foreign Office Berlin, Barcelona 25 April 1924.

⁸⁷Educated according to the German model, José María Torroja (1884–1954) stood out for his pedagogical work more than for his research; R. Vieira, M.J. Sevilla, ‘Docencia e investigación en la vida del Prof. D. José María Torroja. Homenaje al Excmo. Sr. D. José María Torroja Menéndez’, Real Academia de Ciencias Exactas, Físicas y Naturales Madrid (1996), 13–20.

⁸⁸PAAA, R 64827, Note from 19 June 1925 ‘Aufzeichnung’.

⁸⁹PAAA, R 64827, 30 October 1926, ‘Aufzeichung’.

⁹⁰PAAA, Madrid 500, Consulting report, 10 August 1925.

⁹¹PAAA, R 64827, 19 November 1926.

⁹²PAAA, R 64850, Note 1924.

⁹³PAAA, R 64479, German Embasy in Spain, 1 February 1926. Other Honoris Causa Doctors were Domingo de Orueta (Uni. Jena 1925); Adolfo Bonilla (Uni. Rostock 1923; Uni. Würzburg 1924); Ramón Menendez Pidal (Univ. Tübingen 1923); Josep Puig i Cadafalch (Univ. Freiburg 1923; Univ. Heidelberg 1924); Antonio Rubió i Lluch (Uni. Hamburg 1921), Domingo de Orueta (Univ. Jena 1925), and Hugo Obermaier (Univ. Friburgo/Brisgovia 1926); PAAA, R 64850, Note 1924, the German consul in Barcelona to the Foreign Office in Berlin; PAAA, Madrid 500; PAAA, R 64479; El Sol, 20 October 1925.

⁹⁵Deutsches Museum, NL 89, box 004. I thank Michael Schüring for pointing out this source.

⁹⁴José Manuel Sánchez Ron, Antoni Roca-Rossell, ‘Spain's First School of Physics: Blas Cabrera's Laboratorio de Investigaciones Físicas’, Osiris, 8 (1993), 127–55.

⁹⁶Georg Schreiber, ‘Spanien und Deutschland: Ihre kulturpolitischen Beziehungen’, in Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Kulturgeschichte Spaniens, edited by H. Finke (Münster, 1928), 1–92, 42. The guests’ political suitability was an issue that originated multiple debates (PAAA, R 64720, Berlin W 8, 12 May 1923; Berlin W. 8. 31 May 1923).

⁹⁷Spanish presence in the most important scientific disciplines at the time played no role in German scientific debate. An analysis of the most important German scientific journals of the time dedicated to physics and mathematics showed that in the period 1918–1930, only a limited number of articles written by Spanish scientists appeared. Only the physicians Blas Cabrera and Miguel Catalán and the biologists E. del Campo and José M. de Corral had published in German journals. The magazines taken into consideration were Zeitschrift für angewandte Mathematik und Mechanik (1921–1930); Mathematische Annalen (1920–1928); Mathematische Zeitschrift (1918–1923); Zeitschrift für Physik (1920–1936); Zeitschrift für Biologie (1909–1922); and Annalen der Physik (1910–1930).

⁹⁸PAAA, R 64720, ‘Aufzeichnug’, October 1922. At the beginning the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Berlin agreed to invite Ramón y Cajal, though its members first wanted to consult Spanish professors; PAAA, R 64720, Medizinische Fakultät der Freidrich Willhelms Universität, Berlin, 18 September 1922.

⁹⁹PAAA, R 64827, 27 October 1916. Telegram from the German ambassador in Madrid.

¹⁰⁰PAAA, R 64720, zu VI B 12382.

¹⁰¹According to the German ambassador in Madrid, Cajal was thought to have both leftist tendencies and relations with the Free Masons. Both facts could have prevented the invitation (PAAA, 64720, 31 July 1922).

¹⁰²PAAA, R 64720, ‘Aufzeichnung’, Ref. V. Leg. R. Soehring z. gefl. Mitz, October 1922. For Cajal's influence on German medicine, see Hugo Spatz, ‘Zum 70. Geburtstage von S. Ramón y Cajal’, Münchener Medizinische Wochenschrift, 9 April 1922, 635–37.

¹⁰³PAAA, R 64720, Telegram from the Embassy of Madrid, 26 July 1922.

¹⁰⁴Since the 1920s, Cajal no longer participated in any scientific exchange outside Madrid. I thank Paloma Calle for making me aware of this point. This possibility was considered by the Germans (PAAA R 64720, 7 March 1923). In the archives of the Humboldt University of Berlin, no reference is made to the presence of Cajal at the Universit y. I thank Winfried Schultze for confirming this.

¹⁰⁵ La Voz, 17 January 1923. The recruitment of German scientists by the Spanish authorities would take place more visibly in the 1940/50s.; Albert Presas i Puig, ‘Nota histórica: una conferencia de José María Albareda ante las autoridades académicas alemanas’, Arbor, 631–32 (1998), 343–57.

¹⁰⁷ La Prensa, 7 May 1924.

¹⁰⁶PAAA, R 64850.

¹⁰⁸PAAA, Madrid 503, 3 June 1924, ‘Der Völkerbund und der Plan einer internationalen Universität’.