3.5 Hermann Staudinger Between Two World Wars
and Two Women
Hermann Staudinger’s attitude towards Germany was visibly different during the
First and Second World Wars. During her time in Basel, I had the good fortune to
talk several times to his daughter, Mrs. Ruegg, about the “two lives” of her father.
Before and during the First World War, Hermann Staudinger taught chemistry at
the ETH-Zu ¨rich. In those days, he was married to Mina Mathilde (nee ´ Fo ¨rster) and
they had four children. Mina Staudinger was a socio-politically oriented personality.
She stood rigorously on her husband’s side in his active conflicts with the German
Generality, his letters against the war, and his struggle with Fritz Haber: “Science
directed and disturbed by two world wars” [7, pp. 1067 and 1069].
In 1926 Hermann Staudinger – divorced in the meantime – went to the University
of Freiburg. This was in the very short period of the first German Democracy.
Nevertheless, it was in no way a “non-political” transition. But, what happened
when at the very beginning of the “Third Reich” (1933) the Nazi dictatorship
immediately Aryanized the universities and then “generously” supported each
branch of science that accepted its racism and war plans? And what happened
when in these days the famous German philosopher Martin Heidegger (existential
philosophy), a mystical Nazi opportunist and “Fu ¨hrungsrektor” at the University of
Freiburg, planned to kick Hermann Staudinger out of office? Did the importance of
rubber technology and polymer technology for the war plans of Hitler and his
generals, or the diplomatic contacts of his second wife Magda Staudinger (nee ´
Woit), save him? She was a highly cultivated personality, daughter of the Ambassador of Lithuania in Germany, Ph.D. in Biology and pretty patriotic [7, therein ref.
65, pp. 1066 and 1075].
Hermann Staudinger was no friend of the Nazi regime, but he was not an
opponent either. His attitude in the Third Reich was for the sake of his research
and to retain his research group. Thus, to be able to travel to conferences abroad, he
made offers to the university management to represent German science abroad,
to defend his “German macromolecules”. If Hermann Staudinger had held to his
pacifistic stance during the First World War to only the slightest extent [7, p. 1070],
he would have lost office and could not have continued to work in the polymer field.
He might even have been forced to leave the country like Hans Krebs [17, 20].
What do we nowadays really know about the inhumanity of such political
pressures? Can we imagine the intensity of such strict political control and the
lack of personal freedom? A profound tragedy and entanglement of science and
humanity in the conflicting field of society and politics.
14
H. Ringsdorf
and Two Women
Hermann Staudinger’s attitude towards Germany was visibly different during the
First and Second World Wars. During her time in Basel, I had the good fortune to
talk several times to his daughter, Mrs. Ruegg, about the “two lives” of her father.
Before and during the First World War, Hermann Staudinger taught chemistry at
the ETH-Zu ¨rich. In those days, he was married to Mina Mathilde (nee ´ Fo ¨rster) and
they had four children. Mina Staudinger was a socio-politically oriented personality.
She stood rigorously on her husband’s side in his active conflicts with the German
Generality, his letters against the war, and his struggle with Fritz Haber: “Science
directed and disturbed by two world wars” [7, pp. 1067 and 1069].
In 1926 Hermann Staudinger – divorced in the meantime – went to the University
of Freiburg. This was in the very short period of the first German Democracy.
Nevertheless, it was in no way a “non-political” transition. But, what happened
when at the very beginning of the “Third Reich” (1933) the Nazi dictatorship
immediately Aryanized the universities and then “generously” supported each
branch of science that accepted its racism and war plans? And what happened
when in these days the famous German philosopher Martin Heidegger (existential
philosophy), a mystical Nazi opportunist and “Fu ¨hrungsrektor” at the University of
Freiburg, planned to kick Hermann Staudinger out of office? Did the importance of
rubber technology and polymer technology for the war plans of Hitler and his
generals, or the diplomatic contacts of his second wife Magda Staudinger (nee ´
Woit), save him? She was a highly cultivated personality, daughter of the Ambassador of Lithuania in Germany, Ph.D. in Biology and pretty patriotic [7, therein ref.
65, pp. 1066 and 1075].
Hermann Staudinger was no friend of the Nazi regime, but he was not an
opponent either. His attitude in the Third Reich was for the sake of his research
and to retain his research group. Thus, to be able to travel to conferences abroad, he
made offers to the university management to represent German science abroad,
to defend his “German macromolecules”. If Hermann Staudinger had held to his
pacifistic stance during the First World War to only the slightest extent [7, p. 1070],
he would have lost office and could not have continued to work in the polymer field.
He might even have been forced to leave the country like Hans Krebs [17, 20].
What do we nowadays really know about the inhumanity of such political
pressures? Can we imagine the intensity of such strict political control and the
lack of personal freedom? A profound tragedy and entanglement of science and
humanity in the conflicting field of society and politics.
14
H. Ringsdorf