People

Florian Schmaltz

Visiting Scholar (Jul 2015-Dec 2023)

Dr.

Florian Schmaltz was the Research Program Coordinator of the Research Program History of the Max Planck Society (Forschungsprogramm Geschichte der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft). The program investigated the history of the Max Planck Society based on primary research and its scientific historical contexts. It encompassed the history of the Society as such as well as its individual institutions including, for example, their academic programs and working methods, structures and results, successes and failures, as well as their links to economy, society, politics and culture.

In his research Florian Schmaltz focuses on the historical epistemology of scientific institutions. He investigates the history of the relations between science, the military, and industry.

Besides the history of the Max Planck Society his current work is committed to an institutional study focusing on research in fluid dynamics at the Aerodynamic Research Establishment (Aerodynamische Versuchsanstalt - AVA) in Göttingen and its predecessor organizations (1907–1950). His research topics have included the history of chemical warfare research, the IG Farben trust in the Nazi era, its factory and concentration camp at Auschwitz, criminal human experimentation in German concentration camps and the history of aeronautical research in the 20th century.

He received his MA at the Free University of Berlin in 2000 and subsequently worked as doctoral candidate in the research program of the Presidential Commission of the Max Planck Society on the "History of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society in National Socialism" (2000–2004). He received his doctor' degree at the University of Bremen in 2004. His dissertation was entitled: Kampfstoff-Forschung im Nationalsozialismus. Zur Kooperation von Kaiser-Wilhelm-Instituten, Militär und Industrie (Chemical Warfare Research in National Socialism: The Cooperation of Kaiser Wilhelm Institutes, Military and Industry). Subsequently, he was a research fellow in the History of Science Working Group at the Historical Department of the Goethe University Frankfurt (2004–2009), Scholar in Residence at the Research Institute of the Deutsches Museum in Munich (2010) and Research Assistant at the University Regensburg (2011).

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Projects

Fluid Mechanics in Times of War: Research Practices Interacting Politics, Industry, and the Military

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Selected Publications

Renn, Jürgen, Carsten Reinhardt, Jürgen Kocka, Florian Schmaltz, Birgit Kolboske, Jaromír Balcar, and Alexander von Schwerin, eds. (2024). Die Max-Planck-Gesellschaft: Wissenschafts- und Zeitgeschichte 1945–2005. Studien zur Geschichte der Max…

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Brandt, Christina, Anna Klassen, Gregor Lax, Jürgen Renn, Carola Sachse, Martina Schlünder, Florian Schmaltz, Juliane Scholz, Alexander von Schwerin, and Thomas Turnbull (2024). “Politische und ethische Herausforderungen der Forschung.” In Die Max…

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Kraft, Alison, Jürgen Renn, Florian Schmaltz, and Juliane Scholz (2024). “Selbstverständnis, Selbstdarstellung und Vergangenheitspolitik.” In Die Max-Planck-Gesellschaft: Wissenschafts- und Zeitgeschichte 1945–2005, ed. J. Renn, C. Reinhardt, J…

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Kocka, Jürgen, Carsten Reinhardt, Jürgen Renn, and Florian Schmaltz (2024). “Einleitung.” In Die Max-Planck-Gesellschaft: Wissenschafts- und Zeitgeschichte 1945–2005, ed. J. Renn, C. Reinhardt, J. Kocka, F. Schmaltz, B. Kolboske, J. Balcar, and A…

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Presentations, Talk and Teaching Acitivities

Max Planck Society's Nazi past as a political challence: Legal conflicts surrounding Scientology's Instrumentalization of the Kaiser-Wilhelm Society against the Max-Planck Society

European Society for the History Science (ESHS), Brussels

ESHS Brussels Website
Windkanäle, Überschall-Aerodynamik und Krieg: Das Fallbeispiel der Aerodynamischen Versuchsanstalt Göttingen bis zum Ende des Zweiten Weltkrieges

Workshop: Windkanäle. Wissen, Politik und Ästhetik bewegter Luft. Campus Leuphana, Lüneburg

 

Mobilization of Ressources for Aeronautical Reserach of Nazi Germany. The Outpost of the Aerodynamic Experimental Station at Prague, 1940–1945

Workshop: Science, Occupation, War: 1939–1945, National Technical Museum Prague

Die Akademie der Luftfahrtforschung 1936 bis 1945: Ludwig Prandtl und die nationalsozialistische Muster-Akademie Hermann Görings

Öffentliche Ringvorlesung: Forschung im "Zeitalter der Extreme", Georg-August-Universität Göttingen

Ressourcenmobilisierung. Wissenschaftspolitik und Forschungspraxis im NS-Herrschaftssystem

Topographie des Terrors Auditorium, Berlin

Using Research Findings from the Nazi Era

Medical Ethics in the 70 Years after the Nuremberg Code, 1947 to the Present

The French Case (in cooperation with Christian Bonah, University of Strasbourg, France)

Medical Ethics in the 70 Years after the Nuremberg Code, 1947 to the Present

Aeronautical Research in France during Nazi Occupation (1940-44)

Institut des sciences de la communication du CNRS (ISCC), Paris

Das Konzentrationslager Auschwitz-Monowitz. Sklavenarbeit für den I.G. Farbenkonzern. Vortrag am Tag des Gedenkens an die Opfer des Nationalsozialismus

Universität Bremen

The Research Program History of the Max Planck Society 1948 - 2002 - Scope and Perspectives

Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin

Forschungsprogramm Geschichte der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft: Auftakt und Perspektiven

Forum am Mittag - Max-Planck-Gesellschaft Generalverwaltung

Standort Auschwitz: Die IG Farbenindustrie und ihr Konzentrationslager Monowitz

Ausstellungseröffnung: Die IG Farben und das Konzentrationslager Monowitz - Celler Synagoge, Im Kreise 24

Die Deutsche Akademie der Luftfahrtforschung 1936-1945: Hermann Görings nationalsozialistische Muster-Akademie?

Workshop Wissenschaftsgeschichte und Nationalsozialismus. Stand und perspektiven der Forschung / Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen

Luftfahrtforschung und Ressourcenmobilisierung in den besetzten Gebieten

Wissenschaftspolitik, Forschungspraxis und Ressourcenmobilisierung im NS-Herrschaftssystem - Zentrum für Zeithistorische Forschung (Potsdam) und Max-Planck-Institut für Wissenschaftsgeschichte

with Jürgen Renn: Institutions and knowledge systems: theoretical perspectives

Institutionalisation of Sciences in Early Modern Europe / Max Planck Institute for the History of Science

with Christian Bonah: From Nuremberg to Helsinki: The Prosecution of “Medical” War Crimes at the Struthof Medical Trials, France 1952-1954

Research Within Bounds Protecting Human Participants in Modern Medicine and the Declaration of Helsinki, 1964-2014. International Symposium, Brocher Foundation, Geneva

Aeronautical Research in Nazi Germany. Expanding towards Big Science

BiCoDa conference: “The States’ Stakes in Science” July 10-12, 2013, ZiF, Bielefeld

with Prof. Dr. Christian Bonah: The Struthof Trials in France

Oxford - Wadham College - Reassessing Nazi Human Experiments and Coerced Research, 1933-1945: New Findings, Interpretations and Problems

Militärische Forschung in der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft? Rüstungskonversion und Dual-Use-Problematik im „Kalten Krieg“

Jahrestagung der Deutschen Gesellschaft für die Geschichte der Medizin, Naturwissenschaften und Technik, Jena

with Prof. Dr. Christian Bonah: Nazi Medical War Crimes on Trial. The Military Trail against Otto Bickenbach and Eugen Haagen in Metz an Lyon

University of Strasbourg

Militaerische Forschung in der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft? Ruestungskonversion und Dual-use Problematik

Max Planck Institute for the History of Science - Berlin: Symposium: Die Max-Planck-Gesellschaft zwischen Wissenschafts- und Zeitgeschichte

Fluid Mechanics in Goettingen: Hybrid Research in Military, Political and Industrial Contexts

Tel Aviv University - Cohen Institute - Minerva Center

Luftfahrtforschung unter nationalsozialistischer Besatzung im Zweiten Weltkrieg zwischen Kollaboration und Widerstand

Bergische Universitaet Wuppertal

Luftfahrtforschung unter der NS-Okkupation in West- und Osteuropa: Ressourcenmobilisierung und Wissenstransfer

Ruhr University Bochum

Aeronautical Research under Nazi Occupation in France (1940-1944)

Centre Alexandre Koyre Paris - EHESS

Justiz und NS-Verbrechen. Quellenbestaende und -editionen seit 1945

NS Dokumentationszentrum Muenchen

Aerodynamic Research in Western und Eastern Europe during World War II under the Conditions of Nazi Occupation

Deutsches Museum, Munich

Chemical Warfare Research at the Reichsuniversitaet Strassburg and in the Concentration Camp Natzweiler 1943-44. The Human Experiments of Otto Bickenbach in the Context of Science and War

University Muenster

Military Research in National Socialism

Martin Luther University Halle / Heinrich Boell Foundation

The Director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physical Chemistry Peter Adolf Thiessen and Chemical Warfare Rsearch in the Nazi Regime

Fritz Haber Institute of the Max Planck Society

Aerodynamics and Flutter Research at the Nationaal Luchtvaartlaboratorium (NLL) in Amsterdam under Nazi Occupation (1940-1944)

Mathematical Resarch Institute Oberwolfach

Aerodynamic Research in France under German Occupation 1940-1944

DFG-Schwerpunktprogramm 1143 / Harnack House Berlin

Seminar: Vergangenheitspolitik in der Kontroverse zwischen Staat, politischen Akteuren und Wissenschaft. Der Umgang mit dem politischen und wissenschaftlichen Erbe der Medizinverbrechen im Kontext der Kaiser-Wilhelm Gesellschaft

Technische Universität Berlin

Seminar: Science in National Socialism

University Regensburg

Seminar: Historical Empistemology - Kuhn, Fleck, Canguihelm, Bachelard

University Regensburg

with Prof. Dr. Christoph Meinel: Post-Graduate Research Colloquium

University Regensburg

I.G. Farbenindustrie Between Science Business, Politics and War

Goethe University Frankfurt

with Prof. Dr. Moritz Epple: Graduate: Science in Industrial and Military Contexts: Historical Studies and Theoretical Concepts

Goethe University Frankfurt

Science in National Socialism

Goethe University Frankfurt

with Dr. Claus Zittel: Positions in History and Theory of Science: Ludwik Fleck and Thomas S. Kuhn

Goethe University Frankfurt