A history of science, medicine, technology, and National Socialism, including the Holocaust and World War II.
Prof. Mark Walker
Office: Lippman Hall 216
Office hours: Tuesdays, 2:00-4:00, Wednesdays, 10:00-12:00, Thursdays, 2:00-4:00, and by appointment.
Email: walkerm@union.edu
Learning Outcomes
After taking this course, students should understand both how political ideology can affect science, medicine, and technology, and conversely, how science, medicine, and technology can play important roles in supporting and influencing these ideologies, as well as have improved their reading, writing, and discussion skills.
Reading
The reading assignments will be available as PDF files via Nexus and Perusall (within Nexus).
Perusall and Note-Taking
We will use the Perusall software for this course. Perusall is designed to help you master readings faster and understand the material better by collaboratively annotating the readings with other students in our class.
You can use Perusall to take notes.
Click New to start taking notes. You can create any number of notes. All of your work is saved automatically as you type.
You can combine your own notes with snippets from the document by highlighting the document with this panel open. (You can also open the same note from within another document to combine snippets from multiple documents into the same note.)
Click Open to continue working on a note you’ve already created, or to open a note that has been shared with you.
Click Share to share this note with another student or instructor in the course. When a note is shared, it can be viewed and edited by each person you share it with.
Notes you take here do not affect your grade, and are private to you unless shared with others.
When you read sources that are not required reading, you will need to take notes on these in a different way.
This is a class for which you will need to prepare by doing the assigned reading carefully before the class in which it is discussed. Please take notes as you read your sources, either in Perusall or otherwise.
Your deadline for annotating a reading in Perusall will be 11:59 pm the night before the class when the assignment will be discussed.
Our use of the Perusall software, just like every other aspect of this course, must be academically honest. For example, posting comments as your own that have been copied from the text or from external web site will be treated as every other type of academic misconduct and will, at a minimum, result in an overall Perusall score of zero for the term.
Attendance
I expect you to come to class. Each absence will detract from your final grade. Since our class will meet twenty times in the term, each absence will subtract 5% from your attendance grade. If you have a good reason to miss class, please let me know, if possible in advance, and I may take this into consideration.
Class Participation
I expect you to do the assigned reading and participate in the classroom discussion. I will use index cards to call on students by name but also invite voluntary comments and questions. At the end of each class I will ask you to answer a few questions from the reading and discussion in a blue book, and these answers will form part of your class participation grade. We will also begin each class by reviewing briefly the material from the previous class.
In-Class Presentations of the Assigned Reading
Beginning with the reading assignment for Thursday, September 19th, two or three students each class will be responsible for introducing the different reading assignments. You should be able to summarize what the reading says and what the authors argued, and should add what you found interesting or significant.
I have created a Google Doc form for the in-class presentation schedule, with blanks for signing up. A link to this document is available on Nexus. Please enter your name in the blank for the reading you want–the readings will be assigned on a first come, first serve basis–but do not erase or type over someone else’s name. Please also note that there are two sections, and I want you to sign up for a presentation in each section.
Please sign up for both your presentations before September 19.
Writing Assignments
There will be four essay assignments based upon the assigned reading. These are designed to make you think, and to learn through the process of writing the essay. I would like papers around five double-spaced pages long, but they may be longer. The calendar below includes when the paper topics will be due.
Along with writing style and grammar, your grade will depend on the quality of the essay topic you choose, and how good your argument is. The first three papers may be resubmitted and, if they are significantly improved, the grades will be raised. All assignments should be shared with me via Google Docs or sent to me as word processing files (not PDFs) via email. Please do not give me paper and ink copies. I will return all assignments with comments via Google Docs. All papers must be submitted in an acceptable quality to pass the course.
For each essay, I want you to use a certain minimum number of different readings (this is not the same as authors, I may include multiple readings from some authors in this course) and construct your own essay topic and argument. The first essay must use a minimum of five readings, while the remaining essays must use a minimum of seven readings. For the first three assignments, I expect you to use readings from the collection I have shared with you. This collection includes, but goes beyond the required reading. You may also use readings you have found yourself, but only if I have approved them ahead of time. You must provide me with the sources you have found before you submit the paper, so that I can approve them.
The final essay should use some readings from October 29th through November 7th. You may use other readings from the rest of the term, from the collection provided on Nexus, and sources you have found yourself, so long as I have approved them ahead of time. Along with the specific theme of your paper, please also address this question: What effect did National Socialism have on science, medicine, and technology?
Documentation of Sources
You will need to document the sources for your essay assignments using footnotes. We will use the Ref Works software through Shaffer Library for this course.
Please be sure that you understand when and where to use a footnote. It is important that you understand that footnotes and references in the text are not reserved for direct quotations. If you get significant information from a source, you have to cite it even if you do not take a direct quotation from it.
Presentation of Fourth Paper Topic
Your final paper will be accompanied by a ten minute presentation during the last week of the term of your fourth paper topic using Google Sites or PowerPoint/Keynote/Google Slides.
Grading
Attendance: 10%
Perusal: 10%
First paper: 10%
Second paper: 15%
Third paper: 15%
Fourth paper: 20%
Presentation of fourth paper topic: 5 %
Class participation: 15%
Cell Phones, Tablets, and Laptops
The use of phones is not allowed. All phones must be shut off before class begins. If you use phones during the class, then your final grade will be lowered. Tablets or laptops may only be used if I have given you permission to do so ahead of time. Please discuss this with me during my office hours.
Honor Code
Matriculation at the College is taken to signify implicit agreement with the Academic Honor Code. It is each student’s responsibility to ensure that submitted work is his or her own and does not involve any form of academic misconduct. Students are expected to ask their course instructors for clarification regarding, but not limited to, collaboration, citations, and plagiarism. Ignorance is not an excuse for breaching academic integrity.
Please go to the Union College statement on plagiarism for an explanation of what plagiarism is and how to avoid it.
Students are also required to affix the full Honor Code Affirmation, or the following shortened version, on each item of coursework submitted for grading: “I affirm that I have carried out my academic endeavors with full academic honesty.” [Signed, Jane Doe]
Disability
Students needing academic accommodations for a disability must first be registered with Disability Services to verify the disability and to establish eligibility for accommodations. Students may call 518-388-8785 or visit Disability Services to begin the process. Once registered, students should then schedule an appointment with me to make appropriate arrangements.
Calendar
Week 1: Thursday, September 12
Introduction
Week 1: Tuesday, September 17
Monika Renneberg and Mark Walker, “Scientists, Engineers, and National Socialism,” in Monika Renneberg and Mark Walker (eds.), Science, Technology, and National Socialism (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1993), 1-29, 339-346, here 1-17, 339-346.
Volker Roelcke, “Medicine during the Nazi Period: Historical Facts and Some Implications for Teaching Medical Ethics and Professionalism,” in Sheldon Rubenfeld (ed.), Medicine after the Holocaust: From the Master Race to the Human Genome and Beyond (New York: Palgrave Macmillian, 2010), 17-28.
Mark Walker, “‘Nazi Science? Natural Science in National Socialism,” in Uwe Hossfeld, Jürgen John, Oliver Lemuth, and Rüdiger Stutz (eds.), “Kämpferische Wissenschaft” : Studien zur Universität Jena im Nationalsozialismus (Cologne: Böhlau Verlag, 2003), 993-1012.
Mark Walker, “Twentieth-Century German Science Institutional Innovation and Adaptation,” in John Krige and Dominique Pestre (eds.), Science in the Twentieth Century (Amsterdam:Harwood, 1997), 795-819.
Week 2: Thursday, September 19
Kees Gispen, “National Socialism and the Technological Culture of the Weimar Republic,” Central European History, 25 (2001), 387-406.
M. Michael Thaler, “Medicine and the Rise and Fall of the Weimar Republic: Health Care, Professional Politics, and Social Reform,” German Politics & Society, 14/1 (1996), 74-79.
Paul Weindling, “The ‘Sonderweg’ of German Eugenics: Nationalism and Scientific Internationalism,” The British Journal for the History of Science, 22/ 3, Genetics, Eugenics and Evolution: A Special Issue in Commemoration of Bernard Norton (1945-1984) (1989), 321-333.
Week 2: Tuesday, September 24
Richard Beyler, “Maintaining Discipline in the Kaiser Wilhelm Society during the National Socialist Regime,” Minerva, 44/3 (2006), 251-266.
Reinhard Siegmund-Schultze, Mathematicians Fleeing Hitler from Nazi Germany: Individual Fates and Global Impact (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009), 59-89.
Reinhard Siegmund-Schultze, Mathematicians , 230-262.
Week 3: Thursday, September 26
Robert Proctor, “The Nazi Diet,” in The Nazi War on Cancer (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999), 120-153.
Robert Proctor, “The Campaign against Tobacco,” in Cancer, 173-206.
Week 3: Sunday, September 29
The first paper assignment drawn from the readings from September 17th through September 26th is due by 9:00 pm. You may use other readings from the collection provided. You may also use readings you have found yourself, but only if I have approved them ahead of time.
Week 3: Tuesday, October 1
John C. Guse, “Volksgemeinschaft Engineers: The Nazi ‘Voyages of Technology,’” Central European History, 44 (2011), 447–477.
Wolfgang König, “Adolf Hitler vs. Henry Ford: Volkswagen, the Role of America as a Model, and the Failure of a Nazi Consumer Society,” German Studies Review, 27/2 (2004), 249-268.
Hasso Spode, “Fordism, Mass Tourism and the Third Reich: The “Strength through Joy” Seaside Resort as an Index Fossil,” Journal of Social History, 38/1 (2004), 127-155.
Week 4: Thursday, October 3
Michael Gordin, Walter Grunden, Mark Walker, and Zuoyue Wang“‘Ideologically Correct’ Science,” in Mark Walker (ed.), Science and Ideology: A Comparative History (London: Routledge, 2003), 35-65.
Mark Walker, “Science and Ideology,” in Mark Walker (ed.), Science and Ideology: A Comparative History (London: Routledge, 2003, 1-16, here 1-11.
Week 4: Tuesday, October 8
Giesla Bock, “Nazi Sterilization and Reproductive Policies,” in Dieter Kuntz (ed.), Deadly Medicine: Creating the Master Race (Washington, D.C.: United States Holocaust Museum, 2004), 61-87.
Henry P. David, Jochen Fleischhacker, Charlotte Hohn, “Abortion and Ethics in Nazi Germany,” Population and Development Review, 14/1 (1988), 81-112.
Larry Thompson, “Lebensborn and the Eugenics Policy of the Reichsführer-SS,” Central European History, 4/1 (1971), 54-77.
Week 5: Thursday, October 10
Thomas Lekan, “Regionalism and the Politics of Landscape Preservation in the Third Reich,” Environmental History, 4/3 (1999), 384-404.
William H. Rollins, “Whose Landscape? Technology, Fascism, and Environmentalism on the National Socialist Autobahn,” Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 85/3 (1995), 494-520.
Week 5: Sunday, October 13
The second paper assignment drawn from the readings from October 1st through October 10th is due by 9:00 pm. You may use other readings from the collection provided. You may also use readings you have found yourself, but only if I have approved them ahead of time.
Week 5: Tuesday, October 15
Harry Oosterhuis, “Medicine, Male Bonding and Homosexuality in Nazi Germany,” Journal of Contemporary History, 32/2 (1997), 187-205.
Patricia Szobar, “Telling Sexual Stories in the Nazi Courts of Law: Race Defilement in Germany, 1933 to 1945,” Journal of the History of Sexuality, 11/1-2, Special Issue: Sexuality and German Fascism (2002), 131-163.
Annette F. Timm, “Sex with a Purpose: Prostitution, Venereal Disease, and Militarized Masculinity in the Third Reich,” Journal of the History of Sexuality, 11/1-2, Special Issue: Sexuality and German Fascism (2002), 223-255
Week 6: Thursday, October 17
Michael Burleigh, “Between Enthusiasm, Compliance, and Protest: The Churches, Eugenics and the Nazi ‘Euthanasia’ Program,” Contemporary European History, 3/3 (1994), 253-263.
Michael Burleigh, Nazi ’Euthanasia’ Programs,” in in Dieter Kuntz (ed.), Deadly Medicine: Creating the Master Race (Washington, D.C.: United States Holocaust Museum, 2004), 126-153.
Björn Felder, “‘Euthanasia,’ Human Experiments, and Psychiatry in Nazi-Occupied Lithuania, 1941-1944,” Holocaust and Genocide Studies, 27/2 (2013), 242-275.
Week 6: Tuesday, October 22
Hermione Giffard, “Engines of Desperation: Jet Engines, Production and New Weapons in the Third Reich,” Journal of Contemporary History, 48/4, (2013), 821–844.
Michael Neufeld, “Hitler, the V-2, and the Battle for Priority, 1939-1943,” The Journal of Military History, 57/3 (1993), 511-538.
Michael Neufeld, “Wernher von Braun, the SS, and Concentration Camp Labor: Questions of Moral, Political, and Criminal Responsibility,” German Studies Review, 25/1 (2002), 57-78.
Week 7: Thursday, October 24
Wolfgang U. Eckart and Hana Vondra, “Disregard for Human Life. Hypothermia Experiments in the Dachau Concentration Camp,” in Wolfgang U. Eckart (ed.), Man, Medicine, and the State: The Human Body as an Object of Government Sponsored Medical Research in the 20th Century (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2006), 157-166.
Sabine Hildebrandt, “Stages of Transgression: Anatomical Research in National Socialism,” in Sheldon Rubenfeld and Susan Benedict (eds.), Human Subjects Research after the Holocaust (Cham: Springer, 2014), 67-85.
Astrid Ley, “Children as Victims of Medical Experiments in Concentration Camps,” in Paul Weindling (ed.), From Clinic to Concentration Camp: Reassessing Nazi Medical and Racial Research, 1933-1945 (Milton Park: Routledge, 2017), 209-220.
Volker Roelcke, “Sulfonamide Experiments on Prisoners in Nazi Concentration Camps: Coherent Scientific Rationality Combined with Complete Disregard of Humanity,” in Sheldon Rubenfeld and Susan Benedict (eds.), Human Subjects Research after the Holocaust (Cham: Springer, 2014), 51-66.
Week 7: Sunday, October 27
The third paper assignment drawn from the readings from October 15th through October 24th is due by 9:00 pm. You may use other readings from the collection provided. You may also use readings you have found yourself, but only if I have approved them ahead of time.
Week 7: Tuesday, October 29
Christopher R. Browning, “Nazi Resettlement Policy and the Search for a Solution to the Jewish Question, 1939-1941,” German Studies Review, 9/3 (1986), 497-519.
Susanne Heim, “Expansion Policy and the Role of Agricultural Research in Nazi Germany,” Minerva, 44/3 (2006), 267-284.
Wendy Lower, “A New Ordering of Space and Race: Nazi Colonial Dreams in Zhytomyr, Ukraine, 1941-1944,” German Studies Review, 25/2 (2002), 227-254.
Week 8: Thursday, October 31
Michael Thad Allen, “The Banality of Evil Reconsidered: SS Mid-Level Managers of Extermination through Work,” Central European History, 30/2 (1997), 253-294, here 260-294.
Thomas Pegelow, “Determining ‘People of German Blood’, ‘Jews’ and ‘Mischlinge’: The Reich Kinship Office and the Competing Discourses and Powers of Nazism, 1941-1943,” Contemporary European History, 15/1 (2006), 43-65.
Week 8: Tuesday, November 5
Gerhard Rammer, “Allied Control of Physics and the Collegial Self-Determination of the Physicists,” in Helmuth Trischler and Mark Walker (eds.), Physics and Politics: Research and Research Support in Twentieth Century Germany in International Perspective (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2010), 61-84.
Carola Sachse, “‘Whitewash Culture’: How the Kaiser Wilhelm/Max Planck Society Dealt with the Nazi Past,” in Susanne Heim, Carola Sachse, and Mark Walker (eds.), The Kaiser Wilhelm Society under National Socialism (Cambridge: Cambridge U. Press, 2009), 373-399.
Michael Schüring, “Expulsion, Compensation, and the Legacy of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society,” Minerva, 44/3 (2006), 307-324.
Week 9: Thursday, November 7
Susan Bachrach, “Deadly Medicine,” The Public Historian, 29/3 (2007), 19–32.
Dieter Hoffmann and Mark Walker, “Friedrich Möglich: A Scientist’s Journey from Fascism to Communism,” in Mark Walker (ed.), Science and Ideology: A Comparative History (London: Routledge, 2003), 227-260.
Volker Roelcke, “Confronting Medicine during the Nazi Period: Autobiographical Reflections,” in Sheldon Rubenfeld and Susan Benedict (eds.), Human Subjects Research after the Holocaust (Cham: Springer, 2014), 255-268.
Week 9-10: Thursday, November 7 through Thursday, November 14
Individual Meetings about Fourth Paper Topic. See Nexus for the signup sheet. The fourth paper assignment should use some readings from October 29th through November 7th. You may use other readings from the rest of the term, from the collection provided on Nexus, and sources you have found yourself, so long as I have approved them ahead of time.
Week 9: Tuesday, November 12
Presentations on fourth paper topic.
Week 10: Thursday, November 14
Presentations on fourth paper topic.
Week 10: Tuesday, November 19
Presentations on fourth paper topic.
Exam Period: Friday, November 22
Deadline for submitting to me PDF copies of the sources (journal articles or book chapters) that you have found and want to use in your fourth assignment.
End of Term: Tuesday, November 26
The fourth paper assignment and the resubmission of all other papers are due by 9:00 pm.