Researching and critically engaging with the past
For a historically informed culture of remembrance
Since the 1990s, the Max Planck Society (MPG) has critically reflected on and comprehensively reconstructed its long and diverse history in various research projects. Examining more than a century of scientific history – both of the MPG and its predecessor, the Kaiser Wilhelm Society (KWG) – is part of the organisation’s corporate culture, which embraces a historically informed culture of remembrance. Looking back shows that science has always taken place within social and political frameworks, to which researchers had to, and still must, respond. As a German research institution whose roots date back to 1911, the MPG sees itself as part of twentieth-century German history and regards this as a special responsibility.
For the Max Planck Society, historical research is the basis for a responsible approach to its historical heritage. In the mid-1990s, then-President Hubert Markl not only initiated this process, but also set the MPG on a new course in its culture of remembrance. At the heart of this culture lies a commitment to scientific truth.
Markl made it clear that the Max Planck Society must subject itself to the same high scientific standards when dealing with its past that it applies in its work as a research institution. This is reflected in his statement that ‘the most honest form of apology lies in the disclosure of guilt’, with which he apologised on behalf of the Max Planck Society to the surviving victims of medical and scientific experiments at the final symposium of the KWS research programme in 2001. The findings of the research projects form the basis for a historically informed culture of remembrance, which is cultivated through public history programmes and at various memorial sites. Looking to the past teaches us that the interests of scientific knowledge, political and social demands on research, social values and ethics sometimes come into conflict. We can learn lessons from this that we can apply to the present.
