Resumen de "German Science" in Portugal, 1933-45

Fernando Clara, Orlando Grossegesse, Cláudia Ninhos

• The period in analysis raises several crucial questions which revolve mainly around the Science-Society-State triad. This particularity calls for an historical analysis that takes as its cornerstones the relations between:

  ‘Science, Culture, State (Nation) and Society’, ‘Science and Nationalism’ or ‘Science and Propaganda’.

  The National-Socialist State takes advantage of Science, in an ideological and propagandistic manner and brings new nuances into the institutional relationship between Science, Society and State that had, at least since the end of the 18th century, appeared quite steady and balanced.

  Science in National-Socialist Germany –and the term ‘Science’ should here be understood in the broadest sense of ‘Wissenschaft’, including both ‘Naturwissenschaften’ and ‘Geisteswissenschaften’– has been the object of several studies. These have been mostly developed within a German historiographic framework and consequently, mainly concerned with demystifying internal structures and problematics. They therefore paid less attention to the circulation (and influence) of ‘German science’ outside Germany.

  This paper will try to bring into focus the circulation of Science and Techonology between Portugal and Germany of that period, thus tentatively providing a wide and general picture of the persons and institutions involved in a complex –social, scientific, political– network of influence.