History of the Leopoldina

City physician Johann Laurentius Bausch (1605-1665) becomes the Academy’s first President. Over the following years he is joined by members from other cities in Germany. They soon realize that in order to draft a proposed encyclopedia, they would have to gather existing knowledge and subject it to discussion. To this end, in 1670 Sachs Lewenhaimb, a physician in Breslau (Wrocław), initiates the world’s first journal of natural science and medicine, the Miscellanea Curiosa Medico-Physica Academiae Naturae Curiosorum, which is still in print today.

Soon after being established, the Academy starts to seek public recognition, which is achieved when Emperor Leopold I. grants the Academy official approval in August of 1677. Ten years later, Leopold awards the Academy special privileges, guaranteeing its independence from the various ruling dynasties in the region and providing complete freedom from censorship for all its publications. Ever since the Academy is called Sacri Romani Imperii Academia Caesareo-Leopoldina Naturae Curiosorum − or the Leopoldina for short. The emperors Charles VI. and Charles VII. confirm and extend the Academy’s privileges.

After the transfer of presidency from Johann Michael Fehr (II. President, 1666-1686) to Johann Georg von Volckamer (III. President, 1686-1693) the Leopoldina moves from Schweinfurt to a new location in the Free City of Nuremberg. There, a new library with a natural history collection is opened in 1731. Over the next two centuries the Academy moves several times as its statutes stipulate, that it must be located in the President’s place of residence. Between 1686 and 1878 the Leopoldina changes locations a total of 15 times.

The Leopoldina’s nomadic years are marked by political and social developments of the 18th and 19th century. For example, in 1686 the Academy leaves Schweinfurt after the Thirty Years’ War and is relocated in Halle during the period of industrialization in 1878. Personalities with excellent scientific, organizational and occasionally even diplomatic skills shape the Academy and help to establish its reputation. Lucas von Schroeck (IV. President, 1693-1730), Andreas Elias von Büchner (VI. President, 1735-1769) and Christian Gottfried Daniel Nees von Esenbeck (XI. President, 1818-1858) are particularly effective presidents of this era.

In the 18th century in particular, the Leopoldina opens up to members from outside the field of science. Ministers, government officials and clergy are welcomed into the Academy as patrons or advocates. In 1789, the year of the French Revolution, Princess Yekaterina Romanovna Vorontsova-Dashkova becomes the first female member. In the five decades between 1769 and 1818, the Leopoldina selects an average of seven new members per year. However, in 1818 alone, the first year of Nees von Esenbeck’s presidency, the Academy accepts 54 predominantly younger scienists.

In 1878 the Leopoldina moves with its President, Carl Hermann Knoblauch (XV. President, 1878-1895), to the Prussian university town of Halle (Saale). The Academy concentrates on producing valuable publications and makes its extraordinary collection of books accessible.

In 1879 the Academy library moves from Dresden to Halle and in 1904 an exceptionally modern and practical library building is erected.

The Leopoldina enjoys an excellent reputation during the presidency of mathematician Albert Wangerin (XVII. President, 1906-1921) and is invited to participate in important international events including the Linné celebrations in Uppsala and Stockholm in 1907 and the Darwin celebrations in Cambridge in 1909.

In 1921 another mathematician, August Gutzmer from Halle, becomes President (XVIII. President, 1921-1924). He leads the Academy through the difficult period of hyperinflation in Germany.

The era of National Socialism also leaves its mark on the Academy. Members and the leadership of the Academy alike yield to the Nazi regime. After the dictatorship is established in 1933, politics have an increasing influence on the Leopoldina. The relationship between the incumbent Leopoldina President Emil Abderhalden (XX. President, 1932-1950) and the Nazi leadership is rather contradictory and even displays a preemptive obedience at times.

Initially, the Academy tries to ensure that scientific excellence remains its primary concern when admitting new members. However, membership nominations soon have to be submitted to the Nazi authorities, who assess them according to their political vision of a “new Germany”. The lowest point in the previously independent Academy’s history comes when, induced by President Abderhalden, many Jewish scientists are deleted from the list of Leopoldina members. The deletions are carried out in pencil and cancelled after World War II.

From the beginning of the Second World War, the Academy’s development is impaired by the growing isolation of German scientists from their international colleagues. After the war’s end in April 1945, the city of Halle (Saale) is initially occupied by American troops. When the Allied powers rearrange the occupation zones in Germany, Halle (Saale) now falls within the Soviet zone. As a result, the US military administration evacuates many researchers from the university to the American zone beforehand, including some members of the Leopoldina.

Abderhalden is among them. After returning to Switzerland, he formally remains President of the Leopoldina until his death in 1950. Back in Halle (Saale), Vice President Otto Schlüter (XXI. President, 1952-1953) assumes responsibility for the Leopoldina. The outsourced archive and library collections are taken to the Soviet Union by the new occupying power. The ban on all associations severely limits the Academy’s scope of action and puts a halt to new members’ selection.

Otto Schlüter (XXI. President, 1952-1953) succeeds in preserving the independence of the Leopoldina as a supranational scientific community. He is able to prevent its impending integration into other organizations, for instance into the Cultural Alliance for the Democratic Renewal of Germany founded in 1945, or into the German Academy of Sciences in Berlin. In 1952, the year of the Leopoldina’s 300th anniversary, the East German government finally recognizes the organization’s independence and supports the celebrations. The Academy subsequently receives the necessary funding to continue its work.

In 1954 Kurt Mothes (XXII. President, 1954-1974), a plant biochemist and pharmacist from Halle, assumes the presidency. In 1955 the Academy begins holding annual assemblies on important interdisciplinary issues with all sections and members of the Academy invited to participate. They are supposed to be held alternately in Halle and Schweinfurt, but only once, in 1957, members actually assemble in Schweinfurt. With the Berlin Wall going up in 1961, the Academy’s birthplace is now located behind the „Iron Curtain“, out of reach for East German scientists due to travel restrictions.

Nevertheless, events organized by the Leopoldina provide East German scientists with opportunities to stay in touch with the international research community. President Mothes uses the annual assemblies to critically analyze academic and research policy developments in both the East and West. During moments of politically charged interaction with the party and state leadership in the GDR, Mothes threatens to move the Academy headquarters to West Germany.
     
Heinz Bethge (XVIII. President, 1974-1990) maintains his predecessor’s independent course until the dissolution of the GDR. He also uses his position as President of the Leopoldina to gain additional leeway. After the German Reunification in 1990, the Leopoldina is recognized as a valuable partner in reforming the East German scientific system and its reincorporation into the now reunified German science and research community. The Academy has maintained its autonomy and independence and receives the legal status of a non-profit organization in 1991.

These new challenges include reorganizing the Sections and the Senate and changing the election regulations, which significantly lowers the average age among members. A broader interdisciplinary perspective on the Academy’s range of fields is also needed, which still primarily include medicine and the natural sciences.

In February 2003 renowned scientist Volker ter Meulen from Würzburg becomes the Academy’s XXV. President (2003-2010). For the first time since 1878 a prominent external research personality assumes leadership of the Leopoldina. Under his presidency, the Leopoldina begins to collaborate intensively with international committees.

The scope of these international activities caused Annette Schavan, the former German Federal Minister of Education and Research, to propose to the Joint Science Conference of the federal and state governments, that the Leopoldina be appointed first German National Academy of Sciences. The proposal is passed in February 2008 and the Leopoldina is officially appointed the National Academy of Sciences during a ceremony the following July. Since then, the Leopoldina is under the patronage of the Federal President of Germany.