Hamburg Institute for Social Research: Closure of the HIS: After Reemtsma the flood

Anyone who remembers the 1990s will also remember the “Wehrmacht exhibition,” which recently made the Wehrmacht’s violent deeds in Eastern Europe clear to the German population as a whole. It was only 50 years after the German attack on the Soviet Union and a few years after its collapse that it was evident in 34 cities that National Socialist Germany had waged a war of annihilation in the East. This commemorative milestone was planned and carried out by the Hamburg Institute for Social Research (HIS), owned by Jan Philipp Reemtsma, the heir to the cigarette manufacturer who was active in the highest National Socialist circles and who had made a gigantic fortune using forced labor. Reemtsma quite rightly did not want “the clarification that he called for in the face of Nazi crimes to be reduced to this, as if it were only about the motive of personal reparation” (“Frankfurter Rundschau”).

So far, so important and sensible. Jump to the present: In the 40th year of the HIS’s existence, Jan Philipp Reemtsma recently declared that it would be closed in 2028. He would then like to retire – and the self-determination over the agenda of the HIS guaranteed by him could be taken over by “another institution or one of This “control committee” appointed cannot be received under any circumstances. The “Spiegel” reports the socially critical heir of millions with the statement (which sounds vaguely offended) that it was not his intention to “found any social science institute under the direction or supervision of any other research institution.” Apparently Reemtsma simply cannot imagine that there are other people who want to pursue critical science seriously and with integrity. In this autocratic attitude, the personal dimension to which Reemtsma rightly did not want the work of his institute to be reduced, ultimately becomes decisive. Perhaps a Flinta* person would have been conceivable here, perhaps even with a sharper view of the present than a 65-year-old white upper middle class person?

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According to the “FAZ”, the funding from Reemtsma gives the institute “independence from the rapid cycles of publicly financed project research”. But what can independence mean in relation to a research institution that an individual can control as if it were his or her own private property? The institute has no financial dependencies, writes the “Frankfurter Rundschau”. But the projects and scientists funded are completely dependent on Reemtsma.

In addition to the egomania of an important German man, the matter also shows the plight of science in Germany: researchers have the choice between third-party funding or patronage. Almost sounds like rain or eaves.

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