Florian

 

Schmaltz

Wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter

since 01/2023 Research associate at  ZZF Potsdam in Dep.II: Knowledge – Economy – Politics

Florian Schmaltz was project leader of the Research Program History of the Max Planck Society at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin (2014 - 2022) and co-chair of the Historical Commission "History of the Medical Faculty of the ‘Reichsuniverstität Straßburg’" (2016 - 2022). After studying history, literature, philosophy at the University of Hamburg and the FU Berlin, he was working in the research program of the Presidential Commission "History of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society under National Socialism" (2000-2004) and was awarded a doctorate at the University of Bremen with his dissertation Kampfstoff-Forschung im Nationalsozialismus. Zur Kooperation von Kaiser-Wilhelm-Instituten, Militär und Industrie (Chemical Weapons Research in National Socialism. On the Cooperation of Kaiser Wilhelm Institutes, Military and Industry). Subsequently, he was a research associate at the Historical Seminar of the Goethe University Frankfurt (2004-2009), scholar in residence at the Research Institute of the Deutsche Museum (2010), research assistant at the University of Regensburg (2011) and research scholar at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science since 2013. His research focuses on the historical epistemology of scientific institutions, their research practices, working methods, structures, and results, as well as their interconnections with economy, society, politics, and culture. One research focus is the study of the interrelationships and interdependencies between science, the military, and industry. Other topics of his research include the history of chemical weapons research, the I.G. Farbenindustrie under National Socialism and the concentration camp at Auschwitz-Monowitz, criminal human experimentation, and the history of aviation research in the 20th century. In addition to the history of the Max Planck Society, he is currently engaged in work on the history of institutions, focusing on research on fluid mechanics at the Aerodynamische Versuchsanstalt in Göttingen and its outposts in the occupied territories under the rule of the Nazi regime during World War II.