Dear DMG members,
In the days when I am writing these lines, demonstrations and rallies against the resurgent right-wing extremism, which is being brought back into parliaments by the blue-tinted browns, are taking place in many large and small cities across Germany. Before I delve further into this, I would like to share some demographic data about our DMG with you, which, in my opinion, paints a rather optimistic picture for the future. I am referring to long-term developments here because I believe that not much can be gleaned from short-term fluctuations.
The development of DMG membership numbers since the founding of the Federal Republic can be roughly divided into two phases (Fig. 1): from the re-establishment of the society after the Second World War until shortly after German reunification, the number of members grew linearly (by about 35 per year). Since then, it has fluctuated around a value of approximately 1500 members.
For the future of the society, however, as I see it, not only the total numbers are relevant, but above all the age structure. Here, the DMG shows a healthy and sustainable distribution with an even and representative distribution across all age groups (Fig. 2 and 3). About half of the members are under fifty years old, and all decades of life have similar shares in the age distribution (Fig. 2). In this respect, the DMG represents a healthy mix of experience and youth.
From the histogram in Fig. 3, various things can also be inferred: the number of members aged 45 and older roughly follows the birth rates of those years (diminished by the natural life expectancy at high ages). The histogram also shows that we retain members even after they retire from active professional life, so the numbers in the higher age brackets decline slowly, rather than dropping off sharply at around the mid/late 60s.
Among the young members, there are pleasantly high numbers, who, despite the continued low birth rates, are even the most represented. This group includes the majority of students (Bachelor, Master, and PhD) who pay a reduced membership fee and, with a share of about 20% of the members, have approximately twice the proportion compared to the three other major societies organized in DVGeo. It is precisely this significant representation of young members that makes me optimistic about the future of the DMG.
At the last election, you chose Ina Alt (VU Amsterdam) from this junior group as the secretary and thus appointed her to the inner board. Additionally, the last general assembly in Vienna decided to elevate our junior group YoungMins to the status of a working group, so that they are represented in the extended board. I hope that the younger half of the DMG members feel encouraged by all these developments to take on more responsibility in the future and shape the future of the society. Especially in the process of strengthening DVGeo and uniting the German geoscientific societies, your voice is particularly important!
After so much optimism, now back to the present. Since the beginning of 2023, the DVGeo has been addressing the question of how the association should express itself on matters of political interest. For this purpose, a guideline was drafted, which is strongly oriented toward the Vienna Statements of the Austrian Academy of Sciences and the Leopoldina. The draft was also endorsed by the board and advisory board of the DMG. The DVGeo is a lobbying association, and one of its tasks is to engage with political actors. He does this very actively as well.
At its core, the discussed draft, as well as the Vienna Principles, is about how this exchange with politics and policy advice should look. There is a general consensus that good scientific advice consists of breaking down the current state of knowledge, including uncertainties, in a way that allows policymakers and the public to understand the respective consequences of the relevant decision. It is not the task of science itself to enforce a specific decision. A core statement in the draft of the DVGeo declaration states: "Science should inform politics as comprehensively as necessary." Legitimizing political action is not their task.
The DMG is a member of the DVGeo, but it is not a lobbying association, so it does not engage in political consulting. In (§1) of our statutes, it states: "The exclusive purpose of the DMG is to promote mineralogical science in all its fields in teaching and research, as well as the personal and scientific relationships of the members with each other." In this respect, one could argue that the board violates its mandate by making any statements on topics with political relevance, in disregard of the statutes. However, it is not that simple; firstly, we would make ourselves obsolete if we only addressed topics that play no role in society, and secondly, politics sets the framework within which mineralogy (and all other sciences) can develop and within which the personal and scientific relationships among members can thrive.
In an unprecedentedly extreme historical manner, this became apparent in the aftermath of the National Socialists' election to the German government 90 years ago. In addition to the widely known atrocities of the Nazis, they also very sustainably destroyed the German scientific system. They shattered it long before the start of their war of aggression and catapulted it from a globally respected and admired leader in the humanities and natural sciences to the brink of insignificance. This happened primarily thru the systematic discrimination against scientists who, according to the Nazis, should not be part of the community. Carl Bosch had tried to intervene directly with Hitler in 1933 and described the damage to science that the discrimination against Jewish scientists in Germany would cause. Hitler is said to have replied: "Then the Reich will just have to get by without physics and chemistry for the next hundred years!" For once, he was quite close to the truth.
The DMG also suffered significant damage due to the fascist dictatorship. The development of the membership numbers alone shows this very impressively. In the 1920s, the number of members had already risen to about 500 (Fig. 4), but the Third Reich and its war led to an almost complete cessation of DMG activities. The hesitant reconstruction began with a few dozen survivors, but above all without the mineralogists of Jewish descent who had shaped mineralogy in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It was not until the mid-1950s that the DMG regained the membership numbers from the 1920s. The scientific impulses for mineralogy in Germany in the second half of the twentieth century mostly came from the USA or from scientists who had spent at least a year or two at universities or research institutions in the USA.
The NS past of the DMG was unfortunately never properly addressed, although some former chairpersons and honorary members were known to be members of the NSDAP, had joined the party at different times, and had held various positions within the system. The board and advisory council of the DMG thoroughly discussed this lack of review at this year's meeting in Bad Honnef and decided to have the history of the DMG examined and processed with professional, external assistance. This process is to be conducted in an open-ended and scientifically grounded manner and will certainly take some time. The focus here should primarily be on the representatives of the DMG, such as the chairperson and possibly other board members, as well as the honorary members. Of equal interest are also DMG members who were discriminated against during the Nazi era based on Nazi doctrine.
The board and advisory board also thoroughly debated the current handling of honorary members and namesakes of awards. In this regard, there was consensus that there should be no premature condemnation of the individuals in question. Only after the availability of a professional, historical expert opinion can a well-founded discussion be held about how to handle the respective names and their honored memory. Until the completion of the report, however, the award named after Paul Ramdohr (Chairman 1936–1947; NSDAP member from 1941) shall be suspended, and instead, an equivalent DMG Nachwuchspreis shall be awarded. The board and advisory board unanimously and emphatically emphasize that this step in no way constitutes a prejudgment of Paul Ramdohr; it is merely intended to prevent the already initiated discussion about the NS past of the DMG from negatively affecting the name of the award or the honorees.
Certainly, fascist regimes have had and continue to have significantly worse impacts than just the destruction of science – but this is also one of the consequences of their despicable machinations; and this makes it a matter for scientific societies. Therefore, it is in the inherent interest of science to inform politics and the public as comprehensively as possible and to take a clear stance for democracy and against its alternative.
Today, in the year 2024, Hitler's intellectual heirs in the Reichstag are once again rambling about the deportation of dissenters and revealing the same contempt for the sciences as their brown predecessors. The rejection of findings on climate change, the planned interference in scientific freedom exemplified by gender research, and the denial of facts during the Covid-19 crisis are mentioned here as just a few examples. This also poses a realistic threat to mineralogy and to the scientists based in Germany, and thus concerns the core of our DMG. If the board were to remain silent on this issue, it would be neglecting its fundamental duties according to § 1 of the statutes.
Your
Horst Marschall
