Second Annual Meeting of the Interuniversity PhD Program in History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences
The Politics of Embryology: Johannes Holtfreter’s Flight from Nazi Germany
Lecture by
Prof. Michael R. Dietrich
Chair:
Prof. Oren Harman
Lecturer: Prof. Michael R. Dietrich
Second Annual Meeting of the Interuniversity PhD Program in History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences
As a graduate student with Hans Spemann in Germany and later as a young research biologist in the 1920s and 1930s, Johannes Holtfreter helped build a revolutionary research tradition in experimental embryology. Although his relationship with Spemann had never been particularly good, the rise of National Socialism fueled Holtfreter’s criticism of Spemann, his work, and his approach. Beginning in the early 1930s, Holtfreter understood Spemann’s position on some features of embryology to be expressions of nationalism and authoritarianism. Holtfreter’s departure from Nazi Germany in 1939 and his subsequent experiences as a refugee scholar solidified his convictions and led him to argue against Spemann’s “organismic” approach to experimental embryology. In its place, Holtfreter offered a mechanistic understanding of fundamental embryonic processes such as gastrulation. In Holtfreter’s case, the politics of gastrulation motivated his turn to more reductionist and mechanistic explanations of embryological phenomena.