Abstract

From 1888–1907 Friedrich Schmidt‐Ott was Althoffs closest collaborator in the Prussian ministry for cultural affairs. It was he whom Althoff let participate in all his endeavours to give German science and scholarship a heading position in the world. After Althoff's death he and Harnack developed further and realized his plans for the foundation of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society – today the Max Planck Society. Schmidt‐Ott had recognized already very early that – after the breakdown in 1918 – Germany would have to mobilize her scientific potential to the utmost. In the completely changed political environment it was his idea to transfer important functions to self‐responsibility and self‐government and hereby keeping them away from the influence of political parties. Following his suggestion, all academic institutions of higher education and academies joined together in the Notgemeinschaft der deutschen Wissenschaft, a self‐governing organization. This organization was supposed to have a central role in research funding and to develop entirely new methods in research promotion and financing. For Schmidt‐Ott, the president of the Notgemeinschaft, the promotion of young academics, interdisciplinary co‐operation and the overcoming of isolation were of foremost importance. The National socialists forced Schmidt‐Ott 1934 to leave office. But his idea, inspite of the short period, had promised good and turned out to be a remarkable success. After the second world war, in 1949, the Notgemeinschaft was refounded. Again the most important tasks were the promotion of young academics, the end of isolation and the development and financing of new research methods. To‐day this institution – since 1951 the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft – is the central self‐governing organization of academic institutions for the promotion of research in the Federal Republik of Germany. It has – with great success – developed further the work of its honorary president Schmidt‐Ott, who died in 1956.