ABSTRACT
This chapter shows how Swiss scientists cultivated close connections to racial hygiene and genetics in Nazi Germany, in the process entering into diverse co-operative relationships. The upsurge of genetics in Switzerland occurred at a time of political polarization within the genetics community at the international level. The chapter focuses on biologically trained geneticists, illuminates the founding of the Swiss Society of Genetics in the international context. Traditionally, the concept of neutrality suggested an abstention that prohibited intervention and partisanship. Especially in Switzerland, neutrality has often been celebrated as a principle of self-restraint that enabled a Swiss “Sonderweg”. In the name of “neutral science”, Swiss geneticists frequently undermined efforts to internationally isolate hereditary research in Nazi Germany. Even in science, neutrality proved to be a construct that could be flexibly deployed, making it possible to keep all options open with regard to strategies for research and academic politics.
