German science as a medium of cultural policy and propaganda? : the scientific relations between Greece and the Third Reich : a case study

Abstract

This dissertation studies the scientific relations the German National Socialists developed with Greece and how they tried through these relations to exercise cultural, political and economic influence. The investigation, however, goes back to the Weimar years and unfolds the beginnings of Germany's Foreign Cultural Policy and the mobilization of science in the country's efforts to regain its lost place in the sun and escape the isolation after its defeat in WWI. The author tries to cast some light to problems like continuities and discontinuities or analogies in concepts and practices between the Weimar and the Nazi period in the interacted fields of science, culture and foreign affairs. The study focuses on the small peripheral country of Europe, Greece, well known for its ancient culture but not its scientific achievements, and tries to understand Germany's interest to promote its scientific relations with a country with poor performance in modern science but with high geo-strategic importance.