[Social engineers--providers--bioethicists. Human genetics experts in West-Germany and Denmark between 1950 and 1990]

The author compares the history of human genetics in the Federal Republic of Germany and Denmark from the 1950s to the 1980s. The paper combines a discourse analysis with the exploration of human genetics experts' subject forms along the lines of current considerations within cultural studies. In the 1950s and 1960s, human geneticists acted in close cooperation with other political, judicial and administrative expert groups. They monitored the 'overall genetic development' of the population and cautioned about 'genetic crises'. Laypersons were supposed to submit to 'objectively reasonable' behavioral patterns--to their own as well as society's benefit. In the 1970s, the experts turned into 'providers' of a 'precise, purely medical, diagnostic service'. The patients mainly appeared as 'de-personalized' sources of a common human demand for 'safe eugenic information'. In the 1980s, the demand and supply paradigm manifested psychological and ethical side effects. Human geneticists became aware of the social and historical interrelations of their research and practices. The results of this study contribute to a more complex understanding of the dominant 'individualization narrative' of human genetics history. In this context, the development in Germany and Denmark displays two complementary forms of a transnational discourse.