[Historical awareness and historical responsibility in German human genetics]

Historians have repeatedly pointed to personal and institutional continuities between eugenics in Germany before 1945 and the developing human genetics in post-war Germany. But how was this external perception discussed among German human geneticists and did it play a role in the discipline's self-image? On the basis of printed sources and biographical interviews, the historical consciousness and the assumption of historical responsibility among German human geneticists active in the field between the 1970s and the 2010s were investigated. In the memories of the contemporary witnesses, historical awareness played a role for their discipline even before the 1980s, and since the founding of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Humangenetik in 1987, the question of the form of showing historical responsibility has been discussed repeatedly. It has been expressed, for example, in discussions with the public and renaming of prizes.