In his new book, Bernd Gausemeier provides an institutional history of the Buch research campus from its inception to the fall of the Berlin Wall. The translated title, Central Periphery: Biological and Medical Research in Berlin-Buch, 1930–1989, reveals a methodological playfulness. The author makes frequent use of inverted language—phrases such as “the long march to Buch” (35), “central plans, local conflicts” (141), and “falling behind through technology” (364), for example—to highlight some of the absurdities that become evident through his analytical examination of the development of Berlin-Buch into a center of German biomedical research. Readers will recognize this center today as the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine (MDC; Helmholtz Association of German Research Centers), which was the new name given in January 1992 to what had been the Central Institute for Molecular Biology under the German Democratic Republic (GDR).
Gausemeier's book is organized into three sections and fifteen chapters. He interprets the “long march to Buch” (35) in his first and shortest section, entitled “The Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Brain Research from its Beginnings to 1945,” as a tendency toward research centralization: “The inauguration of such a research clinic at an institution, which was previously seen as peripheral, represented a significant wartime development [in Germany], and it became significant for the role of the KWIBR [Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Brain Research]. On the one hand, the institute stood in the center of an ordering and encompassing network. On the other hand, the connection of its central brain collection with highly specialized clinical research, seen as a main characteristic of the KWIBR, did not really materialise . . . ” (97; Engl. transl. by F.W.S.). While such analysis contributes new insights to an already well-researched area, further incorporation of existing literature on other “big science” endeavors would have improved the book's international contextualization.
Gausemeier writes extensively on the founding and then the renaming processes during the center's forty-two years under Soviet and GDR leadership. His book explains the emergence of the Buch campus as one of “central periphery” and emphasizes the planning approaches toward high-end medical–biological research, advanced clinical care, as well as technological and economic modernization. This book contributes a good deal to the growing body of research on the history of science, technology, and medicine in the former Eastern Bloc, and will prove a useful resource to any student of this subject. In Section II, “The Academy Institutes in Berlin-Buch 1947–1989: Structures and Turning Points,” the author focuses on a traditional perspective in the historiography when exploring the initial ordering of the Soviet Military Administration in Germany and the planning decisions of the Socialist Unity Party in their aim to build a “Medical-Biological Research Centre” (143) for the enhancement of high-end research, technological innovation, and collaboration with other GDR-wide institutions. Gausemeier intriguingly describes organizational shortcomings, the pitfalls of five-year plans, vast technological limitations, and continuing staff shortages as major factors why the effort to reach the “world standard” (235) of biomedical research was not successful.
It is refreshing to read about specific research groups’ intentions, the remarkable scientific accomplishments of individual scientists—for example, oncologist Arnold Graffi (1910–2006)—as well as individual degrees of freedom to pursue scientific goals and to travel abroad enjoyed by the politically esteemed travel squad for the purpose of knowledge exchange with international colleagues. One such example was the case of the director of the Central Institute for Oncology of the Academy of Sciences, Stephan Tanneberger (1935–2018), who collaborated with West-German colleagues at the Saarland University, developed high-end oncological therapies, and conducted randomized controlled trials.
In Section III, entitled “Local Science in Global Perspective: Case Studies of Research and Medical Practice in Berlin-Buch,” Gausemeier examines the oppositional relationship between state aspirations for a successful program of scientific modernization and the continuing economic challenges that resulted in “falling behind through technology” in reality. He also considers the GDR's social medicine approach, which acted as a “guiding principle for early detection” (264). Among the contributions of the Buch campus to research successes in the GDR were the development of mRNA cloning techniques in carp fish and frog models, diagnostic glucometer kits produced in cooperation with Chemistry Combine Wolfen, and Cytochrome P-450-research activities that helped pave the way for modern personalized healthcare approaches. Having studied at the Humboldt University and the Charité hospital during the transition time from the Central Institute for Molecular Biology to the MDC, this reviewer appreciated these insights, as they also reflect on positive reviews by the German Council of Science and Humanities vis-à-vis GDR researchers’ groundwork. The council acknowledged that “the local arrangement of laboratories and clinics as absolutely worthy to be preserved” (499).
For readers interested in the history of science and technology in the Eastern Bloc, it might have been helpful if the book had addressed the influence of the GDR's military somewhat more. Further to this, the interchanges with West European pharmaceutical companies and technology firms also could have been analyzed in more detail to provide additional insights into the GDR's biomedical institutions and anything ethically questionable that occurred while carrying out clinical trials for new drugs, psychopharmaceuticals, and their role in systemic sports doping programs. The relatively brief bibliography (fourteen pages) leaves out various relevant publications and authors, both on the analytical level and the content level, which could have been expected to be included for contextualization purposes. Readers may have wished for more information on the influences of the Ministry of State Security on the Buch network, through additional analysis of secret service documents from the Gauck Commission, including any political pressure exerted on researchers, technicians, and administrators.
All in all, Gausemeier provides a detailed case study in an institutional history format, which offers new insights into the political, organizational, and research arrangements of the “big science” endeavors at the Berlin-Buch campus. This is an in-depth study of a pivotal research campus in Berlin's northernmost quarter, valuable for anyone interested in the organization of large-scale biomedical research institutions and the historical and political context of molecular biology and clinical research in the GDR.
