Friedrich Schmidt-Ott was a German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 lawyer, scientific organizer, and science policymaker. He was the Prussian Minister of Culture, president of the Emergency Association of German Science, on the advisory boards of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society and its institutes, and chairman of the Donor Federation of the Emergency Association of German Science.

Career

From 1888, Schmidt-Ott was at the Preußisches Kultusministerium (PrKM, Prussian Culture Ministry), officially the Preußisches Ministerium für Wissenschaft, Kunst und Volksbildung Prussuan Ministry of Science, Arts, and Culture. For many years, he was assistant to Friedrich Althoff. From 1903, Schmidt-Ott was head of the arts division, and from 1917, he was the Preußischen Kultusminister (Prussian Minister of Culture).

From 1911 to 1919, Schmidt-Ott was on the boards of trustees of all the institutes of the Kaiser-Wilhelm Gesellschaft (KWG, Kaiser Wilhelm Society). From 1920 to 1937, Schmidt-Ott was second vice-president (practically, acting vice president) of the KWG and then honorary member of the supervisory board of the society.

The Notgemeinschaft der Deutschen Wissenschaft

Notgemeinschaft der Deutschen Wissenschaft

Notgemeinschaft der Deutschen Wissenschaft was founded on 30 October 1920 on the initiative of leading members of the Preußischen Akademie der Wissenschaften – Fritz Haber, Max Planck, and Ernst von Harnack – and the former Preußischen...

(NG, Emergency Association of German Science) was founded on 30 October 1920 on the initiative of leading members of the Preußischen Akademie der Wissenschaften

Prussian Academy of Sciences

The Prussian Academy of Sciences was an academy established in Berlin on 11 July 1700, four years after the Akademie der Künste or "Arts Academy", to which "Berlin Academy" may also refer.-Origins:...

(PAW, Prussian Academy of Sciences.) – Fritz Haber

Fritz Haber

Fritz Haber was a German chemist, who received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1918 for his development for synthesizing ammonia, important for fertilizers and explosives. Haber, along with Max Born, proposed the Born–Haber cycle as a method for evaluating the lattice energy of an ionic solid...

, Max Planck

Max Planck

Max Karl Ernst Ludwig Planck, ForMemRS, was a German physicist who actualized the quantum physics, initiating a revolution in natural science and philosophy. He is regarded as the founder of the quantum theory, for which he received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1918.-Life and career:Planck came...

, and Ernst von Harnack

Ernst von Harnack

Ernst Wolf Alexander Oskar Harnack , granted the title von Harnack in 1914, was an official of the Prussian provincial government, a German politician, and a resistance fighter...

 – and the former Preußischen Kultusminister Friedrich Schmidt-Ott. The physicist Heinrich Konen

Heinrich Konen

Heinrich Matthias Konen was a German physicist who specialized in spectroscopy. He was a founder and organizer of the Emergency Association of German Science, and he was a member of the "Senate" of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society, the Reich Physical and Technical Institute, and the Reich Chemical and...

, due to his relationship with Schidt-Ott, was involved in the founding and organization, and he became a longstanding member of its main committee. Members of the NG included all German universities, all polytechnics (Technische Hochschule

Technische Hochschule

Technische Hochschule is what an Institute of Technology used to be called in German-speaking countries, as well as in the Netherlands, before most of them changed their name to Technische Universität or Technische Universiteit in the 1970s and in the...

n), the five scientific academies, and the Kaiser-Wilhelm Gesellschaft. From 1920 to 1934 Schmidt-Ott was president of the NG, when he was then succeeded by Johannes Stark

Johannes Stark

Johannes Stark was a German physicist, and Physics Nobel Prize laureate who was closely involved with the Deutsche Physik movement under the Nazi regime.-Early years:...

, who was a supporter of the deutsche Physik

Deutsche Physik

Deutsche Physik or Aryan Physics was a nationalist movement in the German physics community in the early 1930s against the work of Albert Einstein, labeled "Jewish Physics"...

movement. When Minister Bernhard Rust of the Reichserziehungsministerium

Reichserziehungsministerium

The Reichserziehungsministerium was officially known as the Reichsministerium für Wissenschaft, Erziehung und Volksbildung .-Background:...

(REM, Reich Ministry of Education) fired Schmit-Ott from the presidency of the NG, he told Schmit-Ott it was on the personal order of Adolf Hitler

Adolf Hitler

Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...

.

From 1934 to 1945, Schmidt-Ott was chairman of the Stifterverband der Notgemeinschaft der Deutschen Wissenschaft (Donor Federation of the Emergency Association of German Science), founded in 1920 to collect donations for the Notgemeinschaft der Deutschen Wissenschaft.