Programm

April 21, 2015 – Tuesday

April 22, 2015 – Wednesday

Welcome

9:15 – 9:40

• Martin Wolf (Director, Fritz Haber Institute of the Max Planck Society)
• Ferdi Schüth (Vice President of the Max Planck Society)

(A) Research on and deployment of chemical weapons in World War I

9:40 – 11:00

• Margit Szöllösi-Janze (Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München):
  • The Scientist as Expert: Fritz Haber and German Chemical Warfare during the First World War and Beyond
• Jeremiah James (Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München):
  • Chemical Weapons Research in Dahlem: ‘Big Science’ but in what Form

11:00 – 11:20 Coffee Break

11:20 – 12:40

• Olivier Lepick (Fondation pour la Recherche Strategique, Paris):
  • France’s Political and Military Reaction in the Aftermath of the First German Chemical Offensive in April 1915: the Road to Retaliation in Kind
• Jeffrey Johnson (Villanova University):
  • Military-Industrial Interactions in the Development of Chemical Warfare, 1914 – 1918: Comparing National Cases within the Technological System of the Great War

12:40 – 14:00 Lunch

(B) Contexts and consequences of chemical weapons

14:00 – 16:00

• Edward Spiers (University of Leeds):
  • The Gas War 1915 – 18: If not a War-Winner, hardly a Failure
• Doris Kaufmann (Universität Bremen):
  • Der Gaskrieg in Literatur und Kunst im Europa der Zwischenkriegszeit
• Milos Vec (Universität Wien):
  • Kriegsräson über Völkerrecht? Entstehung, Auslegung und Reform des Giftverbots in Art. 23 lit. a der Haager Landkriegsordnung

16:00 – 16:30 Coffee Break

16:30 – 18:30

• Roy MacLeod (University of Sydney):
  • ‘The Genie and the Bottle’: Postwar Preparedness and the Chemical Weapons Debate in the United States, 1918 – 1928
• Jeanne Guillemin (Massachusetts Institute of Technology):
  • The 1925 Geneva Protocol and International Reactions to the Use of Chemical and Biological Weapons in War
• Walter Grunden (Bowling Green State University):
  • No Retaliation in Kind: Japanese Chemical Weapons Policy in China and the Pacific

19:00 Light buffet dinner for participants (Meitner Saal)

20:00 – 21:15

• ARTE (a Franco-German public television network):

  Screening of
  „Giftgas: Der unsichtbare Feind”
  „Winds of Chemical Warfare“
  ARTE TV-documentary by Fabienne Lips-Dumas (Hahn Hörsaal)
  Einladung
  

21:15

• Podium discussion with Paul Walker, Olivier Lepick and Ralf Trapp, moderated by arte (Hahn Hörsaal)

Drinks at the conclusion of the evening (Meitner Saal)

• Wolfgang Eckart (Universität Heidelberg):
  • Soldatenkörper im Gaskrieg: Trauma, Siechtum, Rentennot, 1915 – 1933
• Florian Schmaltz (Max Planck Institute for the History of Science):
  • Chemical Weapons Research in Nazi Germany on Soldiers and Concentration Camp Inmates
• Ulf Schmidt (University of Kent):
  • Justifying Chemical Warfare: The Origins and Ethics of Britain’s Chemical Warfare Program, 1915 – 1945

11:00 – 11:20 Coffee Break

(C) Dual use, storage and disposal of chemical weapons today

11:20 – 12:40

• Götz Neuneck (Universität Hamburg):
  • The Dual-Use-Problem and Weapons of Mass Destruction: A Comparative Analysis of Ways and Instruments to Control their Spread and Possession or Ban their Use
• Johannes Preuß (Universität Mainz):
  • Rekonstruktion von Anlagen zur Produktion und Lagerung von Kampfstoffen und chemischen Waffen beider Weltkriege im Rahmen der Beurteilung von Rüstungsaltstandorten

12:40 – 14:00 Lunch

14:00 – 16:00

• Matthew Meselson (Harvard University):
  • Anti-plant Chemical Warfare: From Charles and Francis Darwin to Richard Nixon
• Karin Mlodoch (Haukari e.V., Frankfurt/Main):
  • The Indelible Smell of Apples – Kurdish Poison Gas Survivors in Halabja between Trauma and Struggle for Acknowledgment
• Ralf Trapp (International disarmament consultant, Geneva):
  • The Use of Chemical Weapons in Syria, its Consequences, and some Lessons for the Future

16:00 – 17:40 Coffee Break

Public Event – Gedenkveranstaltung

18:00 – 20:30

• Opening (Martin Wolf)
• Music composed by Thomas Hennig, to the words of ‘Dulce et Decorum est’ by Wilfred Owen
• Address by Ghislain D’hoop (Ambassador of Belgium)
• Gerhard Ertl (Fritz Haber Institute of the Max Planck Society):
  • Fritz Haber’s Institute and Chemical Warfare
• Jürgen Renn (Max Planck Institute for the History of Science):
  • Summary of the Symposium’s Talks and Discussions
• Minute of Silence
• Excerpts from Benjamin Britten’s War Requiem
• Paul Walker (Green Cross):
  • A Century of Chemical Warfare: Building a World Free of Chemical Weapons

20:30 Reception in the Winter Garden