The Director of the Hamburg Research Center, Desy, Helmut Dosch, has expressed his intention to open up his institution for military research. The leadership team has drafted a key paper, proposing to support “security-relevant research” on a project-by-project basis in the future. According to Dosch, interviewed by the Spiegel, Germany must be able to defend itself against external attacks in order to preserve a free and democratic society.
Until now, the center’s mission statement has only focused on research for “civil and peaceful purposes.” However, a significant number of the approximately 3,000 employees at the center have expressed strong opposition to the proposal. An internal group, “Science4Peace@Desy” has collected around 300 signatures from employees who are against research with military objectives.
“Many people work at Desy precisely because they do not want to do military research” said Hannes Jung, the founder of “Science4Peace@Desy” a retired physicist. Under the category of “security-relevant research” for example, robustness tests of materials using the X-ray laser source Petra III could be conducted to examine their suitability for armor.
Dosch stated that he cannot rule out the possibility of defense-relevant research taking place at the center, which could involve “arms systems.” However, he emphasized, “We do not want to become a weapons lab and will not establish a branch for military research.