How German Dominated Science for 200 Years and Then Vanished

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For nearly 200 years, German was the undisputed language of science.

If you wanted to study physics, chemistry, psychology, philosophy, or mathematics at the highest level, you learned German. Not optionally. Necessarily.

The foundational papers behind relativity, quantum mechanics, psychoanalysis, thermodynamics, and modern chemistry were not translated into German. They were originally written in German.

In this episode of the Airlearn Language Show, we explore how Germany built the modern research university system, how German became the dominant language of global knowledge, and how that dominance collapsed within a single generation.

This is not the story people usually tell. It’s not about English being simpler or better suited for science. It’s about war, migration, universities, political catastrophe, and one of the largest intellectual migrations in human history.

From Humboldt’s revolutionary university model to Einstein, Heisenberg, Freud, Planck, and the refugee scientists who transformed American research institutions, this video traces the moment the center of global science moved from Berlin to Princeton.

We also explore:
• Why German once dominated nearly every academic field
• How World War I damaged German globally
• The Nazi expulsion of Jewish academics in 1933
• How refugee scientists reshaped English-language science
• Why English became the global scientific language
• Whether Mandarin or another language could eventually replace English

The rise and fall of scientific languages tells us something deeper: languages don’t become powerful because of grammar. They become powerful because people, institutions, funding, and ideas move through them.

And history suggests no language stays dominant forever.

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