German scientists in Peronist Argentina. Limits and potentials of a policy of scientific and technological transfer

Abstract

The phenomenon of recruitment of foreign scientists after the Second World War figured prominently in the scientific policy of the Peronist government in Argentina between 1946 and 1955, which sought to exploit the German-trained human resources to modernize and increase domestic industrial capacity. The aim of this study is to identify precisely what were the possibilities and limits of that particular strategy in this particular historical moment. If Werner Heisenberg and other outstanding figures who sought to coopt the Peronist government demonstrate the potential implicit in the investment of resources in this policy unprecedented scientific and technological development, the figure of Ronald Richter shows the boundaries of it. Isolated from the scientific community, ultimately, is what gives and takes away the scientific category, the Austrian physicist performance can be contrasted with the now classic analysis of Kuhn on the mechanisms that regulate the so-called "normal science". Through this opposition is seeking to test a possible explanation of how a "fraud" of the proportions of controlled fusion project Richter in the Huemul Island.