Science policy of the Nazi regime has become since 1980s a research topic in its own right. The execution of personnel purges prior to the WWII and the close link between these and broader genocidal strategies, as well as the collaboration of some German scientific disciplines, institutions, and individuals in crimes against humanity has been discussed and confronted since soon after the end of the WWII (Nuremberg trials and subsequent processes). Nowadays, however, there arise subtler issues related mainly to an analysis of power mechanisms and decision-making processes within the Nazi state, study of infiltration of the traditional scientific infrastructure (universities, academies, Kaiser-Wilhelm-Institutes) by the SS, research funding, rationalisation and increased effectiveness of applied research under conditions of total war, and long-term structural consequences thereof.

Understandably, researchers tend to focus on conditions then prevailing in Germany and partially also Austria, while the situation in the then occupied territories is still largely neglected by majority of research projects.

It is also for this reason that the ‘Disappeared Elites’ project is accompanied by basic research of these issues. Situation in the Czech lands should be described in a separate (introductory) study, which would on the one hand focus on particular (i.e., Protectorate) documents, and on the other hand serve as a starting point for an eventual international comparison. Consequences of personnel purges would thereby be analysed both in the context of long-term goals of Nazi policies, and in the context of shifting and changeable goals of the German occupation administration in the Protectorate, which to various degrees reflected the changing war situation.

This research would be based mainly on materials located in Czech, German, and British archives.