Abstract
The fifth part of this series on the history of biological sciences over the last 100 years focuses on the issues surrounding heredity and the establishment of the field of genetics during the interwar period. It recalls the deeper tradition associated with the founding work of Gregor Johann Mendel, and a primary outline encompasses the reception and development of "Mendelism".
In particular this article presents the two main schools of genetic research at Charles University in Prague: it refers to the Vejdovský cytological school (e.g. with B. Němec, A.
Brožek and K. Hrubý) at the Natural Science Faculty, and the extensive foundational work of V.
Růžička (e.g. with J. Kříženecký and B.
Sekla) at the Medical Faculty. The text also highlights the resistance of the Czechoslovak scientific community from the 1930s to the ideological misuse of genetics by the Nazi regime and the culmination of the postwar institutionalization of the new biological discipline.