The Notgemeinschaft der Deutschen Wissenschaft (Emergency Association of German Science) or NG was founded on 30 October 1920 on the initiative of leading members of the Preußische Akademie der Wissenschaften (Prussian Academy of Sciences, PAW) – Fritz Haber, Max Planck, and Ernst von Harnack – and former Prussian Minister of Culture Friedrich Schmidt-Ott. Physicist Heinrich Konen, involved in founding and building the organization due to his relationship with Schmidt-Ott, became a long-standing member of its executive committee. Member institutions of the NG included all German universities, all polytechnics (Technische Hochschulen), the five German Academies of Science, and the Kaiser-Wilhelm Gesellschaft.