Scientific diplomacy has recently been seen as a beacon of hope in overcoming the global challenges of international politics. At the same time, the interaction of science and diplomacy during the Cold War has become the focus of the history of science. The Max Planck Society pursued its own agenda here. After the criminal involvement of their predecessor, the Kaiser Wilhelm Society, in the Nazi expansion and extermination policy, they were pushed back into the international scientific communities, but not onto the international political stage. The study examines how the MPG positioned itself in the field of international politics, when it cooperated with the Federal Republic's foreign policy, when it distanced itself from it and how it combined its roles as a national, European and global science-political actor.