University education in Nazi Germany
Encyclopedia
The Nazification of German universities
April 8, 1933 - a memorandum to Nazi Student Organizations proposed that culturally destructive books from public, state and university libraries be collected and burned. The Deutsche Studentenschaft (German Students' Association) started its anti-Semitic action. In May 1933 books from university libraries, written by anti-Nazi or Jewish authors, were burned in squares, e.g. in Berlin, and the curricula were subsequently modified. Jewish professors and students were expelled according to the racial policy of Nazi GermanyRacial policy of Nazi Germany
The racial policy of Nazi Germany was a set of policies and laws implemented by Nazi Germany, asserting the superiority of the "Aryan race", and based on a specific racist doctrine which claimed scientific legitimacy...
, see also the Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service
Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service
The Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service , also known as Civil Service Law, Civil Service Restoration Act, and Law to Re-establish the Civil Service, was a law passed by the National Socialist regime on April 7, 1933, two months after Adolf...
. Martin Heidegger
Martin Heidegger
Martin Heidegger was a German philosopher known for his existential and phenomenological explorations of the "question of Being."...
became the rector of Freiburg University, where he delivered a number of Nazi speeches, see Heidegger and Nazism
Heidegger and Nazism
The relation between the philosopher Martin Heidegger and the Nazi Party is a controversial subject.Martin Heidegger joined the Nazi Party on May 1, 1933, nearly three weeks after being appointed Rector of the University of Freiburg. Heidegger resigned the Rectorship about one year later, in April...
. On August 21, 1933 Heidegger established the Führer-principle at the university, later he was appointed Führer of Freiburg University.
Expelled professors
- Albert EinsteinAlbert EinsteinAlbert Einstein was a German-born theoretical physicist who developed the theory of general relativity, effecting a revolution in physics. For this achievement, Einstein is often regarded as the father of modern physics and one of the most prolific intellects in human history...
- Max BornMax BornMax Born was a German-born physicist and mathematician who was instrumental in the development of quantum mechanics. He also made contributions to solid-state physics and optics and supervised the work of a number of notable physicists in the 1920s and 30s...
- Fritz HaberFritz HaberFritz Haber was a German chemist, who received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1918 for his development for synthesizing ammonia, important for fertilizers and explosives. Haber, along with Max Born, proposed the Born–Haber cycle as a method for evaluating the lattice energy of an ionic solid...
- Otto Fritz MeyerhofOtto Fritz Meyerhof-External links:* *...
- Theodor W. AdornoTheodor W. AdornoTheodor W. Adorno was a German sociologist, philosopher, and musicologist known for his critical theory of society....
- Martin BuberMartin BuberMartin Buber was an Austrian-born Jewish philosopher best known for his philosophy of dialogue, a form of religious existentialism centered on the distinction between the I-Thou relationship and the I-It relationship....
- Ernst Bloch
- Max HorkheimerMax HorkheimerMax Horkheimer was a German-Jewish philosopher-sociologist, famous for his work in critical theory as a member of the 'Frankfurt School' of social research. His most important works include The Eclipse of Reason and, in collaboration with Theodor Adorno, The Dialectic of Enlightenment...
- Ernst CassirerErnst CassirerErnst Cassirer was a German philosopher. He was one of the major figures in the development of philosophical idealism in the first half of the 20th century...
- Herbert MarcuseHerbert MarcuseHerbert Marcuse was a German Jewish philosopher, sociologist and political theorist, associated with the Frankfurt School of critical theory...
Austrian universities
University of ViennaUniversity of Vienna
The University of Vienna is a public university located in Vienna, Austria. It was founded by Duke Rudolph IV in 1365 and is the oldest university in the German-speaking world...
was involved in Nazism. Between 1938 and 1945 more than 173 professors and consultants were dismissed from the faculty of medicine. Eduard Pernkopf
Eduard Pernkopf
Eduard Pernkopf was an Austrian professor of anatomy, rector of the University of Vienna , member of the Nazi party since 1933, famous for his anatomical atlas, Topographische Anatomie des Menschen .Pernkopf began his atlas in 1933...
, Rector 1943-1945, compiled the atlas, "Topographical Anatomy of the Human Being". The university obtained over 12,300 bodies, of which 1377 were victims of Nazis, some of which may have been used by Pernkopf as the basis for illustrations . Hans Sedlmayr, a declared Nazi, led an art institute
Vienna School of Art History
The Vienna School of Art History is a collective term used to describe the development of fundamental art-historical methods at the University of Vienna...
throughout the war.
Nazi professors
Paul Kluke worked for German intelligence in France administered SaarlandSaarland
Saarland is one of the sixteen states of Germany. The capital is Saarbrücken. It has an area of 2570 km² and 1,045,000 inhabitants. In both area and population, it is the smallest state in Germany other than the city-states...
.
Institut für Agrarwesen und Agrarpolitik der Berliner Universität (Institute for Agriculture and Agricultural Policy of the Humboldt University of Berlin
Humboldt University of Berlin
The Humboldt University of Berlin is Berlin's oldest university, founded in 1810 as the University of Berlin by the liberal Prussian educational reformer and linguist Wilhelm von Humboldt, whose university model has strongly influenced other European and Western universities...
) cooperated with Nazi government in designing mass expulsions of the Generalplan Ost
Generalplan Ost
Generalplan Ost was a secret Nazi German plan for the colonization of Eastern Europe. Implementing it would have necessitated genocide and ethnic cleansing to be undertaken in the Eastern European territories occupied by Germany during World War II...
. Professors involved in Nazi planning were e.g.:
Hermann Aubin, Theodor Schieder
Theodor Schieder
Theodor Schieder was one of the most influential German historians of the 20th century.Schieder was born in Oettingen and lived in Königsberg in East Prussia since 1934. In the interwar period Schieder became a part of a group of German conservative historians antagonistic towards the Weimar...
, Werner Conze
Werner Conze
Werner Conze was a German historian in Nazi Germany and in post-World War II Germany. He was one of the notable members of the Schieder commission. He came from a family of academics and lawyers...
. Historian, SS-Hauptsturmfuehrer Kurt Lueck was killed by partisans during his Nazi activities in Ukraine. Karl Stumpp was assigned to the Ukraine to record political and ethnic affiliations of the remaining population after the exterminations of communists, Jews and others had already occurred. Georg Leibbrandt
Georg Leibbrandt
Georg Leibbrandt was a scholar and politician in the Nazi Party.- Early life :Leibbrandt was born to ethnic German parents in Torosovo , near Odessa, in the Zebrikovo district of the Tsarist Russia...
and Emil Meynen were experts during the Holocaust, Leibbrandt attended the Wannsee Conference
Wannsee Conference
The Wannsee Conference was a meeting of senior officials of the Nazi German regime, held in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee on 20 January 1942. The purpose of the conference was to inform administrative leaders of Departments responsible for various policies relating to Jews, that Reinhard Heydrich...
in 1942.
Paul Rostock
Paul Rostock
Paul Rostock was a German official, surgeon, and university professor. He was Chief of the Office for Medical Science and Research under Third Reich Commissioner Karl Brandt and a Full Professor, Medical Doctorate, Medical Superintendent of the University of Berlin Surgical...
(1892–1956) was Chief of the Office for Medical Science and Research (Amtschef der Dienststelle Medizinische Wissenschaft und Forschung) under Third Reich Commissioner Karl Brandt
Karl Brandt
Karl Brandt was a German Nazi war criminal. He rose to the rank of SS-Gruppenführer in the Allgemeine-SS and SS-Brigadeführer in the Waffen-SS. Among other positions, Brandt headed the administration of the Nazi euthanasia program from 1939 onwards and was selected as Adolf Hitler's personal...
and a Full Professor, Medical Doctorate, Medical Superintendent of the University of Berlin Surgical Clinic. Charged of human experimentation during the Doctors' Trial
Doctors' Trial
The Doctors' Trial was the first of 12 trials for war crimes that the United States authorities held in their occupation zone in Nuremberg, Germany after the end of World War II. These trials were held before U.S...
, acquitted.
Eugen Fischer
Eugen Fischer
Eugen Fischer was a German professor of medicine, anthropology and eugenics. He was director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Anthropology, Human Heredity, and Eugenics between 1927 and 1942...
(1874–1967), appointed by Hitler rector of the University of Berlin, was one of the leading theorists of scientific racism
Scientific racism
Scientific racism is the use of scientific techniques and hypotheses to sanction the belief in racial superiority or racism.This is not the same as using scientific findings and the scientific method to investigate differences among the humans and argue that there are races...
.
Germanized universities
The first Reichsuniversität started to work in PraguePrague
Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...
, November 4, 1939.
The University of Poznań was closed by the Nazi Occupation in 1939. It was reopened 1941 under the name of "Reichsuniversität Posen", as a "Grenzlanduniversität", aligned with the Nazi occupation forces' ideology. Its faculty included SS-Hauptsturmführer Reinhard Wittram and SS-Untersturmführer Ernst Petersen, who was a professor of the Department of Prehistory for one year, and anatomist Hermann Voss
Hermann Voss (anatomist)
Christian Heinrich Emil Hermann Voss was a German anatomist. Well known as a medical academic and textbook author he was also notorious for his experiments during the Third Reich.-Early life:...
. Psychologist Rudolf Hippius worked on Nazi deportations. It ceased operations in 1944.
The University of Strasbourg
University of Strasbourg
The University of Strasbourg in Strasbourg, Alsace, France, is the largest university in France, with about 43,000 students and over 4,000 researchers....
was transferred to Clermont-Ferrand
Clermont-Ferrand
Clermont-Ferrand is a city and commune of France, in the Auvergne region, with a population of 140,700 . Its metropolitan area had 409,558 inhabitants at the 1999 census. It is the prefecture of the Puy-de-Dôme department...
in 1939 and Reichsuniversität Straßburg existed 1941–1944. As Dean of the Medical School, August Hirt
August Hirt
August Hirt , an SS-Hauptsturmführer , served as a chairman at the Reich University in Strasbourg during World War II....
constituted a collection of 86 "Jewish skeletons" by organizing the transfer of Auschwitz
Auschwitz concentration camp
Concentration camp Auschwitz was a network of Nazi concentration and extermination camps built and operated by the Third Reich in Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany during World War II...
prisoners who were subsequently murdered in the Natzweiler-Struthof
Natzweiler-Struthof
Natzweiler-Struthof was a German concentration camp located in the Vosges Mountains close to the Alsatian village of Natzwiller in France, and the town of Schirmeck, about 50 km south west from the city of Strasbourg....
concentration camp.
Sources
- When books burn
- Historiker im Nationalsozialismus... by Ingo HaarIngo HaarIngo Haar is a German historian. He received his Master of Arts from the University of Hamburg in 1993 and his PhD in History in 1998 at the Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg...
- Strasbourg,Medicine
- Teresa Wróblewska: Die Reichsuniversitäten Posen, Prag und Strassburg als Modelle nationalsozialistischer Hochschulen in den von Deutschland besetzten Gebieten, Marszalek, Toruń 2000. ISBN 83-7174-674-1