The Nazification and Denazification of the University of Göttingen
Robert P. Ericksen begins with the widespread view that German universities in the late-nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were the best in the world. He then adds the assumption that this might have made them a natural place to question and criticize the anti-humanistic Nazi ideology and the...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Print Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Indiana University Press
2022
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| In: |
The betrayal of the humanities
Year: 2022, Pages: 449-490 |
| Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains: | B
Georg-August-Universität Göttingen
/ Germany
/ Denazification
/ Antisemitism
/ National Socialism
/ Collaboration
/ Protestant theology
/ Protestant Church
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| IxTheo Classification: | BH Judaism CG Christianity and Politics KAJ Church history 1914-; recent history KBB German language area KDD Protestant Church ZC Politics in general |
| Further subjects: | B
Entnazifierung
B National Socialism B University of Göttingen B Church B Protestant theology B Persilschein B Georgia Augusta B Anti-judaism B Antisemitism B Institute of higher learning B Denazification B Collaboration B Georg-August-Universität Göttingen B Germany |
| Summary: | Robert P. Ericksen begins with the widespread view that German universities in the late-nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were the best in the world. He then adds the assumption that this might have made them a natural place to question and criticize the anti-humanistic Nazi ideology and the poorly-educated Adolf Hitler. However, even before Hitler’s rise to power in 1933, universities were subject to antisemitic prejudice and angry nationalism. Furthermore, among the student population, enthusiastic Nazis had managed to take over student government. Already by 1931, they had weaponized their antisemitism and hyper-nationalism with boycotts and demonstrations. Hitler’s actual rise to power led to a dramatic purge of Jewish and leftwing professors beginning in April and a day for celebratory book-burning in May. Professors accepted and even supported these events, sacrificing their supposed academic ideals for a “political university” in support of the Nazi cause. Ericksen employs his research into postwar denazification at Göttingen University to describe the betrayal of that university’s academic values during the Nazi era, and also to reflect upon the difficulties of transition after 1945. |
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| ISBN: | 0253060796 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: The betrayal of the humanities
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