Ivory Tower, Nazi Flag

by

Lev Raphael

In 1933 Nazi Germany starting targeting Jews with public humiliation, beatings, arrests and incarceration in concentration camps—but that was just the prelude.

New laws began to turn Jews into second class citizens, barring them from a whole range of professions like law, medicine and academia. Fierce restrictions on what Jews could take with them if they left Germany further isolated and impoverished them.

None of this was exactly secret. The Nazis were proud of their efforts and boasted that they would ultimately destroy Germany's Jews. American diplomats, politicians and newspaper reporters saw what was happening and reported it in full detail. Outrage spread across the U.S.: there were boycotts against German goods, angry newspaper editorials, massive anti-Nazi public rallies and protest marches. Readers of this column might be surprised by how widespread the immediate opposition was—I certainly was.

Despite the Nazis’ enthusiasm for burning books, one sector of American society ignored what was going on in Germany or made excuses for it: academia. Willful ignorance wasn’t just bliss, it was complicity. And because German universities were quickly made Judenfrei and basically turned into propaganda factories, business-as-usual exchanges with German faculty members and students were perfect opportunities for good little Nazis to robotically spread Hitlerian, anti-Semitic gospel.

University of Berlin professor Freiderich Schoenemann spoke at many American campuses in 1933 about Germany’s “New Democracy,” which he compared to the American Revolution. As for atrocities against Jews? Those reports were absolutely false, he claimed, and besides, the Jews were the overwhelming majority among German communists—though they also dominated all the lucrative professions in an unhealthy way. They clearly deserved whatever might happen to them.

This wasn’t an isolated effort to fool Americans: the Nazis flooded the U.S. with their propaganda, and far too many American academicians were more than willing to assist. Smith College actively sought for two years for just the right spokesman to present the “pro-Nazi side of the German picture neglected by the American press” and their guest blamed the Jews for oppressing Aryans and promoting Communism. Who wouldn’t object to the unlawful hegemony of a “foreign race”?

The Third Reich in the Ivory Tower by Stephen Norwood tells the previously unknown story of the ways in which prestigious American universities like Harvard, Columbia and Yale were apologists for Nazi Germany and thus actively complicit in the persecution of Germany's Jews, as well as boosting Mussolini and undermining reportage about Germany’s violence against Jews and its widespread political repression.

It started with symbolism. While many Americans avoided German shipping so as not to fly under the flag of hatred and oppression, too many university presidents thought nothing of it.  American university presidents accepted medals from fascist Italy and Germany and delighted in ceremonies emphasizing ties between schools and between the nations. 

While fascist speakers abounded on college campuses, those same schools were often loath to let anti-Nazi German refugees offer a different perspective. American faculty members participated in Nazi university “celebrations” in Germany that were mere disguises for rites glorifying the Nazi regime and its power. And they dutifully reported back home how calm, peaceful, happy and prosperous the “new Germany” and “new Italy” were. As for the dark underside of each regime—well that was easily explained away, often as exaggerations by journalists or the Jews.

Nazi apologists and propagandists packed symposia on European issues. American colleges like Vassar happily sent their students to study in Germany where they could be indoctrinated with the image of Germany as healthy, free, and democratic.

It was inevitable that “a student would return from a year in the Third Reich feeling sympathy for the Hitler regime, given how college study in Germany programs were structured. Arriving in Germany at an impressionable age, the American student came into contact with Nazis almost exclusively. The student's college German Department arranged for her to reside with a pro-Nazi German family. She was enrolled in courses at a German university where ‘she heard official Nazi doctrines explained.’ The professors whose lectures she attended all presented their subjects ‘from the Nazi angle.’ ” Students like this would write letters to the campus newspaper about how wonderful the Nazis were and when they returned they continued pro-Nazi propaganda because they served as sources of information for other students who wanted to know about the Third Reich. 

It’s particularly ironic that women’s colleges participated in this effort, given that Nazi Germany radically circumscribed the role of its women, forcing them into the straitjacket of breeders and homemakers.

Norwood quotes horrified accounts of American students from this period reporting that anti-Semitic professors felt free to do things like claim the medieval tales of Jews using Christian children’s blood to make matzoh—the “Blood Libel”—were based in fact. He shares the plentiful evidence that German departments fired or moved anti-Nazi faculty members to present a united Nazi front, and anti-Nazi protests were deplored and denigrated by university administrators and campus newspapers. Those same administrators refused to support anti-Nazi efforts like establishing a Library of Banned Books in New York, which would have stocked copies of all the books burned in Germany. 

Catholic universities proved particularly vulnerable to Nazi propaganda, given that the Vatican at this time was sympathetic to Nazi claims that “Jews exercised excessive influence in Germany’s economic and cultural life, an accusation the Hitler government used to justify the mass expulsions of Jews from the professions, university faculties, newspaper positions, the theater, and the film industry.”

It’s an appalling story at every level, worthy of a miniseries or at least a movie spotlighting how supposed bastions of enlightenment succumbed to darkness. The author deserves kudos for opening our eyes to this deplorable period in American academic history, and his book is more evidence that the truths of the Nazi era have not all been brought to light.

Interview with Stephen Norwood

Lev Raphael: Given that so many aspects of the Nazi era at home and abroad have been explored in tremendous depth, why do you think it’s taken so long for these particular stories about academic complicity in America with Fascist Germany and Italy to be told?

Stephen Norwood: Academia considers itself enlightened and does not want to expose its dirty linen. The universities do not take anti-Semitism seriously, and have generally avoided examining its long history and impact in the United States.

LR: What led you personally to this subject? Do you think there are more revelations waiting in university archives around the country?

SN: I knew relatives who had participated in or witnessed the mass street demonstrations and other anti-Nazi protests in the United States in 1933 and 1934. One had helped organize the boycott of German goods and services and sponsored lectures by anti-Nazi exiles from Germany. I was aware that many working- and lower-middle class Jews, and some trade unionists, had mobilized against the Nazi threat immediately after Hitler came to power. Yet scholars had devoted almost no attention to this. The field of American Jewish history focused largely on leaders and organizations, using a top-down approach. I wanted to assess the role of American academia, especially the elite universities, which were in a position to influence American public opinion and government policy and had taken stands on
other international issues. When I went into the archives, I was struck by the contrast between the elites at the universities and the grassroots. As with almost any subject, future archival research may provide more revelations.

LR: You reveal a lot of unflattering information about some major American universities in this period, like Harvard and Yale. Were there restrictions on your archival access?

SN: No, but some leading universities have tried to quash discussion. For example, in 2004, the David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies asked me to give the keynote address on Harvard’s relationship with Nazi Germany at a conference on “American Responses to the Holocaust,” which it hoped to hold at Harvard. As a courtesy, in June I sent then-Harvard president Larry Summers a written summary of my paper. The Institute heard nothing from Summers until September, when his office denied it permission to hold the conference at Harvard. Summers’s office also made it clear that neither Summers nor anyone else from the Harvard administration would attend the conference. The conference was held instead at the Elie Wiesel Center for Judaic Studies at Boston University in November. My address was covered in newspapers as far away as Turkey, Israel, India, and Malta.

LR: I was shocked by how callous some college administrators were about the plight of Jews in Germany even after Kristallnacht. Were you yourself surprised?

SN: Not really. I knew that anti-Semitism pervaded university administrations during the 1930s, and the boards of trustees and alumni that influenced them. Remember that America’s universities showed little concern about the horrific treatment of Austria’s Jews after the Anschluss earlier that year, in March 1938 [the Kristallnacht occurred on the night of November 9-10, 1938].  In April 1938, Queens College in New York City cancelled a lecture by German Jewish anti-Nazi exile Ernst Toller, a distinguished playwright, because his opposition to Nazism was too pronounced.

LR: Do you think General Eisenhower was chosen as President of Columbia University to make up for its lamentable record in the 1930s under Nicholas Murray Butler?

SN: No. Butler’s record on Nazism was not in any way a factor in Eisenhower’s selection as president of Columbia. Even today, the Columbia administration remains indifferent to the university’s complicity in helping the Hitler regime enhance its reputation in the United States. Columbia president Lee Bollinger, who publicly presents himself as a champion of free speech, will not even acknowledge that the Butler administration wronged Robert Burke and Jerome Klein when it permanently destroyed their academic careers because they engaged in anti-Nazi protest. Nor is he willing to do anything to rectify these injustices. Butler terminated the appointment of Klein, a talented fine arts instructor, because he believed he had initiated a petition against the administration’s providing a warm reception for Nazi Germany’s ambassador to the United States, Dr. Hans Luther, when he came to campus in December 1933 to give a lecture praising the Hitler regime. Butler expelled Burke, a student, for leading a peaceful picket line at his mansion to protest Columbia’s sending a delegate to the University of Heidelberg’s 550^th anniversary celebration in 1936, a carefully orchestrated Nazi propaganda festival.

LR: New York was a very different kind of city compared to say, Boston or Chicago, given its Jewish population and strong labor movement. But did you expect the level of anti-Nazi protest at Columbia that you found as reported in contemporary news accounts?

SN: No, but I was very impressed with the initiative and fierce anti-Nazi commitment of many Columbia students, including Robert Burke and the editors of the Columbia Spectator, the student newspaper, many of whom were Jewish.  There were risks involved in confronting the administration over its forging friendly ties with Nazi Germany, as is evident in the severe retaliation against Burke and Klein.  The Spectator sharply criticized Butler for remaining silent about Nazi atrocities, for sending a delegate to Heidelberg to consort with Josef Goebbels, for terminating Klein and expelling Burke, etc.

LR: Except for the University of Virginia, your focus is on East Coast schools and the University of Chicago. What about universities out west or in the south? Were they completely untouched by the events in Germany?

SN: Most universities in the west and the south were less involved with European affairs. They wielded far less influence in shaping American public opinion and government policy than the elite east coast institutions.

LR: Given how many German departments were “nests” of Fascist propaganda before World War II, have any of them done anything themselves to unearth this history or apologize for it institutionally? I’m thinking for instance of Fordham University, which you paint as very cozy with Mussolini.

SN: No, nothing. They clearly do not want to acknowledge the harm their predecessors and their institutions inflicted.

LR: The fascist propaganda spread on various campuses certainly undercut the very real news coming out of Germany. Did the campus protests, the petitions, and the various boycotts of German goods achieve anything?

SN: Yes, they heightened awareness of Nazi atrocities against Jews during the 1930s, and strengthened opposition to isolationism. Many American combat soldiers, sailors, and airmen fought more intensely against Axis forces during World War II, having witnessed or heard of these protests, and having learned from them what was at stake. The protests also undoubtedly led many young people to enlist in the armed forces.

LR: Some of the snobbish college administrators you quote referred to Nazi spokesmen as “gentlemen” and were quite impressed by their suavity. How did they square that with Hitler, who was anything but refined?

SN: Many university administrators considered Hitler only a statesman who was restoring confidence, order, and honor to a prostrated nation. Benito Mussolini was unrefined, but Nicholas Murray Butler, the nation’s most prominent university president during the 1930s, was a longtime admirer of the Fascist dictator, and enjoyed a warm personal relationship with him for many years.

LR: You mention the banning of an anti-Nazi film drawn from footage smuggled out of Germany by Cornelius Vanderbilt, Jr. Have you seen this film? And how did the Vanderbilt name not guarantee its wide publicity?

SN: I’ve read accounts of the film, which ended with denunciations of Hitler by Professor Raymond Moley, a leading member of President Roosevelt’s Brain Trust, and U.S. Representative Samuel Dickstein. Cornelius Vanderbilt, Jr. lacked the influence to generate wide publicity for his film. Raised in luxury, he had rebelled as a youth; his family considered him a renegade, a black sheep. His unflattering account of high society, published in 1935, resulted in his elimination from the Social Register.

LR: Do you think there are many Americans who know that the Blood Libel was being taught as possibly true on an American campus during this period?

SN: No, unfortunately. The subject of anti-Semitism is rarely incorporated into high school and college courses.

LR: Students at Rutgers were intimidated into contributing money for other students to travel to Germany where they could be indoctrinated. Did this occur at other colleges?

SN: No doubt. Many German departments were staffed by pro-Nazi German nationals who encouraged students to visit the Third Reich. German departments actively participated in exchange programs to place American students in Germany’s Nazified universities. American exchange students in Germany were lodged with carefully selected Nazi families. Tightly supervised during their stay in Germany by Nazi functionaries, taught by Nazi professors, they frequently returned to the United States as enthusiastic propagandists for the Third Reich.

LR: So many of the American exchange students seemed swayed by propaganda inculcated on their stays in Germany—do you know if any of them ever recanted and went public about it?

SN: No. It’s striking because many American youths who embraced Communism during the 1930s publicly repudiated it later.

LR: The University of Chicago heaped honors on Mircea Eliade, a member of Romania’s notorious Jew-killing Iron Guard during World War II. Do you think there are other fascists who found a home in American universities?

SN: There were several Nazis and fascists who joined the faculties of American universities after World War II. In the United States, Eliade maintained contact with Vasile Posteuca, a leader of the Iron Guard when it wielded power in Romania in 1940-41. The FBI considered Posteuca the leader of the Iron Guard exiles in Canada during the 1950s. Posteuca was a professor at Mankato State University in Minnesota from 1966 until his death in 1972. Harvard University hired the fiercely anti-Semitic Nazi physicist Carl Friedrich von Weizsaecker to teach in its summer session in 1952. Von Weizsaecker was part of the team of Nazi scientists assigned to develop an atomic bomb for Germany during World War II. Paul de Man, Sterling Professor of Humanities at Yale at the time of his death in 1983, wrote for the pro-Nazi, anti-Semitic Brussels newspaper Le Soir during the World War II German occupation of Belgium.

LR: Do you see the potential for similar scandalous behavior at universities today—that is, succumbing to foreign propaganda?

SN: Middle Eastern Studies programs in American universities are certainly strongly influenced by anti-Israel propaganda disseminated by Arab countries. They lack an intellectually diverse faculty who would insist on balanced discussions in the classrooms.  Jewish graduate students are often advised that there is no future for them in the field.

LR: You spoke in Jerusalem about your book—have you been invited to any German universities or German/American cultural centers over there to talk about your research?

SN: Not yet. But The Third Reich in the Ivory Tower received strong reviews in two major German newspapers, Süddeutsche Zeitung (Munich) and Frankfurter Rundschau (Frankfurt), as well as in Il Sole 24 Ore in Milan, Italy.

LR: During the 1930s, many academics argued that what was happening in Germany was none of our business. Where would you as an academic draw the line about another country’s “internal” affairs?

SN: Academics were more conversant with European affairs than most Americans and had an obligation to speak out against Nazism. We should all be deeply concerned when atrocities are committed anywhere in the world. I wouldn’t draw any line.

Books mentioned in this column:
The Third Reich in the Ivory Tower by Stephen Norwood (Cambridge University Press, 2009)

Lev Raphael grew up in New York but got over it and has lived half his life in Michigan where he found his partner of twenty-four years, and a certain small fame. He escaped academia in 1988 to write full-time and has never looked back. The author of nineteen books in many genres, and hundreds of reviews, stories and articles, he’s seen his work discussed in journals, books, conference papers, and assigned in college and university classrooms. Which means he’s become homework. Who knew? Lev’s books have been translated into close to a dozen languages, some of which he can’t identify, and he’s done hundreds of readings and talks across the U.S. and Canada, and in France, England, Scotland, Austria, Germany and Israel. His memoir My Germany was published in April 2009 by the University of Wisconsin Press. You can learn more about Lev and his work on his website. Lev has reviewed for the Washington Post, Boston Review, NPR, the Ft. Worth Star-Telegram, Jerusalem Report and the Detroit Free Press where he had a mystery column for almost a decade. He also hosted his own public radio book show where he interviewed Salman Rushdie, Erica Jong, and Julian Barnes among many other authors. Whatever the genre, he's always looked for books with a memorable voice and a compelling story to tell. Contact Lev.