This book is more topical than the editors could have expected (or feared) when it was published in 2022. It illustrates how the humanities at German universities adapted to the Nazi regime. There are few heroes, some villains, and many opportunists. It is shocking to see how pliable even great scholars were at the onset of the Nazis, how they ignored the fate of their colleagues and friends who were being persecuted for racial or political reasons. What does that mean for today? When I began writing this report, the academic world was appalled by Columbia University’s willingness to cave in to pressure from the United States government. This seemed to show that the cowardice of academia is a recurring theme in modern history. Meanwhile, Harvard has set an example of resistance, and others seem to be following. This is evidence of a significant difference between German universities after 1933 and American universities today. American universities are embedded in a society that still embraces democratic values, and they have the opportunity to learn from the failure of German universities.
The title of this volume, The Betrayal of the Humanities, raises the question of the extent to which the humanities are responsible for upholding humanitarian values and makes the editors’ position clear. Consequently, in the first paragraph of their preface, they define the humanities as “the standard bearers of the values and history of Western civilization” (xvii). This raises many questions. I will leave aside the problem of why it should only be Western civilization. My main issue is the confidence the editors seem to have that there are values inherent in the humanities that were betrayed when the vast majority of German professors eagerly pledged their allegiance to the new Nazi regime. Such an interpretation runs the risk of being anachronistic. Careerism was—and is—a driving force for many academics. But for many professors of the time, their conservative nationalism also aligned well with Nazi ideology, even if they despised the rudeness of the Nazis.
To be fair, the editors are aware of the issues. In their introduction, they discuss at length the question of whether humanism advocates or even requires a particular set of values (6). In a sympathetic and open way, they confess their love for the Humboldt model of the university. They want the humanities to be taught in a way that makes people better, and this was certainly the intention of the Humboldts. So what German scholars did during the Third Reich appears in this light to be a rupture, a betrayal. I would like to follow that interpretation. But the Humboldt model was an elitist system, and the ideal of independent thought of the university seminars did not lead its proponents to a democratic attitude. Few of the great German scholars of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were democrats, with Theodor Mommsen being a famous (and disillusioned) exception. Ethnic stereotypes were widespread among German professors, and the Weimar Republic, as the editors know, faced strong opposition in academia. In their interpretation, however, German criticism of the Enlightenment took a more political turn only in the 1920s as German professors saw their political enemies from the First World War as the heirs of democracy (9). However, since German universities were already centers of authoritarian ideas during the Kaiser period, it is inaccurate to speak of values that had “undergirded humanities scholarship and the academic world before the Nazi era” (4). The history of the humanities at German universities in the Nazi era was not a deviation from its true mission, but a continuation of traditions that had existed before.
Obviously and regrettably, the humanities in themselves are not immune to anti-democratic thinking and can be useful to any political system depending on the context. They provide the tools to criticize authoritarianism, lies and racism. However, the same tools can be used to support authoritarianism, lies and racism with a lot of scholarship and acumen. Which way they go depends on many factors outside of academia.
Ironically, this is what the anthology under review, which contains 15 substantial, well-edited articles, makes clear. The book is divided into three parts, the first of which is devoted to “Nazi Germany and the Historical Humanities”. Alan E. Steinweis provides a magisterial overview of publications on the development of the humanities in Nazi Germany, which complements the introduction’s sub-chapters on the history of Holocaust awareness and the expanding scope of contemporary Holocaust studies. He shows that conservative, nationalist values prevailed in German academia before 1933 and questions the concept of betrayal. He also looks at Carl Schmitt and Martin Heidegger, who remained internationally influential despite their open engagement with Nazi Germany. Nor were books the only important vehicle of influence: Steinweis rightly emphasizes the impact of the Historikertag in Frankfurt in 1998, when the Nazi past of some of the luminaries of German historiography, such as Werner Conze and Theodor Schieder, was made public. Their involvement with the regime had long been common knowledge in their circles. This testifies to a crucial element of German academic culture: the vital importance of the relationship between academic teacher and student, which has led even liberal historians of Nazi Germany to remain silent about the role of their teachers.
Suzanne Marchand contributes a groundbreaking chapter on Orientalistik (Oriental studies), which flourished in German universities. She vividly describes the dramatic changes brought about by the Nazi regime. Some scholars were forced to flee, many to the United States, some died in a camp. Those who remained were under pressure to justify their work, which mainly dealt with periods far in the past and with Semitic languages. They desperately tried to demonstrate their relevance to the Third Reich by implicitly accepting elements of Nazi ideology. Marchand traces various forms of justification. Nevertheless, a kind of conspicuous collaboration stands out, excused by the desire to protect the discipline (and one’s own academic position).
Certain theologians played a crucial role in Nazi scholarship. Traditional Christian anti-Judaism had long since formed alliances with biologistic anti-Semitism. Christopher Probst analyzes how Protestant theologians of various stripes used Martin Luther’s work to justify the ruthless anti-Semitism of their day. Bernhard M. Levinson pays tribute to the attempts of the eminent Old Testament scholar Gerhard von Rad to resist the Nazification of his discipline. He also fought against the disdain for Old Testament studies among theologians, and he did so by claiming it for the Christian tradition, which can be seen as a form of “de-Jewing” of the text that compromised his scholarship. Levinson also discusses the weak denazification of the Thuringian Church and the theological faculty in Jena, which allowed many German Christians to continue their work.
Within German theological faculties, there were institutes for Jewish studies where Christian theologians, not Jews, taught and researched the subject. Because of their excellent knowledge of Hebrew and Jewish traditions, their incumbents could serve as witnesses against the Jews. Anders Gerdmar shows how such an institute became a center for anti-Semitic studies at the prestigious Protestant Theological Faculty in Tübingen. He outlines the work of eminent antisemitic scholars such as Adolf Schlatter, Gerhard Kittel, Karl Georg Kuhn, Paul Althaus, and Walter Grundmann. By analyzing the Tübingen network from the perspective of an emotional regime, Gerdmar adds a new aspect to the methodological tools of the history of science.
German scholars held a dominant position in Egyptology and Assyriology in the early 20th century. However, these fields of study focused on cultures that were categorized as non-Aryan, which posed a dilemma. Thomas Schneider focuses on Hermann Grapow, Professor of Egyptology, who was an influential figure at the University and Academy in Berlin. He adopted positions of Nazi ideology in order to advance his career and the importance of his discipline, in several cases displaying pre-emptive obedience. After Germany’s defeat, Grapow proved flexible enough to continue his career in socialist East Germany. Johannes Renger gives an overview of all Assyriologists in Germany at the time of the Third Reich. A large number of them were forced to leave Germany for racial and political reasons; the remaining scholars complied with the regime to varying degrees. Renger also shows the importance of personal loyalties: Wolfram von Soden, who became a member of the SA in 1933, was the assistant to Benno Landsberger, who was expelled from his chair in 1935 for being Jewish. Their relationship remained close, and Landsberger, by then in Chicago, helped reinstate von Soden after the war.
The last discipline discussed in part I is prehistoric archaeology, which was particularly suited to justifying historical claims of Germanic power. Bettina Arnold compares the careers of two leading experts who were both deeply involved in the structures of the Third Reich, Hans Reinerth and Herbert Jankuhn, and shows how different individual cases could develop after the war. Jankuhn continued his university career, while Reinerth, who had used his powerful position in the Third Reich to take revenge on his critics, was excluded from the scientific community and had to resign to become the director of a small museum, thus playing the role of a sin-eater.
The second part of the book deals with “Law, Music, and Philosophy in the Third Reich”, with one chapter for each discipline. Under the allusive title “Hitler’s Willing Professors”, Oren Gross examines the significance of National Socialism in law faculties, particularly the role of Carl Schmitt (and others such as Theodor Maunz, Ernst Forsthoff, and Karl Larenz). He also discusses the whitewashing of their own history by law professors after the end of the Nazi regime. The article is made even more powerful by connecting the events to Gross’s own family history, whose maternal grandfather was the last Jew to earn a doctorate in law before World War II and survived in Israel, while most of his paternal grandfather’s relatives were murdered by the German killing machine. Michael Cherlin examines the development of Schoenberg’s music before the Third Reich and the expulsion of him and his music by the Nazis. The article provides deep insights into Schoenberg’s work, but the role of the universities is less prominent here than in other articles.
Emmanuel Faye devotes his essay to political philosophy. He discusses the role of Hannah Arendt, who fled Germany and wrote masterfully about the origins of totalitarianism, in exonerating her former teacher and lover Martin Heidegger of his support for the Third Reich, calling it an “escapade”. His second protagonist is the much lesser-known philosopher Aurel Kolnai, who fled Austria in 1938 and who, before the worst came, perceptively analyzed the writings of a wide range of authors who contributed to the Nazi worldview without trivializing it.
Part III, entitled “Nazi Germany and Beyond”, deals with institutional constellations. Two studies examine the history of the University of Göttingen. Robert P. Ericksen shows how academic freedom and human values had already come under attack at German universities prior to the Nazi regime and describes how what the Nazis called the “purge” began as early as 1933. He also scrutinizes the largely unsuccessful attempts by the British, who controlled Göttingen after Germany’s defeat, to eliminate Nazism at the University of Göttingen. Many professors simply lied about their Nazi past. Nevertheless, he sees denazification as useful for Germany’s postwar success story. Anikó Szabó examines attempts at postwar reconciliation. As case studies show, many scholars who had compromised with Nazism and even supported the ideology remained in power, while very few of those who had been expelled returned and were reintegrated into the German academic world. Göttingen is characteristic of the limits of the renewal of German universities after the war.
The last two articles look beyond Germany. Franklin Hugh Adlers, discussing more broadly the world of culture, considers the case of Italy, which did not launch an anti-Jewish campaign until 1938, in response to internal challenges but also to German pressure. It was not as aggressive as the German measures. But many Jews lost their jobs, which was tacitly accepted by their colleagues.
Finally, the volume turns to the United States at the time the book was written. Alvin H. Rosenfeld discusses disturbing events at American universities that made them less comfortable places for Jews. But he could not foresee the impact that October 7 and the Gaza war would have on Western, and especially American, universities, and how the accusation of anti-Semitism would be misused to pressure universities. In doing so, this article inadvertently becomes a cautionary tale about the speed of developments that can fundamentally damage universities.
My summaries cannot do justice to the richness of the stimulating articles in the volume, which itself can only touch on some of the aspects involved. The volume has a strong bias toward the disciplines of Classical Studies, as well as those dealing with Semitic languages. Classical archaeology, ancient history—history in general—and classical archaeology are only touched upon in passing. It would have been helpful to learn more about Germanistik, Romanistik, and other ideologically sensitive subjects. Perhaps this volume will encourage more research in this area.
The word “betrayal” in the title, used in most of the articles, does not reflect the complexity of the contributions in this volume. Any reader who shares the values espoused by the editors (as the reviewer does) will be appalled to see how the humanities have been used in various, at times abhorrent, contexts. Scholars’ desperate attempts to prove the relevance of their subjects often resulted in opportunism and drew them deeper into Nazi ideology. The volume is thus a powerful illustration of how easily the humanities can be led to support inhuman values. In contrast to the humanities in the Third Reich, the humanities in modern democracies can look back on a long history of democratic and humanistic traditions in the humanities. Will this give them enough strength to resist the temptations of authoritarianism? We will see.
Authors and Titles
Alan Steinweis: The History of the Humanities in the Third Reich
Suzanne L. Marchand: The “Orient” and “Us”: Making Ancient Oriental Studies Relevant during the Nazi Regime
Christopher J. Probst: Luther Scholars, Jews, and Judaism during the Third Reich. From the Hallowed Halls of Academia to the Sacred Spaces of German Protestantism
Bernard M. Levinson: Gerhard von Rad’s Struggle against the Nazification of the Old Testament
Anders Gerdmar: Jewish Studies in the Service of Nazi Ideology. Tübingen’s Faculty of Theology as a Center for Antisemitic Research
Thomas Schneider: Hermann Grapow, Egyptology, and National Socialist Initiatives for the Humanities
Johannes Renger: German Assyriology. A Discipline in Troubled Waters
Bettina Arnold: National Socialist Archaeology as a Faustian Bargain. The Contrasting Careers of Hans Reinerth and Herbert Jankuhn
Emmanuel Faye: Political Philosophy. Hannah Arendt and Aurel Kolnai as Interpreters of the Nazi Totalitarian State
Oren Gross: Hitler’s willing professors
Michael Cherlin: The music of Arnold Schoenberg: Catastrophe and Creation
Robert P. Ericksen: The Nazification and Denazification of the University of Göttingen.
Anikó Szabó: The University of Göttingen and its Postwar Response to Persecuted Colleagues. A Broken Relationship
Franklin Hugh Adlers: Italian Fascism. Decentering Standard Assumptions about Antisemitism and Totalitarianism
Alvin H. Rosenfeld: Is There an Anti-Jewish Bias in Today’s University?