Cap, Gown and Swastika

By Steve Rodan

The Leipzig Graduate School of Management began in 1898 as a nondescript German private institution that sought to train students to help develop the nation's rapidly growing economy. Money rather than politics marked the focus for the first school in Germany that introduced modern business management.

That changed in 1931 with the appointment of Alexander Snyckers as dean of Leipzig. Unlike his predecessor, Snyckers was an enthusiastic supporter of Adolf Hitler, two years away from becoming chancellor. In his first address as dean on June 3, 1931, Snyckers brushed aside the priority on research and accountability. Instead, he echoed the Nazi Party leader and his allies that Germany was the victim of World War I and now needed living space for its people. Although he avoided clicking his heels and giving the Nazi salute, the audience knew exactly what Snyckers was talking about.

Two years later, Hitler was in power and Snyckers felt no restraint in his adoration for the fuhrer. A year into office, Snyckers sought to become the undisputed ruler of Leipzig. Now, the outgoing dean was referring constantly to the "fuhrer." He called it "political accountability."

"Through the gates of our school, the wave of the national movement has also flowed," Snyckers said. "Hoisting the black-red-white [flag] and the swastika was the symbol for this. A symbol, which, so far, signals readiness and hopefully soon fulfilment." [1]

Campus takeover

Years before the high school dropout became dictator, Hitler presided over a Nazi-infested university system in Germany. He began with the students, who adopted the mantra that the Jews were to blame for everything, particularly Germany's defeat in 1918. In 1926, soon after Hitler was released from prison for trying to overthrow Germany's elected government, he founded the National Socialist German Student League, meant to train students to take over universities, attack Jews and intimidate faculty. His hatred and tactics crossed the ocean and influenced Ivy League campuses in the United States. [2]

Soon, league members walked around campus with brown shirts and established fraternities in their effort to dominate student government. The league demanded that students attend Nazi lectures, perform labor for the Third Reich, join exercise sessions and participate in assemblies, including the burning of books written by Jews or those regarded as anti-Nazi.

The league also provided paramilitary training under the banner of Arbeiter der Stirn und der Faust, or "Workers of the Head and the Fist." Although many students shied away from street violence, they embraced the anti-Semitism of the Nazi Student League.

Hitler understood that the universities must serve as the backbone of his new Third Reich. In April 1933, in one of his first acts as chancellor, he introduced a law that made the Nazi Student League the arbiter of higher education. With few exceptions, Jewish staffers were dismissed. Violence was used against anybody who opposed or even refrained from joining the oppression. The first targets were the Jewish students who believed they would be protected by their professors.

There was no protection. The Nazi students, to the cheering of the less daring, were allowed to assault anybody deemed undesirable. In Freiburg, the Nazi league organized the ransacking and occupation of the local Jewish fraternity house. At the University of Heidelberg, Heinrich Poll, a Jewish professor of eugenics, became the target of a campaign fueled by students unhappy over their grades. [3]

Rejecting academic freedom

One of the more enthusiastic academics was Martin Heidegger. During the 1920s, Heidegger, a professor at Freiburg University, was regarded as one of the most prominent philosophers in Germany. Heavily influenced by Friedrich Nietzsche, he rejected the Weimar Republic's encouragement of academic freedom and embraced Hitler. He complained of Jewish influence in German life and called for reorganizing the university along Nazi lines.

In April 1933, Heidegger, mentored by the Jewish-born philosopher Edmund Husseri, was voted head of Freiburg University. He replaced a man who had refused to approve an anti-Semitic poster on campus. A month later, Heidegger, who severed ties with Husseri, a longtime convert to Christianity, urged his students to embrace the fuhrer.

On May 1, Heidegger formally joined the Nazi Party and soon served on a committee that helped draft anti-Jewish legislation, including the Nuremberg Laws. He would often wear a brown shirt to his lectures. He told one of his former Jewish students, Karl Lowith, that his belief in the Nazis suited his philosophy.

“The fuhrer himself and he alone is the German reality, present and future, and its law," Heidegger said. "Study to know; from now on, all things demand decision, and all action responsibility. Hail Hitler!" [4]

By 1936, some of the Nazi student leaders were proving somewhat of an embarrassment to Hitler as Germany hosted the Olympics. He sought to restrain university violence by appointing a trusted aide, Gustav Adolf Scheel, as Reichsstudentenfuhrer, or Reich student leader. Scheel was mandated to curb the bloody rivalry between the Nazi-controlled Student Union and Student League.

Still, the Nazi student groups retained considerable power. Much of their authority was invested in gathering information on faculty and students. They provided assessments of loyalty to the Gestapo and Alfred Rosenberg, the Nazi ideology chief. They also made sure the professors supplied a scholastic basis for Hitler's policies, including the Final Solution.

The New Line

After the fall of the Reich, most of the Nazi students and professors escaped serious censure. The deans claimed they had been secret opponents of Hitler but played along for their personal safety. Snyckers, the former dean of the Leipzig business school, died in August 1945 amid the disintegration of his institution.

Heidegger was deemed by the Allies as a Nazi supporter. In 1946, French military authorities banned him from teaching or obtaining any university position. But Heidegger, who renewed contact with Jewish and Zionist figures, flouted the order. His former lover and student, the political theorist Hannah Arendt, defended him at a denazification hearing.

Later, a leading Zionist philosopher, Martin Buber, met Heidegger and spent hours in animated conversation.[5] Despite restrictions, Heidegger continued to publish, and in 1950 returned to Freiberg University.

Heidegger refused to discuss his Nazi past. In 1966, he agreed to an interview with Der Spiegel on condition that it would not be published until after his death in 1976, a year after Arendt. Like many of his colleagues, the German philosopher danced around the issue of his love for Hitler.

"At that time, I saw no other alternative," Heidegger concluded. [6

Notes

1. Snyckers speech. June 14, 1933. He returned as dean in late 1936. "Accountability and ideology: The case of a German university under the Nazi regime." Dominic Detzen Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, The Netherlands Sebastian Hoffmann The University of Edinburgh, UK. 2020. University of Edinburgh. Accountability and ideology: The case of a German university under the Nazi regime (ed.ac.uk)

2. "Nazi Propaganda in American Universities from 1933 to 1938." Jared Rubinstein. Columbia University Press, 2013. Rubenstein_History Research Paper.pdf (umsystem.edu)

3. "University Student Groups in Nazi Germany." Holocaust Encyclopedia. University Student Groups in Nazi Germany | Holocaust Encyclopedia (ushmm.org

4. The Coming of the Third Reich. Richard J. Evans. Page 421. Penguin, New York. 2003.

5. "Martin Buber and Martin Heidegger in Dialogue." Paul Mendes-Flohr. The Journal of Religion. Vol. 94. No. 1. January 2014.

6. "Only God Can Save Us." Der Spiegel. May 30, 1976. Only a God Can Save Us (ditext.com)

Below: Martin Heidegger