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Humboldt and the Modern German University Tensions

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Humboldt and the Modern German University Tensions 3 The discovery of Humboldt There were nineteen universities in the German Empire when it was proclaimed in 1871. During the almost fifty years that followed, up until the outbreak of the First World War, the number of students quadrupled. During the same period several institutes of technol- ogy and schools of economics were founded, but only three new universities: Strasbourg in 1872, Münster in 1902, and Frankfurt am Main in 1914. Higher education was, strictly speaking, a matter for the individual constituent states; but the university as an institution was seen as a national undertaking and was the subject of a vivid debate in the pan-German public sphere. Within the borders of the Empire the academic norms were similar, and both students and professors moved easily between universities. All this contributed to a sense of the university as a coherent national system.1 Prussia, which held half of the students and eleven universities, dominated the united Germany. An exceptionally important figure in this context was Friedrich Althoff. Originally a lawyer, he served between 1882 and 1907 with great power and determination in the Prussian Ministry of Education. During this quarter of a century, the system that would later come to be known as ‘System Althoff’ prevailed. With forceful, unorthodox methods, Althoff intervened in 1 Konrad H. Jarausch, ‘Universität und Hochschule’, in Handbuch der deutschen Bildungsgeschichte: 1870–1918: Von der Reichsgründung bis zum Ende des Ersten Weltkriegs, ed. by Christa Berg (Munich, 1991); Anderson, ‘European Universities’. As is often the case when university history is investigated more closely, the establishment of a university is a complicated matter; thus the university in Strasbourg had already been founded in 1631, but after the Franco–Prussian War it was re-established in 1872 as ‘Reichs-Universität Straßburg’, and five years later it became one of the universities named ‘Kaiser- Wilhelms-Universität’. See Stephan Roscher, Die Kaiser-Wilhelms-Universität Straßburg 1872–1902 (Frankfurt am Main, 2006). Johan Östling - 9789198376814 Downloaded from manchesterhive.com at 09/24/2021 03:55:37PM via free access The discovery of Humboldt 51 recruitment procedures and put forward the candidates he favoured for professorships. By founding new institutes, professorships, and seminars, he was also able to steer developments in the direction he wanted. The main goal was to constantly improve academic quality in Prussia and defend Germany’s cultural reputation. Even among his contemporaries, Althoff aroused powerful feelings – he was spoken of as ‘the Bismarck of the German university system’– and it was not just Max Weber who felt that he was a domineering schemer who poisoned the scholarly/scientific climate. More recent research has emphasised the idea that he must also be seen as an enlightened bureaucrat in the service of the nation, a man who, without scruples, safeguarded science and scholarship at a time of political polarisation. Irrespective of how Althoff is assessed, it cannot be denied that the Prussian universities, primarily the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität of the capital, became the jewel in the German academic crown during the period surrounding the year 1900.2 German universities enjoyed a high reputation already at the founding of the Empire in 1871. During the ensuing decades, their importance increased even more; and towards the end of the nine- teenth century they were undoubtedly regarded as the foremost in the world. Students from both the rest of Europe and North America flocked to Germany. Here were famous professors in almost all branches of science and scholarship. In the growing rivalry among the European countries, its prominent research milieus became a significant asset for Germany. For many Germans, especially from the educated middle classes, their own academic tradition was an untainted source of national pride. The university was the very quintessence of the pre-eminence attained by German culture.3 In spite of their golden-age ambiance, we can see today that German universities at the turn of the century were plagued by inner 2 Althoff and his system in Imperial Germany are discussed in great detail in Bernhard vom Brocke, ‘Hochschul- und Wissenschaftspolitik in Preussen im deutschen Kaiserreich 1882–1907: Das “System Althoff”’, in Bildungspolitik in Preussen zur Zeit des Kaiserreichs, ed. by Peter Baumgart (Stuttgart, 1980) and in Wissenschaftsgeschichte und Wissenschaftspolitik im Industriezeitalter: Das ‘System Althoff’ in historischer Perspektive, ed. by Bernhard vom Brocke (Hildesheim, 1991). On Max Weber’s critique of the ‘System Althoff’, see Josephson, Den akademiska frihetens gränser, pp. 169–73. 3 In great detail in Rüdiger vom Bruch, Wissenschaft, Politik und öffentliche Meinung: Gelehrtenpolitik im Wilhelminischen Deutschland (1890–1914) (Husum, 1980); in summary in Anderson, European Universities, pp. 151–61. Johan Östling - 9789198376814 Downloaded from manchesterhive.com at 09/24/2021 03:55:37PM via free access 52 Humboldt and the modern German university tensions. The number of students increased rapidly, but permanent jobs became only slightly more numerous. This was especially troublesome for young Privatdozenten with Habilitation – that is, scholars qualified for a professorship on the basis of a second major work – who were forced to toil, year after year, overshadowed by the powerful professors in their respective subjects. The emergence of a kind of proletariat of docents added fuel to the generational conflict that always lies dormant in the hierarchical academic system. The conflicts, however, ran much deeper than this and were at bottom ideological in nature.4 During the 1880s and 1890s, political conflicts increased within the German university. At the time of the February Revolution in 1848, the majority of students and professors had been liberal. Following the unification of the nation, more and more people rallied round national slogans and made Germany’s cause their own. A strong state was seen as a guarantor of strong science and scholarship. The intense social development during the final stages of the nineteenth century pushed the academic community to the right; Konrad H. Jarausch has spoken of ‘the rise of academic illiberalism’. The German nationalism of which many scholars and scientists were adherents derived its nourishment from Prussian, Protestant, and conservative sources. Catholics, Jews, and political radicals found it more difficult to assert themselves and were sometimes completely excluded from the academic community.5 During the same period, competition increased among the aca- demic disciplines. Ultimately, the conflict was about the meaning of the concept of Wissenschaft. In a speech from 1892, the Berlin university’s rector (this term will be used from now on to refer to the Rektor, or vice-chancellor/president, of a German university), Rudolf Virchow, declared that ‘the dominance of neohumanism is broken’. Virchow, who was a prominent pathologist and a dedicated amateur archaeologist, had combined his academic work with a career as a liberal politician. To him, it was self-evident that natural science was in alliance with progressive social development. Virchow was 4 Alexander Busch, Die Geschichte der Privatdozenten: Eine soziologische Studie zur grossbetrieblichen Entwicklung der deutschen Universitäten (Stuttgart, 1959); Anderson, European Universities, pp. 153–54. 5 Konrad H. Jarausch, Students, Society, and Politics in Imperial Germany: The Rise of Academic Illiberalism (Princeton, 1982); Notker Hammerstein, Antisemitismus und deutsche Universitäten 1871–1933 (Frankfurt am Main, 1995). Johan Östling - 9789198376814 Downloaded from manchesterhive.com at 09/24/2021 03:55:37PM via free access The discovery of Humboldt 53 not alone. The late nineteenth century saw a powerful expansion of natural-science subjects in German universities. This was an expansion in quantity, but at bottom it was an advancement for the methodology and knowledge production of the exact sciences. Alongside the rapid industrialisation of Germany during the last decades of the century, a number of institutes of technology were founded, although they were regarded with suspicion by the old universities and long made up a separate sphere of higher education. Around the year 1900, applied research in the natural sciences had nevertheless acquired a real foothold in the large universities. It was not just social-reformist and economic hopes that were tied to this development. During the prelude to the First World War, with growing rivalry among the great powers in Europe, many people put their trust in a marriage between Macht (‘power’) and Geist (‘mind’, ‘spirit’). ‘Military prowess and science are the two great pillars of Germany’s greatness, and the Prussian state has the duty to ensure the preservation of both’, maintained the influential church historian and research politician Adolf von Harnack.6 But not everyone was carried away by enthusiasm during the years leading up to the ‘Great War’. Quite a few observers had a sense of an internal, constantly growing crisis for the university. The representatives of the humanities and theology, die Geisteswis- senschaften, were particularly troubled. The increasing specialisation not only overthrew the conviction concerning the unity of science/ scholarship; it was a threat to the very idea of Bildung, which was in many ways their raison d’être. Instead, the natural-scientific worldview
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