The Society for the Furtherance of the Critical Philosophy (SFCP): a Foundation of German Female Refugees and Their British Comrades in 1940

4 Krohn

Chapter 1 The Society for the Furtherance of the Critical Philosophy (SFCP): A Foundation of German Female Refugees and their British Comrades in 1940

Dieter Krohn*

The history of the SFCP is part of the history of an educational and political movement that originated with the Göttingen philosopher Leonard Nelson and took a foothold in Britain in the late twenties/early thirties. This article describes how the British members of this movement helped their German comrades when they had to take refuge from the Nazis, whom they had fought as long as possible. This includes especially the fate of the movement´s experimental school that first fled to Denmark and then to Britain.

There is a very simple story behind the founding of Charity No. 313712 which is registered with the Charity Commission of England and Wales and carries the somewhat cumbersome name The Society for the Furtherance of the Critical Philosophy [SFCP].1 And there is a much more complex story behind the simple story that sheds light on a specific immigrant group before and during the Second World War in Britain and on the support and cooperation they received from their personal and political friends in their host country. The short and simple answer first: Children needed help. A group of children aged four to fourteen who had to flee from the Nazis, first from Germany to Denmark, then from Denmark to Britain, accompanied by their teachers Minna Specht and Gustav Heckmann, Charlotte Sonntag and Liselotte Wettig needed shelter and protection.2 In retrospect Minna Specht wrote:

* I gratefully acknowledge the support given by the trustees of the Society for the Furtherance of Critical Philosophy which enabled me to do thorough research in the archives in Berlin, Bonn, London, Swansea and Warwick. I am especially grateful for the frequent and long talks with Dr Rene Saran-Branton (born in 1921) which I have enjoyed since the early seventies. Rene is a most convincing proof of the value and power of the Nelsonian ideals. 1 In most cases nowadays the last definite article in the name is left out, which shows a signifi- cant change in the Society´s self-conception. 2 See Charlotte Heckmann, Begleiten und Vertrauen – Pädagogische Erfahrungen im Exil 1934– 1946, ed. by Inge Hansen-Schaberg and Bruno Schonig (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 1995).

We wished to save the children, whose parents either remained on the spot to continue their resistance to the Fascists or who, as fugitives, had to seek a new existence. Our life in exile was far removed from the horrors of the occupied countries and far from the tyranny that poisoned the youth of Germany. But all our children had one thing in common: they had been uprooted from their original soil. They had lost their national- ity, their native land, the presence of their parents, their former background and former companions, but were given a chance to take root again after a short period of transition.3

The foundation of a charity, the foundation of The Society for the Furtherance of the Critical Philosophy, was an important measure to guarantee the help needed. The charity could be the funding organisation of a new school in Britain, supporting the facility, paying the teachers, acting as representatives of the school towards the authorities. And the more comprehensive and much more complex answer to the ques- tion as to why and how SFCP came into being, the history behind it?4

3 This passage is quoted in Birgit S. Nielsen, Erziehung zum Selbstvertrauen (see fn.11), 138, from: Minna Specht, “Education for Confidence”, in Children’s Communities (Experiments in Democratic Living), Monograph 1 (London: New Educational Fellowship, 1944), 20–28. 4 This paper can only give a rough description of the background and the events connected with the founding of the SFCP. A comprehensive well-sourced and well-documented text for publication is in preparation by the present author. The following archives hold documents related to the Nelsonian organisations in Germany and their sister or successor organisations in Britain and to the people who were active in those organisations: Deutsches Bundesarchiv, Berlin; Archiv der sozialen Demokratie, Bonn; The National Archives, Kew, London; Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick; Richard Burton Archives, Swansea University (for one of the first trustees of SFCP, Rush Rhees). The source situation is relatively good. The organisations which originated with Leonard Nelson and his early followers maintained a comprehensive reporting system and frequently exchanged letters, which were diligently filed. Archival material that was confiscated by the Gestapo in 1933 reached the Bundesarchiv, Berlin via Moscow (at the end of the war) and Potsdam (after German reunification). Other German files went with Nelsonians who had to emigrate to Denmark, Britain and the USA, and were taken back to Germany after the war. All the documents of sister organisations in Britain (collected and kept by Mary Saran and, later, by her daughter Rene Saran) were given to the Modern Records Centre at the University of Warwick, where they maintain very helpful cata- logues. The Archiv der sozialen Demokratie in Bonn hold about 70 running metres of materials related to Nelsonian organisations or members of those organisations. The interpretation of the documents is not always easy, because the writers normally used first names or initials and during the Nazi period code names.