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Humboldt and the Modern German University

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Humboldt and the Modern German University 5 Tradition under debate During the final years of the 1950s, the period of actual reconstruction came to an end. Material standards had risen considerably, and the sombre, anxious atmosphere that was typical of the first half of the decade had given way to confidence in a brighter future. An artistic avant-garde broke with prevalent aesthetic principles; a public reckoning with Nazism gradually got under way; and a younger generation began to make itself heard in social debate. Many said farewell to the Adenauer era even before the ageing Federal Chancellor left his post in 1963. These years, c. 1957–1965, stand out as a comparatively distinct phase in West German post-war history, a phase that can be separated from the preceding and ensuing ones. ‘Dynamic times’ is a label given by historians to this period of just under ten years.1 In spite of the growth and spread of prosperity, there was a simmering discontent in many circles. One underlying cause was the incomplete democratisation. True, the parliamentary system had taken hold and been consolidated; but West German society was not seen as entirely democratic. More and more people made more and more insistent demands for reform – a keyword for the 1960s. Especially the younger generation did not feel at home in an order where older men held all the important positions of power. As an 1 Dynamische Zeiten: Die 60er Jahre in den beiden deutschen Gesellschaften, ed. by Axel Schildt, Detlef Siegfried & Karl Christian Lammers (Hamburg, 2000); Schildt & Siegfried, Deutsche Kulturgeschichte, pp. 179–244. Other important interpreters of the history of the Federal Republic use a similar vocabulary: In Die geglückte Demokratie: Geschichte der Bundesrepublik Deutschland von ihren Anfängen bis zur Gegenwart (Stuttgart, 2006), Edgar Wolfrum speaks of the 1960s in terms of ‘dynamism and liberalisation’ while ‘transformation’ and ‘the euphoria of modernity’ are keywords in Ulrich Herbert, Geschichte Deutschlands im 20. Jahrhundert (Munich, 2014). Johan Östling - 9789198376814 Downloaded from manchesterhive.com at 09/26/2021 04:18:21AM via free access Tradition under debate 141 ever-increasing number of people obtained first-hand experience of other Western countries, domestic standards and social structures were challenged. The demands for democratic reform came to be directed not least at the educational system.2 In her thorough study of reforms and revolts in the university world during the long 1960s, Anne Rohstock has presented a complex picture of this situation. She maintains that a strong sense of crisis spread during the period around 1960. There was a widespread belief that there was an alarming educational deficit, a Bildungsnot. According to this belief, West German science and scholarship were dysfunctional and incapable of living up to their ideals; this was considered to be particularly true of the university. That was something many people could agree on. In contrast, there were differing opinions about how the problem should be described, what the reason for this state of affairs was, and what solution would be the best one.3 When the Soviet Union launched the rocket containing the Sputnik 1 satellite in the autumn of 1957, this was not simply the beginning of the space race. In several Western countries, the launch triggered a self-critical discussion on technological and scientific capacities. People have spoken of a Sputnik effect that directly or indirectly incited educational debates and led to new investments. As far as West Germany is concerned, a new direction in research and educational policy could in any case be discerned during the final years of the 1950s. Higher education and advanced research were emphasised as crucial for Germany’s ability to hold its own in international competition. The Cold War would not be won by soldiers but by the ‘people who safeguarded their educational system most carefully’, it was said in the debate. Influential politicians from different camps rallied in support of similar slogans. The Christian Democratic president Heinrich Lübke spoke of the ‘vital importance’ of science and scholarship, and leading Social Democrat Carlo Schmid described advanced education as a fateful issue for the nation. In his government policy statement from 1963, Federal Chancellor Ludwig Erhard suggested that educational and research issues now had the same dignity as the social question had had during the nineteenth century.4 2 Schildt & Siegfried, Deutsche Kulturgeschichte, p. 204. 3 Rohstock, Von der ‘Ordinarienuniversität’, pp. 3–12 and 17–18. 4 Ibid., pp. 17–18. On the Sputnik Crisis, see Paul Dickson, Sputnik: The Shock of the Century (New York, 2001) and Nicholas Barnett, ‘ “RUSSIA WINS SPACE Johan Östling - 9789198376814 Downloaded from manchesterhive.com at 09/26/2021 04:18:21AM via free access 142 Humboldt and the modern German university 10 Protesting students in Munich in 1968 Johan Östling - 9789198376814 Downloaded from manchesterhive.com at 09/26/2021 04:18:21AM via free access Tradition under debate 143 This general support for science and scholarship was gained under duress. It was not merely the triumphs of the Eastern bloc that worried people and called for action. Even in comparison to other countries, primarily the United States, Great Britain, and France, the West German research and educational system appeared neglected and underfunded. The domestic universities and scientific institutes had unquestionably fallen behind, claimed Helmut Coing, first chairman of the Wissenschaftsrat (the Science Council), in a lecture in 1959; and he would be supported by several reports published during subsequent years. Engineering and the natural sciences were singled out as special problem areas.5 One obvious sign of the Federal Republic’s having lost its academic attraction was the stream of younger researchers who left the country and sought their fortunes elsewhere, primarily at American universities. Both pull and push factors were behind this exodus. The conditions for work and research appeared decidedly more favourable on the other side of the Atlantic. At the same time, the German system with its rigid, hierarchical character appeared intimidating to younger scholars. Rudolf Mößbauer, Nobel Prize winner in physics in 1961 and for several years a researcher in California, condemned the scholarly-scientific form of organisation in West Germany as antiquated and backward. He was not alone.6 The threat of an academic drain was paired with the threat of overcrowded universities. During a single decade, from 1955 to 1965, the number of students more than doubled, from 150,000 to 308,000. The result was not only a lack of premises, an increased workload, and other practical problems. In addition, some professors were extremely sceptical with regard to the increase in the number of students. One important reason for this, according to Anne Rohstock, RACE”: The British Press and the Sputnik Moment, 1957’, Media History, 19:2 (2013). An additional sign of the urgency of issues of education and Bildung during the period around 1960 is that several prominent German-speaking thinkers, who had not otherwise concerned themselves with these topics to any particular extent, now took them up for discussion. See, for instance, Hannah Arendt, ‘Die Krise in der Erziehung: Gedanken zur “Progressive Education” ’, Der Monat, 124:11 (1958–1959) and Theodor W. Adorno, ‘Theorie der Halbbildung’, Der Monat, 132:11 (1959). 5 Rohstock, Von der ‘Ordinarienuniversität’, pp. 18–23; Paulus, Vorbild USA?, pp. 163–68 and 337–71. 6 Rohstock, Von der ‘Ordinarienuniversität’, pp. 23–25; Paulus, Vorbild USA?, pp. 275–335. Johan Östling - 9789198376814 Downloaded from manchesterhive.com at 09/26/2021 04:18:21AM via free access 144 Humboldt and the modern German university was that the growing number of students was thought to undermine the old Humboldtian ideal, which saw Bildung as an end in itself. Consequently, it was not only a matter of the professors feeling that they themselves had more to lose than gain from the expansion.7 At the same time, a significant – and seemingly growing – percent- age of students displayed an interest in pronouncedly vocational educational programmes. This tendency was seen by professors, primarily in the faculty of philosophy, as proof of the functionalisation of higher education; indeed, it even came close to ‘treason against the Humboldtian idea of the university’. In this debate Friedrich Schiller’s inaugural lecture from 1789 was quoted, along with his distinction between bread-and-butter scholars and philosophers. Leading representatives of the academy warned that the former were taking over, something that resulted in an intellectual impoverishment of the student population. In a series of articles that attracted a lot of attention, published in 1963 in Die Zeit, literary scholar Walther Killy criticised students for no longer wanting to give themselves up to an ‘adventure of the intellect’, but simply aiming to earn their bread. According to Killy, the students aspired to social prestige and security, not truth and Bildung.8 Underlying the discontent with this development, several factors can be discerned: a genuine concern for the tradition of Bildung and academic freedom; a defence of personal privileges; a bourgeois repugnance toward working-class children gaining entrance to the universities; and so on.9 In a wider context, criticism of the new students must be seen as a result of a deeper dissatisfaction with the state of the West German educational system. No one embodied this better than theologian and educationalist Georg Picht. In Febru- ary 1964, he published a series of articles in the weekly Christ und Welt under the headline ‘Die deutsche Bildungskatastrophe’ (approx. ‘the German educational disaster’). This article attracted an enormous amount of attention, and later in the same year Picht collected his texts and the reactions to them in the book Die deutsche Bildungskatastrophe. Picht demonstrated how bad the situation was 7 Rohstock, Von der ‘Ordinarienuniversität’, pp.
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