CHOOSING COMMUNISM AS THE LESSER EVIL: VICTOR KLEMPERER AND

THE TRANSFORMATION OF EAST GERMAN HIGHER EDUCATION, C. 1933-53

A Thesis

Presented to

The Faculty of Graduate Studies

of

The University of Guelph

by

EMMANUEL R. HOGG

In partial fulfilment of requirements

for the degree of

Master of Arts

May, 2008

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CHOOSING COMMUNISM AS THE LESSER EVIL: VICTOR KLEMPERER AND THE TRANSFORMATION OF EAST GERMAN HIGHER EDUCATION, C. 1933-53

Emmanuel R. Hogg Advisor: University of Guelph, 2008 Professor Alan McDougall

This thesis examines the remarkable transition from Nazism to Communism that occurred in East Germany following the Second World War. It provides insight into what motivated individuals to collaborate with the Communist authorities by analyzing the diaries of a professor who experienced both the Third Reich and Soviet occupation,

Victor Klemperer. It argues that Klemperer's motives for partaking in the 'anti-fascist democratic transformation' of higher education from 1945-53 were determined by his experiences with Nazism, especially the ease with which his colleagues accepted Nazi interference in the academic milieu, and his desire to play a role in reconstruction during

Soviet occupation. His decision to go along with 'socialist reorganization', however, was dominated by a personal search for material comfort and career successes in a regime he described as the 'lesser evil'. This thesis studies Victor Klemperer as a German professor but also as a German citizen living under successive dictatorships, in order to highlight the complexities that underpinned the behaviour of individuals struggling through a period of huge political, socio-economic, and cultural upheaval. AKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would firstly like to thank my parents and family for continually supporting me throughout my academic career. I am also greatly indebted to my advisor, Professor Alan

McDougall, for helping me structure many of my thoughts. This thesis, and indeed much of my academic career, would not have been possible without his wisdom, compassion, and guidance. His continued trust in my unorthodox ways of learning has permitted me to grow intellectually and spiritually. I am forever grateful and indebted to him.

I would also like to thank Professor Gary Bruce, from the University of Waterloo,

Professor Keith Cassidy, Professor William Cormack, Professor Jeff Mitscherling, Dr.

Waldemar Scholtes, Professor Douglas McCalla, all from the University of Guelph, for their assistance throughout my Undergraduate and Graduate years at the University of

Guelph. I would also like to acknowledge all the Faculty and Staff from the Uniwersytet

Jagiellonski in Krakow, Polska who were of assistance to me during my time there. Much of my knowledge concerning European history and culture derives from my experiences in Poland.

This thesis would not have been possible without the financial support awarded me throughout my Master's degree in the form of various grants and scholarships, such as the Travel Grant, the Gait scholarship, and various Graduate Teaching Assistant positions.

Finally, a word of mention is needed for all those who have made my University experience a beautiful journey (in no order of importance): Orett M., Matthew F.,

Meghan G., Derek M., Neelan T., Daniel N., Julia B., Camille S., Natalie R., Jeanna H.,

1 Preet S., Yvan P., Agata C, Dianne M., Kathleen S.-H., Emily A., Katie from B., Iris H.,

Marie-Ange Y., Sarah T. Paul R., Jen B., Ashley S., Brett M., Lindsey M., Tamany B., and Mark C.

Sincerely,

Emmanuel R. Hogg,

Guelph, 2008

ii TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS i TABLE OF CONTENTS iii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS iv

INTRODUCTION 1 1. The Remarkable Transition of East German Higher Education 1 2. The Diaries of Victor Klemperer 7 3. East German Higher Education in Historiographical Context 10 4. Exploring the Motives for Participating in the 'Anti-Fascist Democratic Transformation' and 'Socialist Reorganization' of Higher Education 21

CHAPTER 1: Creating a National Socialist Higher Education System, c. 1933-45 23 1. National Socialist Higher Educational Philosophy 24 2. National Socialist Restructuring of the Higher Education System 27 i) Institutional and Structural Changes 27 ii) National Socialist Students 30 iii) Professors under National Socialism 34 3. The Question of Collective Guilt of German Professors 41

CHAPTER 2: Complexities in the Reconstruction of East German Higher Education, c. 1945-53 43 1. Soviet Educational Philosophy 44 2. The 'Anti-fascist Democratic Transformation' 45 i) De-nazification and Democratization, 1945-47 45 ii) Democratization, 1947-48 49 3. The'Socialist Re-organization'of Higher Education, 1949-53 53 4. Complexities of Reconstruction 56 i) 'Brain Drain' East and West 56 ii) Students 58 iii) Dealing with the Nazi Past' (Vergangenheitsbewaltigung) 62 5. From Institutional and Social History to Personal Narrative 65

CHAPTER 3: Choosing the 'Lesser Evil': Victor Klemperer's Experience with Reconstruction 66 Victor Klemperer as a German (Jew) 66 'Zero Hour' (Stunde Null): The Rebirth of Klemperer as Witness 73 Joining the KPD and 'Anti-fascist democratic transformation' 77 Gradually accepting a'socialist re-organisation' 80 Personal Motives and Contextual Themes 89

CONCLUSION 92

BIBLIOGRAPHY 96

in LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

ABF: Workers and Peasants' Faculty

CDU: Christian Democratic Union

DVV: German Education Administration

FDJ: Free German Youth

FRG: Federal Republic of Germany

GDR: German Democratic Republic

KB: Cultural Union for the Democratic Renewal of Germany

KPD: German Communist Party

LDPD: Liberal Democratic Party of Germany

NSDAP: German National Socialist Workers' Party (Nazi Party)

NSDStB: National Socialist German Student's League

ONO: Education Department of the Soviet Military Administration of Germany

REM: Reich Ministry of Education

SBZ: Soviet Zone of Occupation

SED: Socialist Unity Party of Germany

SMAD: Soviet Military Administration of Germany

SPD: Social Democratic Party of Germany

TH: Dresden Technical College

IV INTRODUCTION

The Remarkable Transition of East German Higher Education

A remarkable transition took place after the end of the Second World War that transformed East Germany from a racially based National Socialist (Nazi) state to one that was 'anti-fascist democratic socialist', the German Democratic Republic (GDR).

The re-education of the German population was an intrinsic part of any successful democratic transformation of Germany. Theoretically, education forms and responds to both culture—which may include all spiritual and material activities of individuals, social groups, or entire societies—and context, either circumstantial or historical.1 It permits the propagation of general, specific, and particular forms of knowledge from one generation to the next, and within different strata of society, while simultaneously forming and being formed by social and cultural values.2 The role of education in relation to the state suggests a relationship whereby experts provide knowledge to those in positions of authority. Thus, experts are legitimized by the political organizations in power and they legitimize the politics of the regime by providing authorities with the desired knowledge.3

Any reform of institutionalized education from outside forces therefore implies a certain politicization of the educational processes because of its natural ability to shape the social framework of a society.4 After the demise of Nazism, eastern Germany fell under Soviet

For more information surrounding the link between education, culture, and society, see Konrad Schroder, Monica Shelley, & Margaret Winck, eds., Aspects of European Cultural Diversity, (Routledge: London, 1995), 189-95 On how education forms and responds to culture and context see Ibid., 67 3 Margit Szollosi-Janze, 'National Socialism and the Sciences: Reflections, Conclusions, and Historical Perspectives', in Margit Szollosi-Janzi, ed., Science in the Third Reich, (Berg: Oxford, 2001), 18 4 Konrad Schroder, Monica Shelley, & Margaret Winck, eds., Aspects of European Cultural Diversity, 69

1 military occupation and the re-education of the German population concentrated on building an 'anti-fascist democratic' culture.

Higher education held a position of particular importance in German society and was highly regarded throughout Europe.5 By the end of the 19th Century, most European states relied increasingly on higher education to produce experts and elites upon which modern and prosperous nations could be built.6 As academia grew in terms of power, the political realm became as dependent on higher education as any other in society, if not more so. This relationship between the academic elite, politics, and society is particularly important in understanding how East Germany was restructured—and ultimately transformed—by the Nazi and Communist regimes, where the need for established experts conflicted with both regime's ideological orientation.7

National Socialist ideology was suspicious of, and indeed at times outright attacked, the academic elite due to its conviction that they were partly responsible for

Germany's defeat in 1918. Nevertheless, Hitler understood that he would be inherently dependent upon them if he was to fulfil his ambitions of building the Third Reich. His decision, however, was not so much to work along side German academia but rather to coordinate it into the National Socialist system. As in most other spheres of society, there was a largely successful programme of Gleichschaltung ('Coordination') of the universities from 1933 to 1937, which focused on nazifying German higher education by creating a new type of student and professor and was based on a different concept of

5 For a history of the German academic elite prior to 1933, see Fritz K. Ringer, The Decline of the German Mandarins: The German Academic Community, 1890-1933, (Harvard University Press: Cambridge, 1969) 6 Corey Ross, The East German Dictatorship: Problems and Perspectives in the Interpretation of the GDR, (Arnold: London, 2002), 13 7 See especially Chapter 12: 'Repression and Exile' in Michael Bently, Modern Historiography: An Introduction, (Routledge: London & New York, 2005), 116-26

2 scholarship. Although many of the professors inherited by the Nazi regime were nationalists, the majority resented interference from outside the institutions, but were unable or unwilling to resist the implemented changes actively. Most professors were able to continue their work much as before by embracing the regime's ideology, joining the German National Socialist Worker's Party (NSDAP or Nazi party), or paying lip- service to the regime and convincing the Party of the practicality of their work. The transition to Nazism in the universities was achieved relatively smoothly, with the growing support of the students, professors, and administrative workers throughout the higher education system.

After the military defeat and unconditional surrender of Germany in 1945 and its division into four separate zones of occupation a phase of de-nazification sought to eliminate the fascist tendencies instilled by Hitler's regime. In the Soviet zone of occupation (SBZ), the vehemently anti-fascist ideology of the communist authorities played a unique role in detailing how de-nazification would be pursued and how it would affect the evolution of East German educational policy. Initially, a series of purges in

1945-46 were predominantly based on the idea that fascist tendencies had to be removed from German higher education in order to rebuild a peace-loving German culture. Most professors who joined or supported the Nazis were removed immediately and systematically from their posts. Despite the Soviets' initial efforts to instil a return to the system of the Weimar days, the extent of the dismissals combined with the amount of academics who willingly left the SBZ for the West in the first few months following the war, prevented any return to 'normalcy'. Because the positions left vacant could not be filled with adequate replacements and the Socialist Unity Party (SED) often prioritized

3 political background over professional credentials between the years 1945-49 in an attempt to gain wide spread support for the Party, overall academic standards and expectations decreased substantially.8 By 1947-8, the communist authorities realized that the severity of the purges left a void in the intellectual resources needed in the reconstruction and re-organisation of the higher education system. Their response was to readmit quality professors—especially scientists—previously jeopardized by their Nazi past.

There are two main approaches to assessing the motives for individual behaviour.

On the one hand, one may examine the behavioural patterns of select individuals, not as people but as professors. On the other hand, historians may try to get insight into the mind of professors by examining what personal narratives they left behind. Either way, a conscious decision as to who will be analyzed must be taken regardless of which technique is favoured. It is within this context that individual biographies are of explicit value. Victor Klemperer's extensive documentation of his experiences in Nazi Germany and the GDR, for example, offers a particularly detailed account of how individuals experienced the transition by recording how the higher education system functioned, what issues were at the fore-front of higher educational reconstruction, and how he was affected personally.10 In other words, he provides an example of how wider, exterior forces impacted on individual's day-to-day decisions.

8 The Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands (Socialist Unity Party—SED) was formed in April 1946 from a merger of the Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands (Socialist Party of Germany—SPD) and the Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands (Communist Party of Germany—KPD) in the Soviet zone of occupation. 9 See, for example, Ernst Nolte, 'Behavioral Patterns of University Professors in the Third Reich', in Ernst Nolte, Marxism, Fascism, Cold War, (Van Gorcum: Assen, 1982) 10 The Klemperer Diaries have been translated into English by Martin Chalmers and published in three separate volumes: Victor Klemperer, I Will Bear Witness, 1933-1941: A Diary of the Nazi Years, (The Modern Library: New York, 1999); Victor Klemperer, / Will Bear Witness, 1942-1945: A Diary of the Nazi

4 Explaining why Victor Klemperer chose "the lesser evil" highlights the complexities in labelling individuals as collaborators, supporters, conformers, resisters, or bystanders in the GDR. In 1936 he condemned many of his colleagues for their collaboration with the Nazis, however insignificant such contributions may have been.

Yet, after his experience with Nazism, he chose to collaborate with another authoritarian regime that he felt was equally as evil as Nazi Germany. His reasons for doing so were both pragmatic and personal. Both were set, however, within the confines of his profession and must be examined with its chronology. His diaries provide unprecedented access to the day-to-day functioning of the higher education system and the power

structures that control the institutions, thus also providing insight into what themes affected it. Why Klemperer chose the lesser evil, in other words, was a result of the world within which he worked—East German higher education.

Klemperer's marginalization during Nazism altered his position as an academic.

Even though he was never a communist in ideological terms, he willingly and enthusiastically joined the German Communist Party (KPD) and later the SED, accepted chairs and honours, and played an active role in the 'anti-fascist democratic transformation' and 'socialist re-organisation' of East German higher education. He knew such successes did not rightly belong to him, and that he benefited from his past misfortunes and the lack of intellectual resources in the SBZ. He successfully aligned himself with the KPD and advanced his academic career by working with the new regime despite the irreconcilability of communist ideology with his own liberal philosophy for three main reasons. Firstly, his experience under Nazism saw his academic career

Years, (The Modern Library: New York, 2001); and Victor Klemperer, The Diaries of Victor Klemperer, 1945-59: The Lesser Evil, (Phoenix: London, 2003); trans. By Martin Chalmers. These versions of the diaries will be used for referencing purposes throughout this thesis.

5 terminated and his existence threatened due to the violently anti-Semitic nature of

Hitler's regime. As both his academic career and then his existence were attacked, he was dismayed by the reaction of his former colleagues who either accepted or were indifferent to the regime's higher educational policies. Following the war, he was sickened at the prospects of having to reconstruct the higher education system alongside the same Nazis that so easily turned their backs on him thirteen years ago. He thought that the only party capable of purging higher education of its Nazi past was the KPD. He also needed to be in a party in order to be recognized as a Victim of Fascism, which facilitated his partaking in reconstruction. His early decision to join the KPD and his motives for working with the new system and the 'anti-fascist democratic transformation' were . essentially pragmatic. This was at a time when the KPD/SED worked 'democratically' to convert East Germans to their cause. By the time of the creation of the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG), and the subsequent founding of the GDR, the SED enforced conformity in its reconstruction policies. His motives for participating in the 'socialist re­ organisation' from 1949/50 onwards coincide with a relaxing in attitudes towards rehabilitated ex-Nazis. By that time, Klemperer had gradually conformed to the Party's stance and benefited greatly from the new regime, whilst any turnaround in his behaviour would have been detrimental to his work and his life. After his wife Eva died in July

1951, he convinced himself to "work and [not] think of anything!" in order to escape a dreaded fear of his own uselessness.'l

11 Victor Klemperer, The Lesser Evil, 379

6 The Diaries of Victor Klemperer

Published in English for the first time in 1995,n Victor Klemperer's diaries immediately gained a strong reputation as one of the great testimonies of the century, and one of the most remarkable documents to come out of World War Two.13 Prominent historians such as Steven Aschheim and Omar Bartov have pointed to the value of the source. Bartov, for example, regards the Klemperer diaries as being different from other such testaments that bear witness. Klemperer faced an existential crisis, Bartov argues, that led him to rely on his diaries in order to exert his existence at a time when his professional career as an academic had been destroyed and his physical existence gradually threatened in the same manner.15 Whereas other testimonies, such as Jorge Semprun's L 'ecriture ou la vie, asked whether one should write or choose life, Klemperer was writingybr life.1

This thesis thus makes use of Klemperer's diaries for two main purposes: first because of their intrinsic value as a historical source and second because of what he offers as an academic who experienced both systems. Such an examination of

Klemperer's experience as a case-study demonstrates how individuals were impacted by outside forces following the Second World War in making decisions regarding whether or not to collaborate with the authorities. What is learnt from Klemperer's diaries is that his experience with Nazism combined with the Soviet military occupation of East

1 Klemperer's diaries were published under the German title, Ich will Zeugnis ablegen bis zum letzten: Tagebiicher 1933-1945, (Aufbau-Verlag GmbH: Berlin, 1995). They were translated into English by Martin Chalmers and published in two separate volumes: see fn 8. 13 See, for example, the review, Michael Fox, 'The Diary ofVictor Klemperer' in Chicago Jewish Star, (October 13-October 26, 2006; 16, 378), 8 14 Omar Bartov, Germany's War and the Holocaust: Disputed Histories, (Cornell University Press: Ithaca & London, 2003); Steven E. Aschheim, Scholem, Arendt, Klemperer: Intimate Chronicles in Turbulent Times, (Indiana University Press: Bloomington & Indianapolis, 2001) 15 Omar Bartov, 'The Last German' in The New Republic, (December 28, 1998; 219,26), pp. 34-42, 35 16 Ibid; see also Omar Bartov, Germany's War and the Holocaust, 194-5

7 Germany presented him with the specific opportunities to align himself with the new regime.

Klemperer's existential affirmation was a product of his profession, age, and race.

Although born of Jewish descent, he had separated completely from his Jewish identity, identifying himself closely with the assimilationist qualities stemming from the

Rechtsstaat tradition, which focuses on the 'rule of law' as principle for governance, found in German culture. As such, he lived the typical life of a middle-class German man. He was also a typical German academic who had devoted his life to the study of

Romance languages and literature. He found truth in the power of words. Once the Nazis came to power, Klemperer was attacked because of his Jewish race. First, his academic

career was gradually threatened. He lost his position at the Dresden Technische

Hochschule (Dresden College of Technology—TH) in May 1934, and was denied access to the library in October 1936. Then, his physical existence grew increasingly as threatened. Klemperer was forced to occupy his mind by bearing witness to the events around him and by using his analytical skills for a philological examination of the Nazi use of language, which he secretly referred to as LTI, Lingua Teniae Imperii, the

Language of the Third Empire, in his diaries.17 His notes on Nazi language produced one of the most important works on the topic.18 Nevertheless, Klemperer owed his survival to his wife. In 1906 he had married a Protestant German women named Eva Schlemmer, whose Aryan background provided him with the protection needed to avoid the death camps until they were called for deportation on 14 February 1945. Only the firebombing

17 His treatise on the Nazi use of German language was first published in 1947 in the SBZ, see, Victor Klemperer, LTI - Lingua Tertii Imperii: Notizbuch eines Philologen, (Aufbau-Verlag: Berlin, 1947) 18 Mark Levene, 'Review Article: Illumination and Opacity in Recent Holocaust Scholarship' in Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 37, (2), pp.275-292, 277-8

8 of Dresden saved him in the end; it allowed him the chance to remove his arm-band and leave the city for the countryside until the end of the war.

The diaries are also valuable in that they reveal the complex nature of adapting to an uncertain political environment. They reveal the gradual nature of adaptation on the part of the victims, perpetrators, and bystanders in Nazi Germany. As Bartov rightly points out, the diaries do not provide for an apologetic interpretation; neither do they reinforce an eliminationist conclusion, a la Goldhagen.19 In a review of the Klemperer diaries for the National Post in 2000, John Allen noticed that, "What is truly frightening is not the Gestapo, Auschwitz, or the bombs—it is the normal routine of both victims and their persecutors. An almost unbelievable normalcy in a time of chaos."20 The "un­ believable normalcy" from the Nazi years continued throughout the early stages of his post-war diaries, published as The Lesser Evil. It reveals how motives are often particular to individual circumstances that develop on a day-to-day basis, and how they are related to wider, world-changing forces and that the process of adapting to such forces was often gradual.

The diaries of Victor Klemperer are therefore valuable as a historical source in many ways. First, the diaries are chronicled in immediate fashion and retain the poignancy of unedited notes taken in the thick of experience.21 Second, they illuminate public life in every detail and from a personal perspective, leaving one with the feeling that petty domestic worries, brought by owning a cat, car, or trying to build a house, for example, were as charged and at times had as much an impact on Klemperer as bigger,

Omar Bartov, Germany's War and the Holocaust, 218-19; see also, Daniel J. Goldhagen, Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust, (Knopf: New York, 1996) 20 John Allen, 'Journals Reveal Normalcy amid Chaos' in National Post, (August 5, 2000), 10 21 Omar Bartov, 'The Last German', 34; Steven Aschheim, Scholem, Arendt, Klemperer: Intimate Chronicles in Turbulent Times, 74

9 political or social, forces. He was not always cool and collected when he wrote. At times his voice was passionate, angry, or anxious. Nevertheless, most of what he wrote was verifiably true. If at times some events were slightly inexact, it is remarkable how

accurate Klemperer was in detail and how well he described surrounding events, his

feelings, and his motives.23 He wrote with the confidence of a literary scholar, but remained critical of his own judgements. His growing realization of his duty as a

chronicler, that one day his notes might be needed as a source for truth, forced him to keep an especially critical eye of his surroundings, constantly noting who was acting in what manner and why. Finally, the diaries may also be regarded as a testament to

Klemperer's remarkable courage in the face of material, psychological, and physical

extermination. 4

East German Higher Education in Historiographical Context

Much of what has been suggested may only be explained by first setting the historiographical foundations for the project. Prior to the fall of the Berlin Wall, the

'anti-fascist democratic transformation' of German culture and higher education in the

SBZ/GDR had not been a source of particular interest to the Western world.25 Following the war Gerhard Ritter published "Der Professor im 'Dritten Reich'" in the journal Die

Gegenwart, in which he claimed the vast majority of German scholars resented the

Steven Aschheim, Scholem, Arendt, Klemperer, 72 23 Ibid, 74 Omar Bartov,'The Last German', 41 25 The main works of reference in English that cover the period in question are Henry Krisch, German Politics under Soviet Occupation, (Columbia University Press: New York & London, 1973) and Gregory W. Sandford's From Hitler to Ulbricht: The Communist Reconstruction of East Germany, 1945-46, (Princeton University Press: Princeton, 1983)

10 political interference of the Nazi regime. In response, a year later Max Weinrich pointed out the culpability of the German academic elite for their support or collaboration with the regime, accusing them of legitimizing Hitler's regime, its ideological and racial objectives, and guiding its war of annihilation.27 His book, however, was for the most part ignored. The question of guilt remained largely unexplored due to the importance attributed to German professors throughout the Cold War and the ongoing silence surrounding the issue of 'dealing with the past' (Vergangenheitsbewdltigung) in the

West. With the emergence of student pressure in the 1960s to unveil their professors' past, more penetrating analyses on the subject developed. Nevertheless, consensus has largely sided with Ritter.

The situation in the East was different, where Soviet ideology dictated historiographical interpretation. There, the issue of guilt was attacked in the early post­ war years with a series of de-nazification purges from 1945-47 which claimed to set the

"anti-fascist foundation" for a new Germany.28 By the 1950s, however, the GDR was severely depleted from the material and intellectual resources needed to rebuild its higher education system. The issue of guilt had been successfully pushed westward, due to the fact that the SED's state-organized and class-based discourse restricted historians from identifying the racial nature of Nazi persecution. This presented the SED with the opportunity to turn a blind eye to quality scientists with a compromised past.29

Gerhard Ritter, 'Der Professor im "Dritten Reich'" in Die Gegenwart, December 24, 1945, pp.23-6; an English translation was published as 'The Professor in the Third Reich', in Review of Politics, 8, No.2, (April 1946), pp.291-5 27 Max Weinrich, Hitler's Professors: The Part of Scholarship in Germany's Crimes against the Jewish People, (Yiddish Scientific Institute—Yivo: New York, 1946) 28 Thomas C. Fox, Stated Memory: East Germany and the Holocaust, (Camden House: Rochester, 1999), 22

11 A new wave of interest in East German cultural and higher educational policy came with the fall of the Berlin Wall in October, 1989, and the opening of archives in the

GDR to researchers and the general public. The so-called Wende (change in direction) finally allowed historians access to a wealth of new sources which spearheaded a re­ examination of the East German method of historical analysis. The end of the Cold War thus signified the end of an East German historiographical tradition and paved the way for an often one-sided rewriting of GDR history. The impression of GDR historiography in the West was that it was used predominantly as a tool for political propaganda, as were most disciplines from the humanities.30 As part of a widespread condemnation of GDR historiography after re-unification, West German professors demanded the re­ organisation and cleansing of communist political dogma in East German academia.31

Matthias Middell, for example, only found one East German professor who was hired in a western university after 1989. Furthermore, more than twice as many GDR scholars lost their jobs between the years 1989-1994 than in all of Germany following the revolutions of 1933 and 1945.33 This has led to a re-evaluation of the role played by German professors during the Nazi and SBZ/GDR eras on the part of western historians—both

German and non-German—and how the issue of dealing with the Nazi past impacted

East German reconstruction. Until the Wende of 1989, scholars from the East adhered to the official interpretation of the GDR, which was understood in terms of a class-based, anti-fascist struggle, where de-nazification was successful and occurred willingly and

30 Stefan Berger, The Search for Normality: National Identity and Historical Consciousness in Germany since 1800, (Berghahn Books: Providence, 1996), 149 31 This, for example, was the argument of Wolfgang Schuller, professor of ancient history at the University ofKonstanz. See Ibid, 161 32 Simone Lassig, 'Between Two Scholarly Cultures: Reflections on the Reorganization of the East German Historical Profession after 1990' in Central European History 40 (2007), pp.499-522, 501 33 Ibid

12 served as the 'anti-fascist foundation' upon which East German higher education was built. Recent research, however, suggests that the so-called 'anti-fascist foundation' was a myth.

The quantity and quality of historical research on the transition from Nazism to

Communism in East Germany has greatly increased since 1989 for reasons mentioned above. Several works in English have also proved vital in understanding the nature of cultural and higher educational policy during the transition period. David Pike's study on

The Politics of Culture in Soviet-Occupied Germany,u published in 1992, focused on the

KPD's public rhetoric and cultural-political administrations in order to demonstrate how the authorities shaped the cultural sphere according to politicized priorities relevant to

Soviet interests. He argued that there was an attempt to control German culture, which

•J C was dominated by directives from the Soviet authorities and Stalin personally.

Norman Naimark's study, published a few years later, in 1995, may be regarded as a watershed in the specialization of academic interest and research on the SBZ. In The

Russians in Germany, Naimark presented the first comprehensive work on the creation of the GDR by shedding light on previously understudied themes in German history, namely rape, seizure of scientific material and talent, and the organization of popular culture.

By structuring his book thematically rather than chronologically, Naimark demonstrated how local Soviet authorities adapted to the situation on the ground in order to sovietize

German society from the bottom up. He argued that Soviet policy toward Germany

34 David Pike, The Politics of Culture in Soviet-Occupied Germany, 1945-49, (Stanford University Press: Stanford, 1992) See the 'Preface' in Ibid., ix-xii 36 See Norman Naimark, The Russians in Germany: A History of the Soviet Zone of Occupation, 1945-49, (The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press: Cambridge & London, 1995), especially the introduction, pp. 1-9 37 Ibid. 'Conclusion', pp.465-71

13 following the war was at best inconsistent, divided, and inherently fragmented, which

TO differed from what most Cold War era Western scholars had argued. Although Stalin may have attempted to dictate policy from above, the realities on the ground made it difficult for the Soviet Military Administration in Germany (SMAD) and KPD to implement them affectively, especially before the division. The conditions of uncertainty within German society caused by these complications questions any interpretation that focuses too much on the policies of the SMAD and does not question how individuals responded to the pressures (and perhaps lack thereof) by the Soviet authorities.

Michael David-Fox and Gyorgy Peteri's collection of essays titled Accidentia in

Upheaval2,9 suggests that the transfer of the Soviet-style system to eastern European states was not the result of a pre-planned pattern, as the frequency of changes in policy and degree of improvisation by the authorities would suggest. One of the contributors to the collection, John Connelly, has compared the East German, Polish, and Czech higher education systems in his book Captive University,40 which completes what he suggests in his article "The Foundations of Diversity."41 Connelly rejects the notion of a uniform, planned sovietization of Eastern European higher education.42 He argues that the

Until the Wende, the main interpretation from the West suggested that policy making in the East was done from the 'top-down', stemming from Stalin's orders directly. Since 1989, the uniformity of Stalinization has been questioned effectively. See Ibid., 465,467; see also the arguments made in Wilfried Loth, Stalin's Unwanted Children: The Soviet Union, the German Question and the Founding of the GDR, (Palgrave Macmillan: New York, 2002) 39 Michael David-Fox and Gyorgy Peteri, eds., Academia in Upheaval: Origins, Transfers, and Transformations of the Communist Academic Regimes in Russia and East Central Europe, (Bergin & Garvey: Wesport, 2000) 40 John Connelly, Captive University: The Sovietization of East German, Czech, and Polish Higher Education, 1945-56, (University of North Carolina Press: Chapel Hill, 2000) 41 See the article, John Connelly, 'The Foundations of Diversity: Communist Higher Education Policies in Eastern Europe, 1945-55' in Kristie Macrakis and Dieter Hoffmann, eds., Science under Socialism: East Germany in Comparative Perspective, (Harvard University Press: Cambridge, 1999), pp. 125-39 42 This view was also articulated in another one of Connolly's articles, see John Connelly, 'The Sovietization of Higher Education in the Czech Lands, East Germany, and Poland during the Stalinist Period (1948-54)', in Michael David-Fox & Gyorgy Peteri, eds., Academia in Upheaval, pp.141-77

14 sovietization or Stalinization of higher education in East Germany, Poland, and the Czech lands were not necessarily systematically different.43 What differed, rather, were the people working within the system who had an enormous impact on the academic milieu.44

Connelly's work relies heavily upon an understanding of the academic milieu, how it is to be quantified, and how it can be affected by external forces. He defines academic milieu as a "self reproducing unit, with its own habits, values, and demands for loyalty."45 As such; his study relates naturally to the issue of formal representation of group interests.46 In the SBZ/GDR there existed no organs through which a group could have expressed their grievances formally other than through Party-controlled organs. In other words, grievances could only have been expressed through informal means. This depends upon an understanding of how one should categorize modes of social conformity, resistance, and dissent in order to establish who found a place in the new milieu and why they chose to conform to the new regime.47

The debate surrounding interpretations of collaboration, resistance, and dissent in

East German higher education stems from the conceptual and methodological problem of how one defines such terms. Literature on such topics is continually evolving, especially

as specialists on both Nazi and SBZ/GDR history combine to spearhead the narrative that

advances our understanding of such social phenomena.48 Any evaluation of the relationship between the intentions and policies of the governing bodies and the changing

43 Ibid, 282 44 Ibid, 282-83 45 John Connelly, Captive University, 284 46 Ibid, 180 See the discussion on the expression of group interest in Corey Ross, The East German Dictatorship, 61 48 On the evolution of the debate see Corey Ross, The East German Dictatorship, Chapter 5: 'Opposition and Dissent: Fundamental Feature or Fringe Phenomenon?', pp.97-125

15 structures and practices of the interactions between individuals and groups relies upon an understanding of how power relations affected the way individuals responded to the desired intentions of the authorities, either positively or negatively. One approach has been useful in articulating the relationship between political interventions from above— firstly in the form of the SMAD in the SBZ, then the SED in the GDR—and the forces that work against them: the concept of Totalitarianism. It measures the success of the regime based on the intentions from above—i.e. the authorities—and uses the notion of power as being centered and limited.49 A re-examination of the historiography in recent years, however, has pointed to the tendency of the SMAD to allow local KPD and SED authorities to dictate reconstruction, and that this transfer of power was gradual. One particularly useful theory regards authority as more than an asymmetrical power relationship based on social institutions, coercion, and a legitimizing ideology.50 The theory of "Authority as Social Praxis" suggests a "process of mutual dependence" between those in positions of authority and those subordinated, and rests as much on informal structures as on formal ones.51 Furthermore, one efficient way of examining motives for individual behaviour during the transition is to focus on the day-to-day experience of those who lived under both regimes.

Ralph Jessen provides an answer for why the majority of German professors did not resist the regime's attempt to control the universities. In "Between Control and

4y Ibid., 62-3 50 Much of the debate concerning how one should define such terms as 'collaboration', 'resistance', and dissent' stems from Michel Foucault's treaties on the discourse of power. See, for example, Michel Foucault, 'On Truth and Power' in Paul Rabinow, ed., The Foucault Reader, (Pantheon Books: New York, 1984)51-75 51 Alf Ludtke, Herrschaft als soziale Praxis: historische und sozial-anthropologische Studien, (Vendenhocck & Ruprecht: Gottingen, 1991), 9-63; see also Corey Ross, The East German Dictatorship, 62

16 Collaboration,"52 he argues that an interpretation that regards universities as passive victims of an aggressive occupying force—termed "conquest and subjection"—, as reflected by the general policies and tendencies of the SMAD, SED, and communist public education administrations, ignores the fact that many were willing collaborators with the Nazis and the Communists.53 Another possible interpretation is one that favours

"resistance and victimhood."54 This approach points to the conflict between the communists' pressure to re-organize the universities and the resistance of the academic milieu. However, it tends to underestimate the willingness of many to take advantage of the opportunities presented by the SED.55 Ideally, lessen argues, one would need to describe with certitude the "internal limit of transformation" by examining the relationship between those in positions of authority in comparison to those responding to the implemented changes.56 By concentrating on the breaks in dictatorial control, it invites a conceptualization of power as being further divided into two spheres: "politics dominated" and "politics free" areas of society.57 This differentiation permits a greater understanding of how the two spheres may overlap. It also forces one to answer two

fundamental questions: how were individuals able to function while being a part of both

CO

spheres and, more importantly, what motivated individuals to act as they did?

The contradictions between the Party's desire for political control and the necessity to meet economic and military demands created a sharp division in how the regime approached the natural sciences (Wissenschafteri) and the humanities 52 Ralph Jessen, 'Between Control and Collaboration: The University in East Germany', in John Connelly and Michael Gruttner, eds., Universities under Dictatorship, pp. 245-281 53 Ibid., 247 54 Ibid., 247-8 55 Ibid. 56 Ibid., 248 57 Ibid., 62 58 Ibid.

17 (Geisteswissenschaften). Historians more interested in the history of Science in both Nazi and SBZ/GDR higher education, have found scientists to be extremely resilient in preserving autonomy by insisting on professional standards, which suggests that the humanities were often used as tools for propaganda. In Nazi Germany this was exemplified as the Third Reich eased or disregarded many of its ideologically motivated policies in favour of re-armament.59 In the SBZ/GDR, the authorities turned a blind eye to scientists who had a compromised past to make amends for the "brain drain" in the early post-war years that severely depleted the GDR's intellectual resources.60

Kristie Macrakis and Dieter Hoffmann's collection of essays, Science under

Socialism, is of particular value to the history of German higher education for two main reasons. First, it contains a series of works vital to understanding higher education in the

SBZ and GDR. Second, it compliments what comparative studies have been discussed thus far by organizing the book in a particularly useful way. On the one hand, because the book is a collection of essays ranging from various topics and approaches to the study of

East German higher education, it is comparative by nature. The fact that it is arranged topically provides an unprecedented amount of depth to the method of study. Although all articles admit to a certain reliance on comparative issues, study is reserved for the

SBZ and GDR, moving from a more general sociological study concerning the complexities involved in introducing a new education system to the particular experience of scientists who worked within it.

This thesis is also indebted to Science under Socialism in terms of organization and to a lesser extent methodology. What is most important to this study is not whether

59 Michael Gruttner, 'German Universities under the Swastika', in John Connelly and Michael Griittner, eds., Universities under Dictatorship, pp.75-111, 110-1 60 Ralph Jessen, 'Between Control and Collaboration', 276-7

18 the Party—either National Socialist or Socialist Unity—was successful at controlling or changing the system in order to meet their intentions, whether general or specific, as the theory of "Authority as Social Praxis" suggests.61 Whereas, as explained above, many studies in Mackrakis and Hoffmann's book are comparative by nature, some point out the difficulties in such an approach to the study of East German higher education. Reinhard

Siegmund-Schultze, for one, does not agree with Macrakis' claim that policy toward the sciences in the GDR should be studied comparatively.62

In "The Shadow of National Socialism" Siegmund-Schultze explicitly argues against such an approach due to the "absence of a shared basis of reference and comparison for the two systems of science [and] the very different world-wide stage of development of science after 1945 as compared with the 1930s."63 What is more interesting to him is the "historical derivation of one system (East Germany) from the other (Nazi Germany)."64 By examining how the legacy of National Socialism affected the lives of several scientists in the 1950s by shaping personal policies, Siegmund-

Schultze reveals how National Socialism was used to politically transform the professoriate because a negative German tradition and the absence of political responsibility among scientists connected the two periods.65 Siegmund-Schultze's article is only limited by the fact that his prosopographical study is based nearly entirely on

Alf Liidtke, Herrschaft als soziale Praxis, 9-63 62 Siegmund-Schultze does admit, however, that "there are some areas that suggest themselves for comparative studies, such as international scientific communication, the limits on and use of human material resources, and certain mechanisms of accommodation." See Reinhard Siegmund-Schultze, 'The Shadow of National Socialism', in Kristie Macrakis and Dieter Hoffmann, eds., Science under Socialism, pp.-64-81,79 63 Ibid. 64 Ibid. 65 Ibid, 79-80

19 mathematicians, although he claims that his findings have "general applicability." The

strongest aspect of this form of study is that it provides one with the opportunity to

examine the "ideological function of anti-fascism" as well as the "psychological and

sociological influences of the Nazi era" to determine how scientists either accepted or resisted the new regime, which is also what this thesis sets out to do.

For instance, three classifications of forces explain how the academic milieu responded to various changes in the universities, despite the goals and tendencies of the authorities in the SBZ/GDR. The first represents exterior forces and refers to different powers found outside the institutions per se—i.e. outside the milieu, the SMAD. The

second are interior forces and pertain to the structures found within the universities—i.e. how universities function from the inside. The third are individual forces and are explained by highlighting the conditions that motivated individuals to act a certain way within the milieu. The first two forces dictate the environment within which individuals

are forced to act. It may be helpful to think of the relationship between the three as

simultaneously hierarchical, because of the inherent circumstances of an occupying force

and centralized repressive regime, and mutually dependent; for individuals experience all three simultaneously. In other words, one way to study what motivated German professors to conform to the new regime is to focus on how individuals experienced the three forces working together on a day-to-day basis.

66 Ibid, 64 67 Ibid.

20 Exploring the Motives for Participating in the 'Anti-Fascist Democratic

Transformation' and 'Socialist Re-organisation' of Higher Education

The First Chapter makes use of the diverse historiography on higher education during the

Nazi era in order to contextualize the transition. It highlights the institutional and structural changes that occurred in the higher education system between 1933-45 by concentrating on the nature of Nazi educational philosophy. It argues that the nazification of higher education occurred without much resistance from the vast majority of the academic elite so that by 1945 the academic milieu was quintessential^ National

Socialist in structure and in spirit.

The Second Chapter focuses on demonstrating the changing nature of the higher education system from 1945 to 1953 and outlines a few major characteristics of the new academic milieu. The first part of the chapter therefore attempts to explain how the higher education system came to resemble that of the Soviet Union by 1953, as it developed during the first two phases of 'anti-fascist democratic transformation'—'de­ nazification' and 'democratization' between 1945-48 and the 'socialist re-organisation' of higher education between 1949 and 1953. The second part of the chapter explores the main dilemma that defined the complexities behind the reconstruction process, the wider issue of dealing with the Nazi past.

The Third Chapter explores how one individual experienced the transformation. It makes use of Klemperer's diaries, written both during the Nazi and East German years, to highlight the particular nature of the German higher education system during the transition. It will highlight several prominent themes in the reconstruction of higher

21 education by demonstrating how one individual was motivated by his past and new circumstances to play a role in rebuilding the higher educational system. Klemperer's diaries are a manifestation of how individuals experienced and contributed to the 'anti­ fascist democratic transformation' and 'socialist re-organisation' of East German higher education because they provide the reader with a sense of fluidity in how and why one individual perceived the changes in the structure of power found within the academic milieu, how it was impacted by larger, social and political, forces, and why he chose to work within them.

Within one year of the creation of the GDR in October 1949, the SED claimed that the 'anti-fascist democratic transformation' had been completed. By the early 1950s, the SED changed its policies regarding the Victims of Fascism, refusing to officially recognise the racial nature of the Holocaust and successfully introduced large percentages of students from worker and peasant background into Worker and Peasant Faculties

(ABF) within the universities. The so-called 'socialist re-organisation' of higher education of the early 1950s thus transformed the academic milieu more radically than any other regime in the past.68 Nevertheless, Klemperer remained loyal to the regime which provided him with the opportunities to appease his academic career. Despite being aware of the 'totalitarian' characteristics that had many East Germans fleeing the regime, especially in the early 1950s, he continuously adapted to the changes introduced, at times reluctantly, and accepted what honours and merits were continuously given him.69

This is the argument made by Ralph Jessen in Ralph Jessen, Akademische Elite und Sozialistische Z)/&ta?wr,(Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht: Gottingen, 1999) On the issue of how East Germans perceived the SED and the new East German regime, see the arguments made in John Connelly, 'East German Higher Education Policies and Student Resistance, 1945- 48', in Central European History, 28:3 (1995), pp.259-298,297-98

22 CHAPTER 1

Creating a National Socialist Higher Education System, c.1933-1945

Leading up to the Nazi 'seizure of power' (Machtergreifung) in 1933, German higher education combined the conservative tradition that dominated German higher education from the nineteenth century and the democratic practices developed during the Weimar years.70 In many ways, Victor Klemperer provides an example of a typical German academic of the time. He was an educated nationalist of the middle-class who did not think much of the far right and far left political parties. He was interested in French literature, but confessed he could only teach in German and of a German fashion. Other than being of Jewish descent and interested in the ideas of the French Enlightenment, he was a typical German academic. Yet, unlike Klemperer, the majority of professors either accepted or gradually grew indifferent to the new regime, while Klemperer was attacked due to his race. He continued to perceive the new order from the perspective of an veteran German academic, and could not believe the ease with which the Nazis won over academia.

The goal of this chapter is to provide a general overview of the academic milieu in German universities during the Nazi period. Guided by a radically exclusionist racial ideology, the Nazis sought to empower a new militarized male student body by coordinating the structure of the system to fit the leadership principle (Fuhrerprinzip), taking over previously democratic institutes and bodies or creating new ones sympathetic to Nazi doctrine, and using the problem of overcrowding of German universities as an

On the development of the culture of German higher education leading up to the Nazi years, see Fritz K. Ringer, The Decline of the German Mandarins: The German Academic Community, 1890-1933

23 excuse to manipulate enrolment criteria and curricula. Consequently, the professoriate was further disempowered by a series of purges against 'political undesirables' and disciplines deemed useless to the Nazi cause, forcing the old professors to adhere to Nazi guidelines or go into the 'inner immigration' of academic isolation or be replaced by

'Young Men', who were a product of the new order. As a result, the revolutionary changes that occurred in the higher education system under the Nazis altered the academic milieu to such an extent that a return to the normalcy of Weimar would be impossible once Nazism was defeated. Although Nazi educational philosophy is quite simple to understand in conceptual terms (albeit contradictory at times), how the Nazis went about shaping social reality with racial ideology ultimately changed not only the system and the idea of the university but also the academic milieu throughout all of

German higher education. By 1945 the German higher education system and academic

"71 milieu was distinctively Nazi in structure and spirit.

National Socialist Higher Educational Philosophy

The defeat of the Wilhelmine German Empire in the Great War affected Hitler to such an extent that much of his ideology may be traced back to his interpretations of why

Germany had been defeated and who was responsible. One social group Hitler blamed for

Germany's defeat in 1918 was the intellectual elite. Especially abhorred was higher education, which had produced individualistic 'book-worms' who indulged in practically useless academic work and were unprepared or unwilling to fight. In Mein Kampf he presented his views on the intellectuals as such: "If our entire intellectual upper class had not been educated so exclusively in refined manners, and if instead of this it had learned

71 See the argument made by Michael Griittner, 'German Universities under the Swastika', 75

24 boxing thoroughly, then a German revolution by pimps, deserters, and similar rabble would never had been possible."72 His answer was to call for a return to the nation's

Germanic ancestral links to save German higher education: education was to teach

National Socialist values.

Much like many revolutionary movements of the mid-twentieth century, Nazi ideology argued that the power and preservation of the state rested on the shoulders of its youth. Consequent to the amount of importance attributed to students, the Nazis aimed at

constructing a new type of educator. The politicization of higher education, however, was

difficult because of the extensive training required to produce intellectual elite and

scientific specialists. In a way, the twentieth-century German state relied more on the

academic elite than vice versa. It is undeniable that the academic elite played an important role in helping the Nazi regime achieve some of its main ideological goals.

Although there was an obvious effort to coordinate higher education that achieved some

success, many professors were not initially critical of the Nazi approach. But academic proficiency could not sustain itself amidst the revolutionary changes brought by the Nazis that forced a degree of resentment on the part of the academic elite, although most were not willing to go beyond a passive refusal to adhere to certain requirements of the regime.

Indeed, most professors seemed either indifferent to the Nazi takeover or welcomed it.

Creating a 'National Community' (Volksgemeinschaft) was central to National

Socialism's main educational objectives. With the proper kind of education, individual

Germans would recognize their duty as part of a greater mass blindly obedient to the

72 Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf John Chamberlin, & Sidney Fay, et al. eds., (Reynal & Hitchcock, 1941, original: 1925), 617 73 For background information on the ideological foundations of National Socialism, see George L. Moss, The Crisis of German Ideology: Intellectual Origins of the Third Reich, (The University Library, Grosset & Dunlop, New York, 1964)

25 nation's natural leader. Individualism, liberalism, democracy, and especially 'Judeo-

Bolshevism' or communism were regarded as alien influences that needed to be uprooted from its soil. How the creation of a Volksgemeinschaft was to be achieved, however, was not made explicitly clear. Since Hitler never developed a concise methodology for the restructuring of the higher education system, Nazi educational policies stemmed largely from what may be gathered from the often contradictory writings, speeches, and policy decrees from members of the upper echelons of the Party.

The Nazi revolutionary movement in the educational sphere may be divided into two fundamental components, those who teach and those who learn. The essence of Nazi educational philosophy emphasized the militarization of German males. Blind obedience to the Fuhrer, unquestionable discipline, and physical toughness and strength embodied the core of individual male values. Democratic traditions from the universities, Hitler stressed, led to "exclusively intellectual attitudes" and were thus incompatible with the

Nazi's revolutionary ideology. In Mein Kampf, for example, he writes, "[t]he exclusively intellectual attitude of our education of the higher classes makes them unable—in a time where not the mind but the fist decides—even to preserve themselves, let alone to hold their ground."74 German education had to rid itself of the "exclusively intellectual" tendencies that reduced the intellectual class to "pimps" and "back-stabbers", as Hitler termed them. The nazification of higher educational philosophy therefore had a stridently militaristic tone.

For the Nazis, experience (Erlebnis) was valued over scientific knowledge

{Wissenschaftlich Erkenntnis). Because Nazi ideology was conceptually racial, or blood-

74 Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, 345

26 based (Blutgebunden), truth could only be felt (Gefiihl) through experience. In other words, being German could not be taught; education was an expression of one's blood- based historical legacy. As such, there was no place for non-Aryans in Nazi higher education. The National Socialist educator had the task of instilling in the students a sense of national duty towards the Volksgemeinschaft and their Volksgenossen (national comrades) that commanded blind obedience to the Filhrer in order for the German spirit to be expressed in its purest form, something Victor Klemperer noted when analyzing the

Nazis' use of language as an "emphasis on believing without understanding."76 Ideally, it would be willed by the Volksgemeinschaft and expressed through the Fiihrer.77

National Socialist Restructuring of the Higher Education System

Institutional and Structural Changes

One of the main reasons why the higher education system of the Weimar years was incompatible with Nazi educational philosophy was because it produced educators who were weak and those in positions of authority were a product of democratic structures

found within the system. Centralization of power in the form of the Fuhrerprinzip was the fundamental governmental structure of Nazi ideology and would be implemented throughout the higher education system. This fundamental change to the structure of the system had two effects that worked to the Nazis' advantage. First, it created a much needed imbalance in the traditional power structure from the Weimar years by disempowering individuals who were a product of a system with democratic practices,

75 Jeremy Noakes and Geoffrey Pridham, eds., Documents on Nazism: 1919-1945 (Jonathan Cape: London, 1974), 441 76 Victor Klemperer, / Will Bear Witness, vol. 1, 107 77 For more information on National Socialist educational theory see, Edward Yarnall Hartshorne, Jr., The German Universities and National Socialism, (George Allen & Unwin Ltd: London, 1937) 28-36

27 were recognized in their respective academic sphere, and were regarded as 'weak' by the

Party—i.e. the intellectual class. Second, the void in power could be used by the Party to

enforce an extensive programme of politicization of German academia by appointing

Nazis to practically all positions of authority and influence.

During the Weimar years, the university was run by committees and offices from

the four traditional faculties that were governed by the Ministry of Education. The institution and the four faculties {Fakultdt)—Philosophy, Law, Medicine, Theology— were sub-divided into general business and administration and scientific matters. General business and administration in the individual faculties was handled by a small committee of Ordinary professors that included the Rector and deans; special bodies under the

direction of the rector were set up to control the institution's finances and general business. Each of the four faculties named a dean under its own election who assisted the

Inner Faculty (Engere Fakultdt), composed of both Ordinary and Extraordinary

Professors, who made scientific decisions. In this case, the dean served as something

comparable to an executive's role. Moreover, the four faculties were traditionally vested with three rights that guaranteed their authority. First, each faculty had the right to

authorize the PhD, providing students with the title of Privatdozent. Second, they had the right to promote instructors to higher ranks within their faculty. Third, they had the right to appoint members of other universities to positions within their own faculty. When the

latter two points came up, the process was guided by the Minister of Education, who had the responsibility of selecting one from a list of three proposed individuals before they

earned a position.

On the general structure of the German university before 1933 see Ibid.

28 Eliminating the democratic structures found within the higher education system and within the universities was the first step taken by the Nazis to consolidate their educational objectives. The implementation of the Fuhrerprinzip gained some support before the Machtergreifung. Upon the advice of the famous philosopher Martin

Heidegger in January 1933, the Minister of Culture in Karlsruhe, Otto Wacker, decreed constitutions enforcing the implementation of the Fiihrerprinzip at Heidelberg

University.79 Once the Nazis took power, they had no problem continuing the tradition and enforcing centralization of universities throughout Germany by transferring all power previously attributed to the self-governing apparatus of the faculties to the Rector.

Suddenly, faculties were only called together if the rector believed the interests of the university to demand it. Furthermore, their influence would only be in an advisory capacity. The Fakultat also lost their traditional Latin names and were renamed league of lecturers (Dozentenschaft). They continued to have deans and senates, but all of their actual influence and power was removed. Their authoritative status was further reduced by the newly created student body (Studentenschaft), which was to hold as much political power as the Dozentenschaft. Both were represented by a leader (Leiter) who was directly responsible to the rector. The rector was appointed by and received his orders from the

Minister of Education, who in turn appointed the Senate and the respective Leiter for the

Dozentenschaft and Studentenschaft. All decisions regarding the right to teach were based on the approval of the Minister, who stood atop the new hierarchy.80

Martin Heidegger, 'The University in the New Reich', in Richard Wolin, The Heidegger Controversy: A Critical Reader, (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1998), 44-5 80 Ibid, 52-3; Victor Klemperer provides some notes concerning the changes to the structure of the universities, see Victor Klemperer, / Will Bear Witness, vol. 1, 50

29 The Nazis went a step further than enforcing centralization and revolutionizing academic training requirements for lecturers; they also took over previously democratic institutions or created new pro-Nazi ones by replacing key figures in authoritative positions with Nazi sympathisers. The Deutsche Hochschulefiir Politik (German Political

College) in Berlin and the Akademie zur wissenschaftlichen Erforschung und Pflege des

Deutschtums (scientific investigation and cultivation of Germandom) in Munich were two good examples of institutions that were completely taken over by the Party. The

Akademie fur deutsches Recht (German Legal Academy) and the Reischsinstitut fur

Geschichte des neuen Deutschlands (Reich Institute for the History of the New Germany) were two institutes newly created to assist the Party in keeping a close eye on the proceedings in the universities,81

National Socialist Students

The Nazis also took advantage of the problem of overcrowding of universities, which had been a problem in Germany for several decades leading up to 1933, in order to manipulate enrolment.82 First, they implemented a series of quantitative reductions of entrance figures. Second, qualitative tests, including a six-month work service, were introduced to manipulate the image of the university student. By adjusting the enrollment procedures in such a manner, they were able to gradually siphon out unwanted students

and promote individuals entirely on grounds dictated by the Party.

Max Weinrich, Hitler's Professors, 18 The problem of overcrowding of universities had been an issue for many European nations for several decades leading up to the Second World War and was not unique to German higher education. See, for example, Jeremy Noakes and Geoffrey Pridham, Documents on Nazism, 440

30 The Law against Overcrowding of German Schools and Universities of 25 April

1933 sought to minimize the role played by women in the universities by reducing the number of female students from about 25% (the current figure in 1933) to 10%.83 The arrival of war, however, prevented the Nazis from achieving their goals. Women thus held an even smaller role in institutionalized higher education under the Nazis than in the

Weimar system. The Nazis wanted to create a new militarized male student who understood his position in the Volksgemeinschaft; women were to be reduced to their traditional, gender-specific roles.

Between 1934 and 1936 the Nazis created three key institutions that altered the fundamental structure of the higher education system by changing the procedure and the training requirements by which students obtained the right to teach. Until the

Machtergreifung, one earned the title of 'Outside Lecturer' (Privatdozent) once the post­ doctoral qualifications (Habilitation) had been passed, which was authorized by the faculty. The University Commission of the NSDAP, established on 10 July 1934 under

Rudolf Hess, competed with the Reichserziehungsministerium (REM, Reich Ministry of

Education), headed by ex-secondary school teacher Bernhard Rust, until 1936. The

Nationalsozialistische Deutscher Dozentenbund (NSDDB, National Socialist German

League of Lecturers), led by Walter Schultze, however, shifted power of appointments firmly away from the old professors and into the hands of the Nazis. Proposals for appointments were made by faculty members who then passed on their requests to the

Jacques Pauwels, Women, Nazis, and Universities: Female University Students in the Third Reich, 1933- 1945, (Greenwood Press: Westport, 1984), 21 In Jacques Pauwels' study he notes that women's enrolment declined sharply after 1933, from well over 15,000 to under 10,000 by the summer semester of 1936. The numbers decreased again to about 6,500 for the winter semester of 1937. The numbers increased dramatically, however, once Germany was at war. There were, for example, over 40,000 women enrolled in 1944. See Ibid, 34-6, 102

31 Ministry, but not before having the rector include his personal comments on those selected. The NSDDB also had a say in who may become a lecturer or a professor in the

Nazi state by subjecting candidates to a political assessment before passing on the results, with comments, to the rector. The NSDDB took over the powers of the Commission of the NSDAP and grew increasingly influential by making use of its ability to make or break careers based on the outcome of negative political evaluations, after such evaluations had become mandatory.86

The Nazis enforced other radical changes to the enrolment procedures and curriculum immediately after the seizure of power. The Law against overcrowding of

German Schools and Universities of 25 April 1933 also revoked automatic entitlement to higher education for those who passed their entry level examinations (Abitur). The law permitted the Nazis to develop the enrollment criteria of their choice. One of the reforms implemented by the Nazis once the law was passed was to oblige students to accomplish four months of Labour Service and two months service in an SA (Sturm Abteilung, Storm

Troopers) camp before being permitted to enroll in an institution of higher education. The words of the Prussian Minister of Education at a student rally at Berlin University in

1933 highlighted the new emphasis: "now you are marching into labour camps. There you will find training in other things than powers of historical and critical analysis [...] we cannot fight our way out of this deep crisis through intellectualism."88

Their solution to the problem of overcrowding of universities benefited the Nazi attempt to transform and control the universities in three ways. First, all quantitative

85 Jeremy Noakes and Geoffrey Pridham, Documents on Nazism, AAA 86 Michael Griittner, 'German Universities under the Swastika', 86 87 Jeremy Noakes and Geoffrey Pridham, Documents on Nazism, 440. 88 Ibid, 441

32 reductions of entrance figures relied on the successful completion of qualitative tests constructed by Nazis. Acceptance figures thus enjoyed a high percentage of students who were able to pass tests dictated by the Party, including its new military components.

Second, a student's field of study was dependent on what classes were offered. Class offerings depended in turn on student interest. This provided the Nazis with the chance to promote disciplines they judged as compatible with Nazi ideology—increasing the number of classes in the Nazi Sciences for example.89 Third, it provided the Nazis with the opportunity to replace dismissed Professors with Nazis or individuals sympathetic to the regime.

Whilst the Nazis consolidated all means necessary for them to create the new student, the basis for the Nazi transformation of the student body was already present in

1933. Many German students had grown passionately nationalistic during the Weimar period, when the government and academic elite were blamed for supporting the terms of the Treaty of Versailles.90 In 1931, for example, the German National Socialist Student's

League {Nationalsozialistischer Deutscher Studentenbund, NSDStB) acquired over 44% of all student votes in the student elections.91 They were easily turned over to the many concepts behind National Socialism, as their role during the infamous book burnings of

10 May 1933 in Franz Josef Platz at Humboldt University in Berlin suggests. By June

1937, Victor Klemperer remarked that "now scholarship had a National Socialist orientation, and students were political soldiers."92

See the arguments made in Max Weinrich, Hitler's Professors, 27-83 90 Edward Hartshorne Jr., German Universities and National Socialism, 45 91 Michael Griittner, 'German Universities under the Swastika', 80 92 Victor Klemperer, / Will Bear Witness, 1933-41, 229; Jeremy Noakes and Geoffrey Pridham, Documents on Nazism, 443-4

33 Professors under National Socialism

It was more difficult for the theoretical sciences to convince the Nazi authorities of their usefulness than it was for the applied sciences. In early 1935, when Nazi ideology did not take psychology seriously as a discipline, Klemperer's colleague Walter Blumenfeld was asked to resign voluntarily from his teaching post, otherwise his authority to teach at the

TH would be removed and he would lose his pension. He tried to save his post by insisting that he only taught psychology "scientifically", but the Reich Governor was unimpressed.94 By 9 February he had lost his teaching privileges. 5

Upon reflecting the changes brought to German universities in 1937, Edward

Yarnall Hartshorne, Jr., wrote, "It may be said then of the humanities and the non- technological social sciences in general that they are in the process of becoming either instruments of propaganda or survive as mere echoes from the past."96 These particular disciplines had an increasingly subjective and propagandistic tone, ones that overemphasized the idea of German race and culture. Areas previously regarded as incompatible with Nazi ideology later received much funding and were left with comparable academic freedom. This became especially evident once competition with

Victor Klemperer, I Will Bear Witness, vol. 1, 107. The Nazis' negative attitude towards psychology was due mainly to its perceived relation with Jewish intellectuals, especially the growing influence of Sigmund Freud's psychoanalytical techniques. Nazi anti-Semitism was responsible for the emigration of large numbers of prominent researchers in psychology in the early years of the Third Reich. Their position was altered gradually with the arrival of war, where psychological assistance was sought by the German army in selecting officers for the Wehrmacht. See, Mitchell G. Ash, 'Emigre Psychologists after 1933: The Cultural Coding of Scientific and Professional Practices', in Mitchell G. Ash and Alfons Sollner, Forced Migration and Scientific Change: Emigre German-Speaking Scientists and Scholars after 1933, (University of Cambridge Press: Cambridge & Washington, 1996), pp.117-138 94 Victor Klemperer, / Will Bear Witness, vol. 1, 107 95 Ibid, 111 96 Edward Hartshorne, Jr., German Universities and National Socialism, 119

34 the Allies over technology became an important part in determining who would win the war.

With the restructuring of the entire higher education system, and the Nazis

controlling training requirements and all degree authorizations, it was only a matter of time before their concept of the new student would enter the academic world. The so-

called 'Young Men' were a group born slightly after 1900 and by 1933 had not achieved

full professorship status. They would have been too young to fight in the First World

War but old enough to experience the negative aspects of the Weimar republic and the

Great Depression and were susceptible to anti-Semitism. The majority of their higher

educational careers would have taken place during the Weimar years, although they would have been completing their Habilitation around the time of the Machtergreifung.

Trained predominantly in the Weimar system, many would have been professors trying to

complete highly specialized fields of study. Those successful in gaining influence in the

Nazi higher education system were able to switch from scientific specialists to activists

once the Nazis came to power. One way they achieved this was by publishing in pro-

Nazi journals such as the Forschungen zur Judenfrage, Nationalsozialistische

Monatshefte, and Schulungsbrief.91 The replacements of the professors affected by the purges would have also come from schools highly attached to the HJ and military

98

service.

Like most other Germans, professors were highly encouraged to join the Nazi

party. Viktor Klemperer detailed the ceremony of the swearing of the oath, "Loyalty to 97 Ernst Nolte, 'Behavioural Patterns of University Professors in the Third Reich', 113-4; see also Edward Hartshorne, Jr., The German Universities and National Socialism, 129-30 98 Michael Griittner, 'German Universities under the Swastika', 102; see also Schnorbach, Hermann, ed, Lehrer undSchule unterm Hakenkreuz. Dokumente des Widerstands von 1930 bis 1945, (Athenaum: Konigstein, 1983), 242

35 the Fuhrer and Chancellor of the Reich Adolf Hitler" on November 20 1934, which became mandatory for professors wanting to keep their positions:

About 100 people; the second. I was "not present" at the first oath taking during the holidays in the hope of perhaps avoiding it altogether. It was not to be. The ceremony, cold and informal as possible, lasted less than two minutes. We spoke the words in chorus after the rector, who had first of all reeled off: "You swear eternal loyalty" [...] And afterward: "You must put your signature to the oath on a printed form". And: "I conclude with a triple Sieg Heil". He shouted "Sieg"—and the chorus bellowed "Heil!" and crowded towards the forms. Among those who swore were Janentzky, Kiihn, Stepun, Beger ... They are as good National Socialists as I am [...] A beadle calls out: "His magnificence, the lord Rector!" Everyone stands at attention on a barracks square. The rector, a young man (Kirschmer, appointed by the government for two years), hurries to the lectern, stretches out his arm; everyone raises his arm. Everyone remains in this position for several seconds. Then in a military tone: "The gentlemen may be seated." Leadership principle—"At ease!"9

Those who refused or were unable to join or to adhere to Nazi ideological preferences went into what Steven Remy has termed an "inner immigration" of isolation

and harassment. There were a number of prominent scholars who refused to adhere to

Nazi bullying, such as Karl Jaspers, Alfred Weber, Gustav Radbruch, and Gerhard

Anschutz. 'Inner immigration' for many, however, was not so much a choice as a necessity. Often, after being dismissed, professors continued to research and write.on

subjects of interest to them but not to the Party. Victor Klemperer, for example, spent the

Nazis years working on his Lingua Tertiae Imperii, Notizbuch eines Philologen, which was an analysis of the Nazi propagandistic use of language.101 In contrast to the 'Young

99 Victor Klemperer, / Will Bear Witness, vol. 1, 98-9 100 Steven Remy, The Heidelberg Myth: The Naziification and Denazification of a German University, (Harvard University Press: Cambridge, 2002), 21-2 101 Klemperer's Lingua Tertiae Imperii was published in 1947 in the SBZ. Its English translation used for this study is, Victor Klemperer, The Language of the Third Reich: LTI-Lingua Tertiae Imperii: a Philologist's Notebook

36 Men', those forced into 'inner immigration' refused to compromise their academic

integrity by paying lip service to the state.102

The first attack on the professors by the Nazis was a series of purges undertaken

to replace those deemed politically unreliable. It altered how professors viewed their

academic careers and work-place, consequently shaping their behaviour towards the

Party. Klemperer took the oath in November 1934, and thought this exempted him from

expulsion, but it did not guarantee him his position. Only a few months later, on 16

December 1934, he received a firm letter from the Reich Teacher's Association requesting details about his racial and political status, which had not been received:

Approximately] one year ago, the Reich Teacher's Organization requested precise details about Aryan status, position in the SA, SS [Schutzstaffef], etc. That manifestly applied only to members of the organization, and the secretary's office of the T[H] also thought I did not need to reply to it. Now a v[ery] courteous reminder arrives. To be completed in five days, otherwise we would be grateful for reasons for non-completion. Evidently there must be some misunderstanding, "since we would not assume that as a civil servant and educator of young people would consciously wish to set yourself against N[ational] Socialist] reconstruction."

The secretary's office assumed responsibility for his silence, but Klemperer replied to the letter. He was saved for the time being due to his wife's Aryan status,

although he would eventually be deemed as politically unreliable. He described the

circumstances surrounding his dismissal in his diary entry on 30 April 1935:

Without any previous notification—two sheets delivered by mail: a) On the basis of Para[graph] six of the Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service I have.. .recommended your dismissal. Notice of dismissal enclosed. The Commissary Director of the Ministry for Popular Education, b) "In the name of the Reich" the notice itself, signed in a child's hand: Martin Mutschmann. I telephoned the University; no one

Steven Remy, The Heidelberg Myth, 21-2 Victor Klemperer, / Will Bear Witness, vol. 1, 101

37 there had a clue. Gopfert, the Commissioner, does not waste time asking the rector's office for advice.

On the one hand, a new class of post-graduates—the 'Young Men'—played an increasingly important role within the academic community as they manoeuvred wisely within the system to gain power.105 On the other hand, the older generation of established

German scholars lost or gained influence mainly due to their political affiliation to

Nazism or whether they were able to convince their Nazi counterparts of the academic necessity of their work, something that changed frequently as Germany entered into a

stage of Total War.

By late 1936 a period of intellectual pacification was the result of a change in

Nazi rhetoric in favour of prioritizing academic achievements over a guarantee of political orientation. In October 1936, Walter Gross, head of the NSDAP's Office of

Race Policy, noted that the Party had "chosen an unsuitable path [...] ministerial decrees

[could not] turn a good fighter, who was an academic nobody for external and internal reasons, into a pillar of German learning."106 In April 1937 Otto Wacker, the new departmental chief of the Reich Ministry, advocated Gross's, view. In December 1937, then Rector of the University of Berlin, Historian Willy Hoppe, acknowledged the need for academic ability over political orientation: "I do not deny that the candidate's ideological and political attitude must be guaranteed, but if it is given priority and if

Ibid., 119; The Law for the Preservation of the Professional Civil Service of 1933 replaced 1,145 of the 7,758 university teachers in Germany. Of the 15% that lost their positions, 13% was due to racial grounds; 56% of the dismissals were politically motivated. The lowest percentages were found in Rostock and Tubingen, where only 4% and 1.6% of teachers lost their positions. See Jeremy Noakes and Geoffrey Pridham, Documents on Nazism, 443-4 Ernst Nolte, 'Behavioral Patterns of University Professors in the Third Reich', 113-4 106 Ibid, p.93

38 academic knowledge is lacking, we may end up with problems none of us wants.

Academic ability is undoubtedly above all the main requirement."

As early as 1938 the SD (Sicherheitsdienst, Security Service) reported the

following concerning the situation in the universities: "Problems of cooperation between the State and the Party authorities are apparent in the internal administration of the universities and are almost routinely attributable to violations of [each other's] authority

[...] There are complaints within the internal administration concerning the conflict between the university leadership and that of the Lecturer's League [...]."108 This is evidence that the concerns did not end with a lack of academic awareness. Struggles for power extended beyond the institutions, in the form of the arrival of the 'Young Men'.

The reaction by the academic community after the passing of the Law for the

Restoration of the Professional Civil Service, on 7 April, 1933, however, was, by and large, silence.109 With the exception of key incidences where friends of so-called

'political undesirables'—i.e. Jews—refused to accept the Nazi's racial policies, the Nazi years experienced not much more than grumbling on the part of the professors. The most

famous example of a respected academic who not only willingly joined the NSDAP but indeed rejoiced in the Machtergreifung is the philosopher Martin Heidegger, who was

appointed rector of Heidelberg University after he joined the Party. Heidegger's speech to the Heidelberg Student Association on 30 June 1933 demonstrates Heidegger's

commitment to the Nazi's educational philosophy:

It [the university] must be integrated into the Volksgemeinschaft and be joined together with the state [...] Research got out of hand and concealed

107 Jeremy Noakes and Geoffrey Pridham, Documents on Nazism, 445 108 Ibid, 443 109 Steven P. Remy, The Heidelberg Myth, 18

39 its uncertainty behind the idea of international scientific and scholarly progress. Teaching that had become aimless hid behind examination requirements. [...] A fierce battle must be fought against this situation in the National Socialist spirit, and this spirit cannot be allowed to be suffocated by humanizing, Christian ideas that suppress its un- conditionality [...] Danger comes not from work for the State. It comes only from indifference and resistance. [...] It will be fought out of the strengths of the new Reich that Chancellor Hitler will bring to reality. [...] It is a battle to determine who shall be the teachers and leaders at the university.110

The response of philosopher and psychologist Eduard Spranger was another

example of how many German intellectuals initially accepted or even rejoiced over the

Nazi Machtergreifung. Although he regretted the Nazi's "exaggerated anti-Semitism", he wrote an early article that praised much of its radical national ideology:

Also a sense of the nobility of blood and of the bond of blood is something positive. A conscious cultivation of the health of the people, concern for the high physical and ethical quality of the future generation (eugenics), love of one's homeland, roted in the soil, rivalry between individual regions and classes [...] are the prerogative of those powers which have been given a new lease of life and point towards a better future.1.11

Most professors, however, only gradually accepted or became indifferent to the new regime's changes. Victor Klemperer provides several examples of professors purged

due to their political unreliability. Several of his colleagues had been dismissed due to their non-Aryan background and as a result encouraged Klemeperer to search for a position abroad.112 Another colleague, Robert Wilbrandt, had been suddenly dismissed because he "stood up" for a pacifist colleague.113 During this time, he also complained

Quote taken from Martin Heidegger, 'The University in the New Reich', 44-5 111 H-J Hahn, 'Education and Ideology under National Socialism' in H-J Hahn, Education and Society in Germany, (Berg: Oxford, 1998) pp.71-90, 75 112 Victor Klemperer, / Will Bear Witness, vol. 1,35 113 Ibid, 35-6

40 about the increasing inability to publish because even journals were "filled" with "Nazi jargon."114 Yet, he explained that "no one dared complain" out of fear for their jobs.115

As time passed, Klemperer saw many of his colleagues and friends won over to the Nazis. Surrounding the events leading up to the "yes" vote, he noted on 9 November

1933, the Klemperers were visited by the Kaufmanns, who advised him that they would vote "yes". At that point, Klemperer completely lost his temper and replied to Kaufmann that he stood, as a German, for Germany's cause, not Hitler's.116

The Question of Collective Guilt of German Professors

The fact that many German professors collaborated with and supported the Nazi regime by either publishing in pro-Nazi papers, or working directly in the development of racial sciences, implies that many, if not most, were indirectly, and indeed at times directly,

1 17 implicated in the atrocities uncovered by the allies as the war neared its end. Max

Weinrich's study, published in 1949, detailed numerous examples where this was undoubtedly the case.118 One may also go as far as to suggest that all those who willingly supported with a regime with such extreme goals were, in some form or another,

114 Ibid, 38 115 Ibid, 8-9, 38 116 Ibid, 40-1 117 David Patterson has also pointed out that the question of guilt of German professors for the atrocities committed by the Nazis was reinforced by the people who partook in the Wannsee Conference. He writes, "Most of those men who gathered around a table and sipped brandy as they planned the annihilation of a people were highly educated. They held doctorate degrees conferred by the best universities in Central Europe and had gone through an educational system designed to impart to its students the highest truths of human life." Those who gathered at Wannsee were there to discuss 'questions of principles'. The one that ruled the conference argued there was "no higher truth at work in the world but only a struggle for power; that human beings bear no spiritual or devine aspect but derive their essence from their biological and racial origins." See David Patterson, 'Some Implications of the Wannsee Conference for the Essence of Higher Education', in Hubert G. Locke & Marcia Sachs Littell, eds., Holocaust and Church Struggle: Religion, Power, and the Politics of Resistance, (University Press of America: Lanham, New York, & London, 1996), pp. 127-38, 127-8 118 Max Weinrich, Hitler's Professors

41 responsible, and should thus should also be held accountable, for the Holocaust. This

suggestion, however, involves a proper definition of terms such as collaboration, resistance, and dissent which has been the subject of an ongoing debate in German twentieth century historiography. Other than what has been suggested in the introduction

above, it is not within my position to offer any such hypotheses concerning the definition

of such terms.

It is important to keep in mind, however, that Victor Klemperer, for one, argued that of all the strata of society, the academic elite were in a position of relative importance. As the educated elite of a renowned academic tradition, the professors were more conscious of the negative implications involved in such a destructive kind of regime. In his view, they not only willingly 'turned their backs' on the Jews, but also

'turned their backs' on Germany.119 Although Klemperer admits that some, if not indeed many, professors only joined the Party to be able to continue their work as before, and as

such were not Nazis ,per se, in the post-war world, he insisted that such individuals

should only hold positions of minor importance in German reconstruction. This, however, only increased his desire to differentiate between those who only joined posto facto with those who joined due to their ideological inclinations.

119 Victor Klemperer, / Will Bear Witness, vol.1, 40-1

42 CHAPTER 2

Complexities in the Reconstruction of East German Higher Education

When writing on his time spent in prison for failing to dim the lights of his house on 14

June 1941, Victor Klemperer reflected on the future implications of his incarceration. He

wrote,

It is honorable to be imprisoned now it will be advantageous to any future character reference. I am not guilty of anything, I am not imprisoned because of my blackout misdemeanor, but I am in prison as a Jew. Nothing can truly humiliate me, every humiliation only raises me up and secures my future. I preach it to myself again and again, and it did help a little.120

Despite the fact Klemperer had no way of knowing that post-war East Germany would

fall under Soviet occupation, he was correct in his assertion. Klemperer's experience with

Nazism, however, did not completely alter his philosophy: he remained convinced that

the "Germans had left" by submitting to Nazi ideology and that he was the last true

German due to the nature of his cultural assimilation.121 Neither did it reverse his views

on communism. Nevertheless, he joined the KPD and played an active role in the 'anti­

fascist democratic transformation' and 'socialist re-organization' that transformed East

German higher education into a system resembling that found in the Soviet Union.

After the unconditional surrender of Nazi Germany in 1945, eastern Germany fell under the direct administrative control of the Soviet military command, which believed

that a systematic process of de-nazification and democratization of all German society

was necessary. The concepts of de-nazification and democratization are mutually

120 Victor Klemperer, / Will Bear Witness, vol. 1, 391 121 Omar Bartov, Germany's War and the Holocaust, 212-5

43 inclusive. Soviet narrative, however, meant that 'de-nazification' and 'democratization' were understood in ideological terms.122 In the cultural sphere, the KPD called this transition the 'anti-fascist democratic transformation'. It aimed at the "cultural renewal" of Germany by first systematically purging social and cultural institutions of ex-Nazis.123

The first step to reconstruction, therefore, was the elimination of all Nazi remnants from the past in anticipation of a truly democratic Germany. A series of purges from 1945-46 sought to eliminate all ex-Nazis from the higher education system. A second series of purges from 1947-48 sought to democratize the higher education system by removing all reactionary professors in the humanities. Despite a massive 'brain drain' to the West and

East, strong student resistance, and the wider concerns of dealing with the past, from

1949 onwards higher education entered a phase when even lower-level Nazis were rehabilitated as long as they conformed to socialist ideology.

Soviet Educational Philosophy

After the revolution of 1917, dialectical determinism, as developed by Marx and Engels, became the ideological basis upon which the Soviet Union would be built. Marx, however, never fully developed a blueprint for educational policy. Instead, much of

Soviet educational philosophy depended on Marx's infamous statement from his Theses on Feuerbach: "the philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the

For a comparison between the evolution of East and West German educational policy, see Arthur Hearnden, 'Inter-German Relations and Educational Policy' in Comparative Education, Vol. 9, No. 1, (March, 1973), pp.3-16 See ' Aus dem Programm der antifaschtistisch-demokratischen Ordnung. Rede Walter Ulbrichts auf der 1. Funktionarskonferenz der KPD GroB-Berlins am 25. Juni 1945' in Siegfried Baske and Martha Engelbert, eds., Zwei Jahrzehnte Bildungspolitik in der Sowjetzone Deutschlands: Dokumente 1, (Quelle & Meyer Verlag: Heidelberg, 1966), pp. 5-7

44 point is to change it." From this premise, it was assumed that the role of education, like all other social institutions, was to serve civil society. The social revolution that occurred in the Soviet Union sought to democratize society by empowering the worker-peasant class at the expense of the bourgeoisie. The true democratic form of socialism, a Utopian, classless society ruled by the workers and peasants, was only present in the Soviet Union, which was actively engaged in building communism. In such a socialist regime, the goal of institutionalized education is to serve in the building of communism. Because active communism relies on the expression of the collective will of the masses, the individual's egotistic, liberal, and bourgeois inclinations had to be replaced by the values worshiped by the Soviet form of humanism. In other words, the creation of a new man in the image of the socialist ideal would be the main long-term objective of Soviet-style education.

For Lenin and his followers, education should thus be based around man's ability to alter his natural environment by mastery of tools, skills, and material products.

The 'Anti-fascist Democratic Transformation'

'De-nazification'and 'Democratization', 1945-47

1 Oft

The years 1945-49 are difficult to interpret due to the lack of appropriate sources.

While it may be important to discern Stalin and the SMAD's actual intentions—whether there was a secret programme of sovietization from the end of the war or whether there was an attempted return to the system found in the Weimar years—it is certain that a

This is the eleventh of Marx's theses on Feuerbach; see also Nigel Grant, Society, Schools, and Progress in Eastern Europe, (Pergamon Press: Oxford & London, 1969), 59 125 Ibid, 59-60 126 Only since 1989 did many materials from the state archives become available to the public. To this day, however, many Russian state archives remain closed to the public, making it difficult for historians to confirm interpretations concerning the formation years of the GDR.

45 process of de-nazification occurred in the higher education system that paved the way for the second phase of reforms, the "socialist re-organization" of higher education from

November 1948 onwards.127 The Education Department of the SMAD (ONO), headed by Colonel Sergei Zolotuchin and under the supervision of propaganda chief of the

SMAD Tiulpanov, was in charge of coordinating the first educational reforms to the East

German education system. Initially, these included a process of formal restoration, whereby a return to the pre-193 3 Weimar constitutional framework was sought by abolishing all changes implemented by the Nazi regime.

The first concrete step taken was the creation of the Kulturbund zur

Demokratischen Erneuerung Deutschlands (Cultural Union for the Democratic Renewal of Germany, KB) on 3 July, 1945.129 Its goal was to organize German intellectual and cultural figures to garner support for the leftist "democratic regeneration" of Germany.

It was originally intended to be a non-partisan organization run by a four-member committee.131 Its task was to coordinate all cultural spheres of German society towards an education in Soviet culture.132

127 See the arguments concerning the periodization of cultural development policies in the SBZ/GDR in Alexander Stephan, 'Johannes R. Becher and the Cultural Development of the GDR', in New German Critique,~No. 2, (Spring, 1974), pp.72-89; also, on the structure of GDR higher education, see Geoffrey J. Giles, 'The Structure of Higher Education in the German Democratic Republic' in Higher Education, 7, (1978), pp.131-56; Victor Klemperer made a note concerning the 'Second Phase' in an entry on 5 November. See Victor Klemperer, The Lesser Evil, 271 128 The debate concerning the 'formal restoration' as presented above revolves around the document 'Gemeinsamer Aufruf der KPD und SPD zur demokratischen Schulreform. 18 Oktober 1945', in Baske and Engelbert, eds., Zwei Jahrzehnte Bildungspolitik, pp.5-7; see Ralph Jessen, 'Between Control and Collaboration', 253; John Connelly, Captive University, 40-5; Benita Blessing has a different opinion on the matter. See Benita Blessing, The Antifascist Classroom: Denazification in Soviet-occupied Germany, 1945-49, (Palgrave Macmillan: New York, 2006), 2 129 Norman Naimark, The Russians in Germany, 400-8; John Connelly, 'East German Higher Education and Student Resistance', 263 130 Norman Naimark, The Russians in Germany, 399-400 131 Ibid, 400-8 132 Ibid

46 Created in September 1945, the German Education Administration in Berlin

(DVV) was the direct subordinate of the ONO.133 In theory it was to help the ONO communicate with the individual ministries in the provinces (Lander) which had returned to pre-1933 administrative ways.134 Its first task was to work alongside the ministries to

study lists of remaining professors in universities to determine which had been affiliated with the NSDAP or supported the Nazi regime.135 They also worked alongside the

Victims of Fascism, who provided them with testimonies on individuals concerning their actions during the Nazi years. One month after its conception, the KPD and SPD launched a "Joint Appeal for the Democratic School Reform" on 18 October, 1945, that called for the assistance of the German people with the policies of de-nazification. In the appeal, the KPD and SPD attacked Nazi educational policies, arguing that, "the Nazi regime placed the entire German school system, from nursery school to universities, in the service of the fascist party—and racial hatred, of intellectual and physical war preparations, of chauvinistic incitement, and of military drill."137 It called for "all anti­

fascist and truly democratic forces" to actively support the Soviet model of de­ nazification.

Formal restoration extended beyond the system and also affected the personnel working within higher education. The first series of purges from 1945 to early-1946

systematically eliminated all known Nazis as well as their children, whether or not they

133 'Einrichtung der Deutschen Zentralverwaltung fur Volksbildung' in Baske and Engelbert, eds., Zwei Jahrzehnte Bildungspolitik, 3-4 134 Ibid Norman Naimark, The Russians in Germany, 442 136 'Einrichtung der Deutschen Zentralverwaltung fur Volksbildung', 3-4 137 Ibid; see also Benita Blessing, The Antifascist Classroom, 12 138 Ibid

47 had held positions prior to 1933.139 The initial stages of de-nazification were not necessitated by the SMAD; they were left to the individual ministries in the Lander. In

Saxony, for example, the order came on 27 October 1945 and called for the removal from the civil service all former members of the NSDAP.140 This was followed by a decree

from the department of education for the university to "immediately dismiss all former members of the NSDAP still teaching in schools."141 The purges were meant to be

systematic; in reality, they were more sporadic, affecting individual institutions and

departments differently because of a lack of coordination between the Lander and

SMAD.

Mathematics, the natural sciences, medicine, and law were the SMAD's top priority for two reasons. First, such professionals could have been utilized for military purposes or sent back to the Soviet Union. Second, such professionals provided the backbone in the reconstruction of any German state. The number of active faculty,

including emeriti and Dozents, in mathematics and the natural sciences went from 380 in

the Winter semester of 1944-45 to sixty by the Summer semester of 1947.142 In medicine, there were 569 in 1944 compared to ninety in 1947; and the number of professors in law was reduced from 152 in 1944 to just eleven in 1947.143 The Soviets prioritized the reopening of the natural sciences over the social sciences and humanities, because the latter had been more susceptible to politicization. The nature of Soviet de­ nazification in philosophy, history, and theology, amongst others, would only come to

Ralph Jessen, 'Between Control and Collaboration', 253; John Connelly, Captive University, 40-5 John Connelly, Captive University, 97 Ibid. Ibid, 91

48 light in a second wave of purges between late-1947 and early-1948, which sought to bolster its faculties by empowering professors who conformed to a socialist world-view .

The purges of 1945-6 were not restricted to regular faculty members. They also greatly affected those in prominent positions of authority throughout the higher education system. Despite promises made by the Soviet authorities to return to the system of

Weimar Germany, the Soviets remained fearful of the return of liberal democratic values in higher education from the beginning. Between May and June, a number of professional councils were formed and assembled independently that alarmed the authorities. Eduard Spranger was removed as rector of Berlin University in October 1945 because he wanted to negotiate the universities' interest with the magistrate independently and not because of his earlier praise for Nazism. His replacement was the bourgeois-turned SED supporter Johannes Stroux.144 Sometime between December 1945 and January 1946, the Soviets also appointed the socialist chemist Giinter Rienacker first rector of Rostock University.145

'Democratization', 1947-48

As the first phase of the de-nazification purges came to an end without the KPD/SED gaining much support from the majority involved in the higher education system, and much of its population growing increasingly hostile towards many of its policies, the

Soviet authorities were faced with a major practical problem: it was much easier to dismiss Nazis than it was to find suitable replacements for their positions. The day before the reopening of Greifswald University, the rector, Ernst Lohmeyer, was arrested by the

144 Ibid, 96,125 145 Ibid, 99; Norman Naimark, The Russians in Germany, 441

49 Soviet secret police. His family was never provided with a reason for, nor was it notified of his arrest.146 Lohmeyer's replacement, a physicist named Seelinger, had to be persuaded the night before by the DVV to accept the position. This forced them to question how recruitment was made. A widely shared view amongst the SED argued that specialists in the social sciences and humanities could easily be replaced as long as they could teach lessons in Marxism/Leninism or political economy, whereas it would take ten to fifteen years to get biologists and engineers to work innovatively. In short, this was one of the main reasons why the Soviets were adamant about reopening the natural science faculties as soon as possible. Yet it remained obvious that East German scientists would diminish to marginal numbers. One of their solutions was to readmit former Nazis who had recently lost their positions. These "gold fillings from the mouth of the reactionaries", as Robert Rompe, deputy for higher education affairs in the DVV, called them in 1948, were also enticed to return to their positions with special privileges, such as individual contracts, that were generally not given to their compatriots in other departments.148

Despite the fact that the severity of the purges marginalized the effectiveness of

East German higher education, from 1947 onwards it not only became possible but common for professors to be released from their posts due to "reactionary statements", especially for professors in the humanities.149 While ex-Nazis were being re- institutionalized in the natural sciences, a second phase of purges was aimed particularly towards the most politically sensitive areas of study. Philosophy, History, Law, and any

Ibid; see also Andreas Kohn's detailed study of Lohmeyer, Andreas Kohn, Der Neutestamentler Ernst Lohmeyer: Studien zu Biographie und Theologie, (Mohr Siebeck: Tubingen, 2005) 147 Norman Naimark, The Russians in Germany, 441 Ralph Jessen, 'Between Control and Collaboration', 251 149 Norman Naimark, The Russians in Germany, 445

50 other area in which the SED sought a monopoly over truth suffered the most. The

intensity of the purges on the social sciences and humanities was so severe that by 1951

more than half of all professors had been replaced. The second phase of purges therefore

clearly aimed at radically altering the authenticity of the academic milieu by replacing

old professors from the right with individuals with an "ideologically progressive"—i.e.

socialist—attitude.150

The SED's inability to garnish enough active support was one of the main reasons

for its initial lack of success in coordinating the universities along socialist educational philosophy. SED members remained outnumbered in most areas of university life-—

especially when speaking of its two most influential parts, the students and professors.

The KB was blamed for its inability to organize support from the German intellectual and

cultural elite. Johannes Becher, head of the KB, noted that the main reason why the

intellectual and cultural elite were not actively supporting Soviet and SED policies was

the blind willingness on the part of the KPD/SED to implement clearly partisan Soviet

policies on German soil. The SMAD, and consequently the KPD/SED, viewed this

resistance as a misunderstanding on the part of the German population towards the

superiority of progressive Soviet culture, as opposed to the degenerate fascist one.151 In

May 1947 a decision was made to create the Society for the Study of the Culture of the

USSR to oversee efforts already in place that made Soviet culture more accessible in the

SBZ.152

Ralph Jessen, Akademische Elite und kommunistische Diktatur; Kristie Macrakis, 'The Unity of Science vs. the Division of Germany: The Leopoldina', in Kristie Macrakis and Dieter Hoffmann, eds., Science under Socialism, pp. 158-79 151 Norman Naimark, The Russians in Germany, 400 152 Ibid, pp.408-11

51 On 22 October 1947, the party bureau of the SMAD wrote to the secretary of the

Central Committee, A. A. Kuznetsov: "in the pedagogical and scientific work of the universities there still exists to this day the strong influence of idealistic, that is,

essentially reactionary ideologies."153 The Central Committee's response was to appoint

a commission to investigate the claims.154 A month later their conclusions reiterated

those initially proposed: the SBZ required more qualified Soviet scientists and educators

attached to the ONO. The commission also called for more involvement from the Soviet

Ministry of Higher Education and the Soviet Academy of Sciences. A draft was produced by the Cadres department of the Central Committee but no concrete measures were taken. Finally, in April 1948, Kuznetsov advised Zhdanov that no special action would be taken. Despite the appeals by the SMAD, the Soviet leadership in Moscow had

little interest in helping their colleagues in Germany. Only after Tiulpanov reaffirmed in

September 1948 his complaints regarding reactionary students threatening the de­ mocratization process was he promised more lecturers and translated texts from the

Soviet Union, assistance in developing new curricula, and organized exchanges and

delegations between the USSR and SBZ.155 The lack of commitment on the part of

Moscow to intervene by providing the SMAD with the guidance necessary to achieve its

goals signified that the SMAD was left with the task of developing its own solutions in reconstructing the higher education system.156 The only feasible solution was for them to use the only state practicing active socialism, the USSR, as a model, and cooperate with

153 Ibid, pp.449-50 154 The committee was composed of Balezin, Kalashnikov, Zolotukhin, and Korotkevich; see Ibid 155 Norman Naimark, The Russians in Germany, pp.449-50 Ibid, 465-71; see also Corey Ross, Constructing Socialism at the Grass-Roots: The Transformation of East Germany, 1945-65, (Palgrave: New York, 2000), 202-11; John Connelly, Captive University, 282-3; Ralph Jessen, 'Between Control and Collaboration', 260

52 the SED to implement the changes. Thus the sovietization of East German higher

education was not dictated from Moscow. Rather, it was a creation based on the SMAD

and KPD/SED's uneasy cooperation on the ground.

Rompe's comments at the Seventh Conference of the Party Leadership of the

SED on 11-12 February 1948 that professors in the social sciences and humanities were

easily replaceable alluded to how the regime regarded those disciplines.157 The

communists were convinced of the reliability of Marxist-Leninist philosophy and the

superiority of economic determinism as a mode of study. Because teaching such subjects required a Marxist-Leninist approach, the social sciences and humanities became tools

geared towards propagandistic purposes.

In 1945 People's High Schools opened in order to train pupils for the KPD. A

small number of emigres intellectuals from the West and East, approximately twenty to

forty individuals with close ties to the KPD and often having qualifications in journalism

or political instruction, took on the role of educating the new academic elite by teaching

in the newly created party schools.158 After joining the KPD in November 1945, Victor

Klemperer taught at the People's High School in Dresden as a way to re-enter the

academic world.

The 'Socialist Re-organization' of Higher Education, 1949-1953

In conjunction with the purges of 1947-48 and the events in the Fall 1948 that led to the

creation of the Free University in Berlin, which opened in November,159 a 'socialist re-

157 Ralph Jessen, 'Between Control and Collaboration', 251 158 Norman Naimark, The Russians in Germany, 447; John Connelly, Captive University, 134-5 159 On the Free University of Berlin see, James F. Tent, The Free University of Berlin: A Political History, (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1988)

53 organization' transformed the structure of East German Higher Education into one based on the Soviet model. Working in unison, the SED leadership in Berlin and the individual

Education Administrations in the provinces spearheaded a series of severe structural changes that escalated to the SMAD encouraging the DVV to centralize in December

1948. On 5 November 1948 Klemperer noted a meeting with SED academics, where Paul

Wandel, president of the DVV, gave a speech about the new direction of higher education. '"The Second Phase has begu'", Wandel said, '"we can now reform more vigorously. Our goal is the Socialist Republic and we are preparing the way for it. We can cooperate with the democrats for the moment, we do not need to throw out all the bourgeois academics—but where someone seriously impedes us, he has to go.'"1 ° There were two forms of structural changes: new institutions were created outside of the universities that fell under direct control of the SED or Party-controlled institutes were housed within the universities. State-run but highly attached to the SED, the New

Teacher and People's Judges schools took over most of the training of teachers and lawyers until they were discontinued and directly incorporated into ordinary faculties between 1949-51. In September 1949, the Marx-Engels-Lenin Institute was created. The

Institute for Social Sciences of the Central Committee of the SED, later renamed the

Academy for Social Sciences, was created to conduct research and training on, produce materials for teachers of, and produce capable lecturers in Marxist-Leninist theory; the institute was also responsible for the introduction of Slavic languages to ease the growing concerns over translation. l

Victor Klemperer, The Lesser Evil, 111 Ralph Jessen, 'Between Control and Collaboration', 252

54 Moreover, a list of decrees from the DVV between 1949-51 further radicalized the structure of the system in several ways.162 First, universities were defined as "State teaching establishments" subject to governmental supervision. Second, deans and rectors were elected from a list of candidates dictated by the SED.163 These measures eliminated what formal freedoms remained before the entire higher education system would become centralized and firmly in the hands of the Party.

The announcement of a Five-Year Plan in July 1950 may be regarded as a more systematic continuation of the post-1947 policies of re-organization.164 It aimed to "raise the niveau of science and scholarship" by continuing to emphasize the importance of worker and peasant studies and by using the experience of the USSR.165 The establishment of a Ministry of Education in 1951 was a part of a second higher education reform that escalated into centralization after the individual Lander ministries were abolished in 1952. Headed by physicist and philosopher Gerhard Harig from Leipzig who spent much of the 1930s in the Soviet Union, it was divided into various departments: departments for social sciences, worker education, teaching methods, evening education, individual academic disciplines, and departments controlling the

Aspirantura.166 Accountable to the Party's Central Committee, it was responsible for planning the development of higher education and supervising academic standards for

See especially the documents 36 to 68 in Baske and Engelbert, eds., Zwei Jahrzehnte Bildungspolitik, 81-206 Ralph Jessen, 'Between Control and Collaboration', 257 164 See 'Die nachsten Aufgaben in den Universitaten und Hochschulen. Entschliefiung des Zentralkomitees der SED vom 19. Januar 1951' in Baske and Engelbert, eds., Zwei Jahrzehnte Bildungspolitik, pp. 174-180; and 'Verordnung uber die Neuorganisation des Hochschulwesens. Vom 22. Februar 1951' in Ibid, pp. 180- 184 165 John Connelly, Captive University, 60 166 The Aspirantura was a Soviet-style graduate, generally three-year, scientific degree awarded after the completion of the first dissertation. It was formally adopted in the GDR in 1951, although there is evidence to suggest that students were called 'aspiranten' earlier than then. See for example, John Connelly, Captive University, 66

55 professors and students. The minister met weekly with his departmental chiefs and appointed a Council of Experts to assist in making decisions.167 By 1952, most legislation empowered the minister with the rights to determine lesson plans and schedules of study, create and liquidate faculties, and transfer and dismiss faculty members.168

Into the 1950s East German higher education had two main goals: to create experts for the state and socialist economy and create a new socialist intelligentsia. By then, faculties with the strongest reactionary influence—Law, Theology, Agriculture, and

Medicine—were converted into separate higher schools of education, generally under the control of the Party; research facilities were sovietized and became Academies of

Science; and new, solely technical and political institutes were created. There was also the founding of ABFs in 1949, which aimed at preparing children from the lower classes for higher education.169 Inside the institutions, power was centered around the rector, who essentially had the role of chief administrator of the entire university. Pro-rectors, who technically held the second highest position of authority, were from the Central

Committee, but as such held a position of significant influence.170

Complexities of reconstruction

'Brain Drain' East and West

The legacy of Nazism caused a division that penetrated many realms of German social and cultural life. The evident physical toll of the war reduced much of eastern Germany

Ibid, 60 Ibid, 58-9 Ralph Jessen, 'Between Control and Collaboration', 258 John Connelly, Captive University, 58-9

56 to rubble, which included many university buildings and libraries.171 Germany did not possess the material resources necessary to rebuild much of its devastated territory with much efficiency.172 General displacement and physical devastation caused by the war prevented a number of academics from returning to their positions. Furthermore, former

Nazis were also removed from their positions within the universities. The severity of the de-nazification purges was amplified further by the thousands of German academics who willingly fled the SBZ because of their mistrust of the Soviet system and the hundreds of

German scientists abducted by the Soviet forces who were sent to the Soviet Union.

Whatever the reasons behind their departure, the so-called 'brain drain' nearly completely depleted what intellectual resources were available to re-educate the populace and nullified most intellectual and scientific advancements accomplished prior to 1945.

Most professors were pessimistic about the SBZ and left the territory once its borders had been finalized. Universities that were in areas initially under American occupation saw high numbers of professors accompany the US forces westward. In

Greifswald, forty-two professors left with the American occupiers; by November 1945, only forty-nine of 252 remained, nine of eighty-three in the medical faculty and seven of fifty-seven in the natural sciences.174 The University of Jena lost directors of almost all the natural sciences arid medical institutes.175

See Benita Blessing's argument concerning "redemption through reconstruction" in Benita Blessing, The Antifascist Classroom, 4 172 Ibid 173 Interest in Soviet use of German technology after the war has recently increased due partly to the new availability of sources. For a more in-depth discussion on the matter see, Norman Naimark, The Russians in Germany, 205-50; Kristie Macrakis, 'Espionage and Technology Transfer in the Quest for Scientific- Technical Prowess', in Macrakis and Hoffmann, eds., Science under Socialism, pp.82-121 174 John Connelly, Captive University, 96 175 Ibid, 97

57 Of the 1,260 professors in the Soviet zone in January 1945 only a total of 329 remained in January 1946.176 Of the 931 who left only 346 were Nazis.177 By 1953 the

'brain drain' proved to be so severe most traces of continuity with the pre-1945 and pre-

1933 academic elite had been practically lost. At the former Prussian Academy of

Sciences only two of seventeen scientists remained at the beginning of 1946.178 There were thirteen professors teaching history at Jena, Leipzig, and Rostock in the 1944-5

semester. By 1953 only two remained. In law, the number of professors teaching went

from seventeen to zero. Of the 248 professors teaching in 1953 at Rostock, Berlin, and

Leipzig, only twenty-seven had been employed in teaching positions before 1945.180

The second phase of the de-nazification purges was especially harsh on

departments of Philosophy. Philosophers were forced to complete political questionnaires that labeled nearly every one "idealist and eclectic".181 Amongst the many influential philosophers to depart because of "hostile attitude toward the new democracy" were

Eduard Spranger, from Berlin University, Theodor Litt, Hans Gadamer, and Alfred

Petzeld, all from Leipzig University; and Hans Leisegang, former student of Husserl and

Dilthey, from Jena University.182

Students

The KPD/SED's two main objectives concerning student policy in the SBZ were the

introduction of students from worker and peasant background into the universities and the

176 Norman Nairmark, The Russians in Germany, 442 177 Ibid 178 Ibid, 442-43 179 Ibid 180 John Connelly, Captive University, 134 181 Ibid, 133

58 introduction of the Marxist-Leninist world-view in order to wage an ideological 'war'

against the bourgeois universities. Their efforts, however, met strong resistance from the

students, who resented their drive to replace 'bourgeois' students with workers and peasants and to politicize student instruction.183

The authorities' attempt to substantially increase the amount of worker and peasant students in the universities met a fundamental problem in the early post-war years. The depletion of intellectual resources available to the KPD/SED forced the authorities to promote politically reliable persons—i.e. workers and peasants— within all

spheres of social life. Their first priority was to empower the KPD/SED by introducing large numbers of workers and peasants directly into the apparatus of the Party. Most qualified students of worker and peasant background were given good positions in areas other than higher education, such as within the Party or trade unions.184 Considering the

KPD/SED was reluctant to accept students of other backgrounds or ideological inclination, it is not surprising that the number of students found within universities

during this time was alarmingly low. The approximate total amount of students enrolled

in 1946 was only 8,500, compared to the pre-1933 norm of 25,420 counted in 1928.185

Of those 8,500 students only a small fraction was of peasant or worker background. At

Humboldt University, for example, only 10% of students were workers or peasants.

If it was more difficult than expected to increase support for the SED amongst the

student population by changing its demographic in favour of worker and peasant

students, the authorities trusted they would gather similar support from the Victims of

183 John Connelly, 'East German Higher Education and Student Resistance', 261-2 184 Ibid, 263 185 Norman Naimark, The Russians in Germany, 445 186 Ralph Jessen, 'Between Control and Collaboration', 248

59 Fascism. This proved to be a miscalculation. The Victims of Fascism were the most

vocalized group of resisters to have emerged from World War II. For one, many KPD

authorities were exiled during the Nazi-era and the War. Their lack of experience and an

essentially class-based and economic understanding of Nazism made it difficult for them

to appreciate the racial discrimination suffered at the hands of the Nazis.187 The Victims

of Fascism had no problem vocally pointing out the similarities between the

governmental policies and the ideologies of Nazism and Communism. For the most part,

the students, often led by the Victims of Fascism, resented the introduction of new

worker and peasant students. Not only did it put their position in jeopardy, but it also

implied a degree of re-politicization of the universities. Concerns were also voiced over

such politicization of instruction, which began in the Fall 1946 semester with the

introduction of a mandatory course on the "Political and Social Problems of the Present

Age" and continued with the introduction of mandatory courses in Marxism-Leninism

after 1951.188

Party affiliation numbers between 1946-47 proved the student's lack of loyalty to

the SED. By and large, the student community was one of the strongest opponents to the

DVV's introduction of 'anti-fascist democratic' changes due to its enthusiasm for

National Socialism. As a result, they were also singled out as potential enemies of

transformation by the authorities. The student elections of 1946/47 and late 1947 indicate

that the SED was unable to gain a majority in either of the free elections before 1949.189

Angelika Timm, Jewish Claims against East Germany: Moral Obligations and Pragmatic Policy, (Central European University Press: Budapest & New York, 1997), 39-40; John Connelly, 'East German Higher Education and Student Resistance', 261 188 Ralph Jessen, 'Between Control and Collaboration', 259 189 John Connelly, 'East German Higher Education and Student Resistance', 275

60 Prior to 1945 the NSDAP were supported confidently by the students. The anti-fascist

purges of the early post-war years thus silenced the SED's main ideological antagonist.

Most students favored the LDPD {Liberal-Demokratische Partei Deutschlands, the

Liberal Democratic Party of Germany) and CDU (Christlich Demokratische Union

Deutschlands, Christian Democratic Union of Germany) as alternative avenues to voice

their concerns towards SED policies. Wolfgang Natonek, chair of the LDPD at Leipzig

University, was one example of students rallying behind non-SED parties to voice

concerns. After becoming chair of the student council, Natonek complained that that

system was being built on force and coercion and that student admission was based on

class rather than ability.190 His vocal opposition to the Party, however, resulted in the

arrest of a large group of students and Natonek himself on 11 November 1948. From that point on, the LDPD at the university was banned.191

Relative numbers of student party affiliations between 1945-47 demonstrate that

the SED were unsuccessful in convincing students to join the Party. In 1945/46, for

example, no less than 70% percent of students were affiliated with any of the four parties.

In Leipzig, where the percentage of worker and peasant students was highest, the

majority of students chose to either join the LDPD (15%), the CDU (14%), or remained unpartisan (28%). In Berlin, the SED was less popular. The SED won only four out of

28 seats at the student council elections in Berlin in Winter 1946-47. At Humboldt

190 Wolfgang Natonek, 'Student und Offentlichkeit, Rede des Leipziger Studentenratsvorsitzenden zur Eroffnung des Wartburgtreffens der deutschen Studenten im Mai 1948' in Ulrike Schuster, Wissen ist Macht. FDJ, Studenten und die Zeitung FORUM in der SBZ/DDR. Eine Dokumentation, (Metropol Verlag: Berlin, 1997), pp.86-88 191 Gary Bruce, Resistance with the People: Repression and Resistance in Eastern Germany, 1945-1955, (Rowman & Littlefield Inc.: Lanham, 2003), 89-91 192 John Connelly, 'East German Higher Education and Student Resistance', 275

61 University, where only 9% of all students were from worker and peasant background, 9%

were members of the SED.193

Nevertheless, the most vocal group against the SED was the Victims of Fascism,

from whom the SED believed it would draw support. Since the Victims of Fascism were

either active resisters to Nazism, or had been racially or politically persecuted by the

regime, they had no trouble pointing out similarities between the SED and NSDAP. The

SED's response was severe. Indiscriminate student arrests increased after 1946-7 and

lasted until 1953.194 Between 1945 and 1953 as many as 423 students were arrested in.

such fashion. By 1949 the 25,300 students enrolled in higher education institutions matched pre-1933 levels. The SED attempted to fill the vacancies with students of worker

and peasant background. Even with high numbers of worker and peasant students, the

SED was unable to garnish much support amongst the students before the 1950s. By

1950, student membership of the SED climbed to 26%, reaching over 55% by 1955. It

was thus only when the student resistance had been smashed that the number of students

outwardly loyal to the Party increased substantially.195

'Dealing with the Past'

Following the war, Germans were identified as either supporters or victims of the Nazi

regime. Throughout the first phase of the de-nazification purges, the KPD/SED was

confident of the support coming from the Victims of Fascism.196 According to KPD

193 Ibid, 270 194 Ibid., 259; John Connelly, Captive University, 123-24 195 John Connelly, 'East German Higher Education and Student Resistance', 270 196 John Connelly, "East German Higher Education and Student Resistance', 259-60; John Connelly, Captive University, 120-27; Siobhan Kattago, Ambiguous Memory: The Nazi Past and German National Identity, (Praeger: Westport & London, 2001), 85-87

62 doctrine developed in the 1930's, those who were not Nazis or Nazi sympathizers were either 'Fighters of Fascism' (Kampfer gegen Faschismus) or 'Victims of Fascism' (Opfer des Faschismus). The question concerning who was an 'active' rather than 'passive' resister would cause a hierarchical division of the two categories. On the one hand,

Communists were de facto active resisters and stood atop the hierarchical structure as

Fighters of Fascism. Jews, on the other hand, were frowned upon in communist ideology because of their bourgeois roots. They were regarded as Victims of Fascism because, the communist argued, Jewish resistance was predominantly of a passive type. Individuals from 'privileged marriages' during the Third Reich were particularly difficult to account for.197 Victor Klemperer, for example, was only recognized as a Victim of Fascism once he joined the KPD.198 The labeling thus earned a partisan tone. Nonetheless, individuals who successfully joined the Victims of Fascism in the immediate post-war years but were also able to disassociate themselves from 'bourgeois culture'—i.e. Jews—gained significantly in terms of promotions and opportunities to rise within the new system.

Other individuals benefited from the circumstances brought by their experience in the Soviet Union during the war that enabled them to do well under the new system.

Hans Beyer, chemist at Humboldt University, forced his colleagues to respect the "Heil

Hitler" and participated actively in Nazi marches. He was taken prisoner at Stalingrad and as a prisoner of war became a supporter of Soviet communism. Franz Wohlgemut, a former Wehrmacht officer, shared a similar story with Rudolf Bohm, Ernst Hadermann, and Beyer, and knew the latter through their time spent as a part of the National

Committee for a Free Germany. By 1949 Beyer had become rector of Greifswald

197 Ibid 198 Victor Klemperer, The Lesser Evil, 70

63 University on the recommendation of the Schwerin Education Minister, Franz

Wohlgemuth"

By late-1947 the KPD/SED's views regarding the promotion of Victims of

Fascism in higher education started to change. Wilhelm Hauser from the DVV articulated the shift in position:

[The DVV had been giving preference to those who were] racially persecuted, or for some other reasons that often had political causes, but nothing to do with our cause [...] As a result, in the course of the last two years [...] a number of people have come to universities who really don't belong to us, even if they are not exactly our enemies [...] In a purely political sense, we were not able to be as selective about who were politically and racially persecuted last year. But this will gradually improve. Now we have refused about 50% of applicants.200

Two conclusions can be made from this type of statement. First, there was a realization that the promotion of Victims of Fascism throughout the higher education system on the part of the KPD/SED was not translating into the desired results. Second,

Hauser's view was part of a shift in the KPD/SED authorities' approach to the reconstruction of the higher education system that called for a re-organization more clearly along the ideological lines of Soviet communism. Order No. 36 of the Thuringian

SMAD, of 15 March 1948, "on the Elimination of serious Deficiencies that hamper the democratization of the University of Jena", to use one particular example, called for a shake up of Jena University that included expulsions, unseating of student council representatives, review of scholarships, appointments of new professors, change of rector, and the arrest of students.201 It also expanded faculty councils to include teaching assistants and people who "perform especially valuable services for the educational and

199 John Connelly, Captive University, 159 200 Quote taken from Ibid, 122 201 Ibid, 123

64 scientific obligations of the faculty." From 1949 onwards a systematic process of

'democratization' transformed the entire East German higher education system into something that was nearly identical to that found in the Soviet Union.203

From Institutional and Social History to Personal Narrative

The complex nature of reconstruction in the SBZ and GDR was characterized by several prominent themes that explain how individuals participated in the 'anti-fascist democratic transformation' and 'socialist re-organization' of East German higher education. Despite strong resistance on the part of the students, at times led and vocalized by the Victims of

Fascism, a severe depletion in the material and intellectual resources, and a past shadowed by the legacy of Nazism, the higher education system was rebuilt relatively successfully between 1945-53, when compared to other Eastern European states. The institutional and social history of East German higher education demonstrates how institutions and various social groups successfully made the switch from Nazism to

Communism and what issues dominated SED higher education policy throughout this time. In order to explain why they chose to do so, however, requires a more penetrating

study. The next chapter will put into context the major issues examined above by relating them to Victor Klemperer's day-to-day experience with higher education under both regimes.

For more information concerning education in the Soviet Union see Michael David-Fox, 'Russian Universities Across the 1917 Divide' in John Connelly and Michael Griittner, eds., Universities under Dictatorship, pp.15-43; Sheila Fitzpatrick, Education and Social Mobility in the Soviet Union, 1917-34, (Cambridge University Press: New York, 1979); Nigel Grant, Soviet Education, (Penguin: Harmandsworth & New York, 1979)

65 CHAPTER 3

Choosing the Lesser Evil:

Victor Klemperer's Experience with Reconstruction

The previous chapters have provided background into the institutional and social history of East German higher education from 1933-53. They have also explored what themes impacted higher education as it went through various stages and changed accordingly.

The present chapter offers a more particular type of analysis in order to explain how change impacted individual professors. In many ways, Victor Klemperer was an ordinary

German academic who lived through and recorded extraordinary circumstances in the

Third Reich and GDR. The diaries he left behind provide an exceptionally detailed view of both higher education systems, but they also detail his motives and emotions on a day- to-day basis.

Victor Klemperer as a German (Jew)

Victor Klemperer was born into a Jewish family in 1881, the son of a rabbi. A student of philosophy, Romance, and German studies, he spent his university years in Munich,

Paris, Berlin, and Geneva, acquiring a taste for Romance languages and literature and associating himself increasingly with German culture. He fell in love with a Protestant

German woman, Eva Schlemmer, and they married in 1906. His romantic fascination with German culture culminated in 1912 with his conversion to Protestantism. During the

Great War he volunteered and fought for the German army. Essentially, Klemperer shared most characteristics representative of a middle-class, educated German man of his

66 time. His academic interest in Voltaire and French literature made for a difficult career in

a country hostile to the superficial ideas of the French Enlightenment.204 Relatively unsuccessful, he never established himself firmly enough within the academic

community to be offered a chair in what he considered to be a respected German university. He had difficulties publishing much of his material since many of his peers thought his work to be too journalistic for academia. He was unable to obtain a professorship and was restricted to teaching at the Dresden TH. As a converted Jew, he

firmly believed in the Rechsstaat tradition that had maintained Jewish emancipation in

German society. It was also responsible for his abhorrence of Jewish nationalist and pro-

Zionist movements.205 By 1933, he was an academically stubborn, conservative German teacher of French literature and an unquestionably bourgeois member of the German

academic elite.

The racial differentiation present in Nazi ideology relinquished the possibility for

Klemperer to continue his academic career as before or for him to ignore his Jewish identity. Although the Jews were immediately attacked in the universities by the most

enthusiastic group in favor of the Machtergreifung, the students, Jewish isolation and marginalization was a gradual process in Nazi Germany. As early as March 31st, 1933, the Dresden student body barred all contact with Jews: Jews were not permitted to enter the student house. Klemperer commented on the irony of the situation: "How much

Jewish money went toward this student house only a few years ago!" After the passing

204 Victor Klemperer, / Will Bear Witness, vol. 1, ix; note that a general atmosphere of anti-Semitism was also present throughout German higher education during this time, which may also in part explain his lack of success during the earlier part of his career. 205 Ibid, 62-3 206 Victor Klemperer, I Will Bear Witness, vol. 1, 10

67 of the Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service of 7 April 1933 that

expelled all Jews from the Civil Service, which included all teaching positions at the university level, he was conscious of his advantageous position and considered himself a

"lucky one"; for his post had been spared "as a front-line veteran".208 His pay would as a result be greatly reduced, but because of the general sentiment of uncertainty and out of

fear of the regime, Klemperer noted that "no one dare[d] complain" about the changes undertaken by the regime thus far.209 On October 9 1939, he took note of several

"politically unreliable" professors who were dismissed and questioned when he would be next. Over the next few months more decrees gradually altered his position by

significantly deducing his pay and further restricting his publishing opportunities.2"

By May 1 1934 Klemperer received notice of his dismissal from the TH. He

admitted that "at first [he] felt alternately numb and slightly romantic" about the

circumstances.212 A few days later, on 7 May, he conversed with several guests about his

dismissal. His impression gathered from the evening was that "they took [his] elimination very lightly [...] Kiihn thought [he] should complain about the retirement, [he] was due

emeritus status (or "loss of duties," as the new phrase ha[d] it)."213 The next day he

spoke to dean Beste about his situation, whose response was that it was impossible for him to do anything: "Two 'laws' coexisted], the regularly extended 'Law for the

208 Ibid, 12-3 209 Ibid, 38 210 Ibid, 35-36 211 Victor Klemperer, / Will Bear Witness, vol.2, 38; Klemperer also comments that it had become impossible to publish anymore because the journals were all filled with "Nazi jargon". 212 Ibid, 119 213 Ibid, 122

68 Restoration of the Professional Civil Service,' which provide[d] retirement, and the new

one on 'loss of duties'. The Governor [chose] either as he [saw] fit."214

For all intents and purposes, his professional career was finished. Much like many other academics in a similar position, he went into a sort of 'inner immigration' in

order to continue his scholarly work, preparing his magnum opus on French literature in the Eighteenth Century from his newly built home in Dolzschen, near Dresden.215

Continuously threatened by lack of food and money, he felt powerless in the face of a

system that reached the peak in terms of general approval at a time that coincided with what he described as, "that tremendous arming [...] going on in this country, which is in an extremely powerful position [...] Hitler has never been more firmly established."216 It is of no coincidence that the latter part of the entry reveals Klemperer's thoughts on the stability of the regime by 1936-37. A comment reiterated on May 30, "Nothing has changed [...] the power of the Third Reich has only grown ever and more secure." '

The willingness of his colleagues to collaborate with the regime forced him to break his relationship with many old friends and colleagues. As much as he disapproved of the Nazi influence found within the higher education system, he felt just as threatened by communism. In his view, both were equally despicable when it came to intellectual liberalism. One of the first entries he described as having greatly affected him was on 31

December 1933: "I had to break with two close friends, with Thieme because he is

National Socialist, with Gusti Wieghardt because she became a communist."218

215 The work was published in East Germany in 1954 as Victor Klemperer, Geschichte der franzosischen Literatur im 18. Jahrhundert, (Deutscher Verlag der Wissenschaft: Berlin, 1954) 216 Ibid, 149, 161 217 Ibid, 167

69 Klemperer reserved his most fierce criticism however for his colleagues. On

August 16, 1936, he expressed his disillusionment regarding the actions of the academic elite by fiercely attacking his old friend, Johannes Kuhn,

whom I always took to be a man of integrity and a genuine thinker, professor of history Johannes Kuhn has written a short article in the Dresdener NN (August 16) on the one-hundred-fiftieth anniversary of the death of Frederick the Great. In a hundred lines he twice calls him emphatically "a Nordic-German man" [...] -if one day the situation were reversed and the fate of the vanquished lay in my hands, then I would let all the ordinary folk go and even some of the leaders, who might perhaps after all have had honourable intentions and not know what they are doing. But I would have all the intellectuals strung up, and the professors three feet higher than the rest; they would be left hanging from the lamp-posts for as long as was compatible with hygiene.219

On 9 October 1936 he learnt that, as a Jew, he was to be denied access to the library reading room. Only a few days later he would be denied all access to the library, making it impossible for him to continue working on his French literary history in the

18th Century.220 With the loss of the library came the loss of the resources necessary for him to continue his academic work. From this point on, Klemperer occupied his mind by attentively keeping up with his diary entries and by taking notes from whatever sources he could gather on the Nazi use of language as a tool for propaganda. This was a project he traced in his diaries by the code name LTI, Lingua Tertiae Imperii, the language of the

Third Empire.

As Klemperer's academic career was gradually destroyed by the anti-Semitism of the new regime, he saw most professors as being unfazed by the changes. Indeed, many, even some of his close friends, were willingly collaborating with and actively supporting

Hitler's regime, even if it meant contradicting one's own previous academic work.

Ibid, 184 Ibid, 194

70 "[Professor Adolf] Spamer", for example, "who had spoken so contemptuously about national psychology", he wrote on 24 November, 1936, "is now in charge of the Reich

Office for Folk Studies, is the editor of an anthology, German Folk Studies. The publishing house has just announced a second edition after only five months! How can this work fit with Spamer's basic ideas? As much as the Nordic Frederick the Great with

991

Kiihn's ideas." He could not hide his sentiment that this seemed to be the tendency of most academics, since "they [Spamer and Kuhn] are the most human of [his] former 999 colleagues!" These sentiments were repeated in his diaries in an entry from 12 May 1937:

In your memoirs do not forget those who made it easy for themselves and those who were cautious on both sides! and not the philistine Spamer, who visited us and called the Stilrmer an insignificant scandal sheet, such as have always existed, and is now a big ethnologist with the Nazis and so betrays his discipline; who talked to me so openly about the stupidity of the people, whom anything can be drummed into.2 3

All around him, Klemperer noticed how the German population was being won over to National Socialism. Often he wrote of how "unaware" the population was of

"how much [...] National Socialis[m]' was ingrained within the German people. It forced him to question whether 'Hitlerism [was] afterv all more deeply and firmly rooted in the nation and corresponded] more to the German nature than [he would have liked] to admit."224 One of the reasons behind the mass sentiments of approval for the Nazis may be explained by referring to their manipulation and degeneration of the German

221 Victor Klemperer, / Will Bear Witness, vol.1, 201 222 Ibid lLi Ibid, 218 224 Ibid, 229,231, 233-4, 237, 241

71 language. Another main reason was the perceived threat of Soviet communism. On

September 12, 1937, he wrote, "Frau Kemlein in Strausberg says to me: 'Starvation is better than Communism! [...] there is so much starvation and murder in Russia—after all less blood is spilled in this country...' There is no doubt that 99 out of a hundred think like that."226

By that time Klemperer had made a decision to stay in Germany. Most of his friends had either joined the Nazis or left. International academic positions open to refugees had mostly been filled and his early, half-hearted attempts to find a post abroad had not been successful. The Klemperers were never serious about leaving Germany.

By the end of 1939, the circumstances had grown to a critical level. In his final entry for the year he noted, "I believe the pogroms of November '38 made less impression on the nation than cutting the bar of chocolate for Christmas." As most Jews during this time were disassociating themselves with their German identity, Klemperer refused to do so, even though the realities of day-to-day life were dictated by his race. He and Eva had constructed a house and garden that kept their aspirations on German soil and he was attached to his German identity. Academically, he was gradually isolated and marginalized to the point of extinction. Within a few years, his physical existence would be endangered, as the same isolation was conducted on a social level. After the

Klemperers lost their home, they shared the fate of an alienated people. They were sent to the Jew's house in May, 1940, where they began to hear of Jewish deportations. With

5 A film on Klemperer's notes concerning the Nazi use of language was released in 2003. See, La Langue ne merit pas, directed by Stan Neumann, (France, 2003) 226 Victor Klemperer, / Will Bear Witness, vol. 1, 237 Part of the reason why Klemperer was unwilling to fully commit himself to finding a position abroad comes from the fact that the Civil Service Law of 1933 inhibited those who accepted positions abroad from receiving a pension. See Edward Yarnall Hartshorne Jr., German Universities and National Socialism, 100 228 Ibid, 324

72 the decree forcing all Jews to wear the Star of David outside the Jews' House, after 19

September, 1941, only Eva could reasonably leave the house to do the daily errands, which barely sufficed for survival. With the absence of any academic work, Klemperer resorted to writing in his diaries, despite the consequences if they were discovered, in order to bear witness to the crimes perpetrated by the Nazi regime.

The Klemperers were saved from the death camps because of Eva's Aryan background and the allies' fire-bombing policies. Eva's Aryan background prolonged

Klemperer's deportation until February 1945. When the time finally came, on 14

February, 1945, the city of Dresden was bombed, setting practically the entire city on fire. Amidst the chaos, Klemperer was able to remove his Jewish star and leave the city for the countryside, where they waited for the war to come to an end.

'Zero Hour' (Stunde Null)'. The rebirth of Klemperer as Witness

Although the war for Germany technically ended on May 8, 1945, Stunde Null for the

Klemperers came only on June 10 when the completion of their return journey home to

Dolzchen was in sight. He did not use the metaphor Stunde Null to describe his position; rather he continuously spoke of his fortunes as a "fairy-tale turnaround" several weeks after his return. When describing his sentiments about returning home, Klemperer wrote of "a still indescribable feeling, still like a walking dream, since then we have been living in a fairly-tale world, a comical, imaginary, yet very real but somewhat uncertain world." He was not content to simply have survived; he was also dedicated to getting back to his work. Although National Socialism had violently threatened Klemperer's

229 See his entry on May 26-June 10 in / Will Bear Witness, vol. 2, 494-514; and his entry in The Lesser Evil, 2, 24 230 Victor Klemperer, The Lesser Evil, 2-4

73 existence as an academic as much as an individual, it also placed him in a unique position to benefit from his experiences with Nazism. He was not so naive as to think of the uncertain conditions in the SBZ as wholly beneficial. He understood very well the detrimental circumstances created by his new reality. The first entry of his post-1945 diaries, The Lesser Evil, illuminates how the Soviet occupation and de-nazification were the two themes that dictated why most Germans were not as optimistic about the future:

"On the wireless [...] we hear only Russian news or news with a Russian bias [...]. In addition, there are constantly appeals and incitements to root out the Nazis, reports about their atrocities, about the capture of hidden bosses, about interrogations."231

Upon their return home, the Klemperers were greeted by a number of locals, who wanted the Klemperers to confirm their anti-fascist, or at least non-conformist, attitude toward the Nazi regime. They often imagined what sort of greeting they would receive should they survive the war and return home. Eva retained her strong attachment to their house and garden in Dolzschen: "Eva, whose relationship to the house is different from mine [...] said we would not take least notice of anyone and live in seclusion in our garden." Klemperer held a more realistic understanding of the present circumstances.

"For me", he wrote on 19 June 1945, "it was actually a disagreeable feeling to have anything to do with the people here again."234 He conceded that many may have had good intentions, despite their allegiance to the Party. Nevertheless, he felt betrayed by the

German people because of the physical threat to his own existence; but also because he regarded the masses as having turned their backs on their own cultural heritage.

See the 'Introduction' by Martin Chalmers in Victor Klemperer, The Lesser Evil, vii 233 Ibid

74 He wrote of one incident, among many, where he was approached by complete

strangers wanting him to clear their names but was unsure of their guilt. "A young women came running after us", he wrote on 19 June,

Neither of us knew her, Frau Dr. Konig, wife of a doctor of medicine and dentist. We had to have coffee with her, we were overwhelmed with cigarettes and other attentions, she has meanwhile paid a visit, has bought us jam and other provisions, we have also got to know her husband. She does not make a bad impression—but, but [...] Dr. Konig of which, naturally, I could have no idea, and which, naturally, makes the great friendliness the family has demonstrated since then somewhat questionable. Yet the man really did give me the impression of someone politically uninvolved, who only joined the Party in order to go on practicing his profession [...] (But the millions of Dr. Konigs—are they not guilty after all??)235

Unsurprisingly, these kinds of pleas coincided with the uncovering of Nazi

atrocities, especially in the East, and the earliest stages of Soviet military occupation.

Especially concerning was the degree of uncertainty among the population concerning how the Soviet military would conduct itself in its occupation zone. Klemperer noted instances where "factory upon factory [was] taken off to Poland and Russia", which had

"even the most left-wing [...] feel[ing] anxious."236

This general sentiment of fear concerning the uncertainty of the SBZ's future transcended most spheres in society, and also characterized the early days of the higher education system. Many universities and libraries had been physically devastated by the war. Nevertheless, Klemperer was immediately concerned with how reconstruction would be undertaken. On the one hand, he was suspicious of everyone. On 26 July, for example, he wrote, "Everyone here knows me in the street and at home, express pleasure at my return. What percentage of that is warmth and what is calculation? I shall always

Ibid, 3-4 Ibid, 16

75 be suspicious now." He remained sincere in his judgements, only providing what he truly felt to be a just testimony. On the other hand, when it came to old colleagues, or other members of the intelligentsia, he felt he had a moral right to judge those culpable, and only he could do so correctly, as his comments from August 16, 1936, would lead one to expect. What was most important to him was the need to rid German academia and culture of the Nazi spirit. The main reason why his attitude towards his former colleagues was so ruthless was because of their willingness to not only accept but collaborate with the Nazi regime. On 24 June, he wrote of an old colleague, Steininger,

"it is absolutely certain, that the man was playing a clever double game and also served the Third Reich. He says, he only sold 'scholarly' material—but he must have known how this material was used by the Nazis."239 His first encounters with many of his colleagues were especially difficult and awkward to endure, for he was greeted by most as if nothing had happened during the last twelve years. He saw a couple of colleagues for the first time since being dismissed at the Inauguration of the Provisional Stage of the

Dresden Theatres on 10 July, 1945. He described the incident on 11 July as "the definitive awakening from the all-too-beautiful fairy tale." "To my great astonishment", he wrote of meeting Kiihn and Janentzky again, "greeting me as if we had been sitting together for the last time only yesterday and this meeting was the most natural thing in the world, the Kiihn couple. And beside me, completely grey, and taking it even more for granted, Janentzky."

Victor Klemperer, / Will Bear Witness, vol. 1, 84 Victor Klemperer, The Lesser Evil, 13 Ibid, 21-2

76 Joining the KPD and 'Anti-fascist democratic transformation'

By November 1945, it had become obvious to Klemperer that he could no longer remain unpartisan, if he wished to partake in the reconstruction of Germany. On 17 November, he wrote, "My situation has changed fundamentally insofar as I must join one of the four parties, if I am to be accepted as a victim of Fascism because racially persecuted."241 At the first ceremony for the Victims of Fascism in late September 1945, he met an engineer named Schlegel who had joined the LDPD. His response to the engineer, which he noted

on 30 September, that "in [his] thinking [he] was a democrat, but first of all there had to be a clean-up [...] In the column of demonstrators [...] the pg [Parteigenossen, Nazi

Party members] couple Dr Konig", outlines his priorities: his decision to join one of the

four parties was strongly influenced by the need for an extensive de-nazification process throughout the SBZ and his desire to re-launch his academic career.242 On 20 November, with the "application forms for admission to the KPD [...] lying on [his] desk",

Klemperer reflected on his reasons for joining the Party and the awkward position it put him in: "Am I a coward, if I do not join [...]; am I a coward if I do join? Are my reasons

for joining solely egoistical? No! If I had to join a party, then this is a lesser evil. For the present at least. It alone is really pressing for radical exclusions of Nazis. But it replaces the old lack of freedom with a new one."243 A couple days later, he reiterated his decision to join as he had articulated it on the application:

If without any alteration to this inclination, as far as my fundamental view of philosophy and especially philosophy of history is concerned, I nevertheless request to be admitted to the Communist Party, then for the

241 Ibid, 70 242 Ibid, 58 243 Ibid, 72

77 following reasons: I believe that to remain unattached to the Party today is a luxury, which with some justice could be interpreted as cowardice or at least as excessive indolence. And I believe that only a very resolute left- wing movement can get us out of the present calamity and prevent its return. As a university teacher I was forced to watch at close quarters, as reactionary ideas made even greater inroads. We must seek to remove them effectively, and from the bottom. And only in the KPD do I see the unambiguous will to do so.244

The previous entries suggest that there were three main reasons as to why

Klemperer joined the KPD in November 1945, despite clearly indicating his revulsion towards Marxist philosophy. The first was due to the practical need to be recognized as a racially persecuted victim of fascism. Second, he felt that, as a university teacher, he had

first-hand experience of the detrimental nature of Nazi ideology, which could only be prevented from returning with the leadership of a radical and revolutionary left-wing party. Third, he believed that the post-war atmosphere required all Germans to declare their allegiance before partaking in the reconstruction process. By November, he was

conscious of the fact that the pragmatic reasons for him joining the Party were dependent first on the KPD's ideological stance against fascism and second on whether he could play a role in setting the anti-fascist foundations for a new Germany. As such, he also became one of the first Germans to advocate the establishment of a separate German state in the SBZ under Soviet leadership.

Another explanation for Klemperer's negative attitude towards his colleagues has to do with his early frustration with the way in which de-nazification was conducted.

Within months of returning home, and even before he joined the KPD, he articulated his preference for a KPD-led approach to de-nazification.245 His wishes were frustrated,

1U1U, / J Ibid, 22-3

78 however, by the KPD's inability to gain widespread support among the academic and intellectual elite and the SMAD's uneasy position concerning reactionary professors.

One instance where Klemperer articulated his frustration towards the SMAD explicitly expresses his unease over their stance concerning the power held by reactionary professors. On 26 March, 1946, he wrote, "The Russians simply have no political misgivings any more and are concerned solely with the scholarly goal. Here [in the

Soviet zone], therefore, they to some extent go along with those on the Right, with the

'reactionaries'."246 His disapproval in this instance is voiced not only towards old Party members, but included all "on the Right". On 7 September he wrote of an instance when two young Party officials, "with some such post as youth leaders", complained that

Klemperer's discussions with youth organizations were "too unpolitical."247 He agreed that student support for the SED was a problem: "There was talk of young people joining the LDPD en masse" around that time.248 He argued, however, that the solution did not rest with political education and tried to convince the Party officials to increase the number of students from the Freie Deutsche Jugend (Free German Youth—FDJ) and the

Party's elementary school circles. These kinds of frustrations lasted well into 1947, as his entry from 6 July demonstrates. After a Faculty meeting about the status of the TH,

Klemperer describes a power struggle between rector Heidebroek, the faculty, and the government. He wrote, "H[eidebroek] holds on to his executive power [...] while we

[the faculty] want democracy." The SMAD supported Heidebroek. "At the same time

Trinks and Woldt, the SED people [...] uphold the rights of academic autonomy against the rector and government, whereby they in turn lend help to the cronyism of the

246 Ibid, 109 247 Ibid, 148 248 Ibid

79 reactionary professors. And the government (Simon) is paralysed, because it does not want to detach itself from West."249

Klemperer's growing frustration with the SMAD was also related to Soviet policies on rehabilitation that followed the de-nazification purges of 1945 and early-1946.

On 16 June, 1946, he described his sentiments concerning rehabilitated ex-Nazis by admitting that the general concept was perhaps "well and good", but he was sickened by its wider implications: "but then when I see the mass of those who have been rehabilitated and their shamelessness, et le reste.. .it is very sickening."250 In other words,

Klemperer regarded the attitude of the rehabilitated much in the same light as he did those of his former colleagues, who were also now rehabilitated—with disgust.

Nevertheless, he willingly continued to work with the regime.

Gradually accepting a 'socialist re-organisation'

These sorts of frustrations may have been furthered by the SED's differentiation of the value of the sciences over the humanities, which saw them turn a blind eye to former

Nazi scientists' pasts in order to maintain a certain degree of academic proficiency. The relationship between Marxist ideology, which used mathematical thinking as

epistemological premise, and science was different from the vague Nazi sciences found in the Third Reich. This made it easier for coalitions to be formed, and compromises to be made, between the Party and the bourgeois intelligentsia. Furthermore, much like the Nazis, the Communists recognized the dangers caused by incompetent interference in the sciences from outside or above, whereas both regarded the humanities as more of a

249 Ibid, 207 250 Ibid, 177-8 251 Reinhard Siegmund-Schultze, 'The Shadow of National Socialism', 73

80 • ' tool for propaganda and political education. Scientists were not urged to join the Nazi

Party as much as humanities professors. In the humanities, the number of professors who were a part of the NSDAP was high for that reason. Most scientists who had been heavily involved in the NSDAP were generally compromised by their political orientation and left for the West during the early post-war years. The fact that the SED was able to push the responsibility for the guilt of former Nazi scientists westward provided them with the opportunity to overlook the past of certain scientists who remained in the GDR. The SED and SMAD recognized the difficulties in rebuilding the

SBZ without the much needed intellectual resources found within the zone. Since the majority of scientists had neither been active resisters nor NSDAP enthusiasts, it was easy for the authorities to allow political concerns to dictate policy.

One extraordinary example of the SED using political concerns, in this case prioritizing professional competence over a compromised past, to justify their willingness to turn a blind eye to the Nazi past was how number theorist Helmut Hasse was appointed to a chair at Humboldt University in 1949. 5 Originally, Hasse was banned from teaching in Gottingen by the British authorities. Hasse preferred to work in the

University of Marburg, although negotiations about a position at Humboldt University were a possibility. Robert Rompe wrote to the SMAD regarding Hasse's appointment in

1947. His draft from 10 April stated the following:

As for his [Hasse's] political attitude, we know that at times in 1933 he expressed anti-Semitic views but later retracted them, and had serious disagreement with Professor Bieberbach, the representative of "German Mathematics" in the matter of a Jewish colleague. Professor Hasse was a marine officer in World War I, and was active in World War II in

252 Ibid, 74 253 Ibid, 79 254 Ibid, 68-9

81 administrative services with the same rank. There is no denying that he has a certain militaristic attitude. That is why we endorse Professor Hasse 's readmission with the stipulation that his teaching be limited to the specific training in the senior semester until he has completely proven himself politically.

The official letter sent, however, omitted the italicized passage above and instead included the following statement:

In view of the professor's outstanding qualifications in his field, we recomment his readmission to teaching and research, for we believe that Professor Hasse never took a genuinely pro-Nazi stance; in any case, today he is ready to become involved in training the new generation of scientists.256

When the SMAD failed to reply, J. Naas, an admistrator, sent a letter to Paul

Wandel declaring that "it can be assumed that the democratic education of the students will be furthered by Hasse." Nevertheless, the SMAD did not oblige due to Hasse's political past at which point the following note was added, dated 31 March 1948:

Mr. Naas requests that you consider this letter as not having been written. Wandel, Rompe, and Naas, in the presence of Hasse, agreed to make every effort to get Hasse a professorship as soon as possible. If necessary, Wandel himself will plead the case in Karlshorst.

Finally, Hasse was appointed professor at Humboldt University on 9 May, 1948.

Klemperer found it difficult to accept the presence of any ex-Nazis in the new system. But as time progressed, his attitude loosened. Despite Klemperer's earlier comments concerning Kuhn, by 7 October, 1946, he seemed to express a sudden change of heart towards his former friend and colleague: "K[iihn]. is neither a Nazi nor a bad

255 Ibid, 69 256 Ibid 257 Ibid 258 Ibid 259 Ibid, 70

82 man—only he must not be allowed to instruct teachers." Indeed this passage does serve to distinguish a new period for Klemperer. Although by 1947 he had largely regained his

life of old, including a teaching position in the People's High School and at the TH, the next few years would present him with an array of opportunities that would have been unimaginable a few years previous. He did not seem to be fully aware of his changing luck,261 but his power grew significantly across the higher education system—in the regional KB, the Berlin KB, within universities, and within the Party. This increase in power corresponded with his loosening attitude towards former Nazi colleagues and with the SED's official declaration that de-nazification in the SBZ had been complete by

February 1948, although there remained ninety-two (11.5%) of 797 university teachers who were former Nazis in December 1948. In this way, it may be suggested that

Klemperer accepted the myth that the GDR was built upon an anti-fascist foundation.

His aggressive attitude towards reactionary professors, political orientation, and relatively high academic standing by this point, were enough to impress individuals in prominent positions. Through his participation in the KB, for example, Klemperer made

several friendly acquaintances, including Paul Wandel and Robert Rompe, which led to his appointment at Greifswald University, and earned him chairs at Halle, Berlin, and a position at the Academy of Sciences.263 His new position of influence was also demonstrated when he attended a meeting at Leipzig University with the Faculty of

Z6U Victor Klemperer, The Lesser Evil, 152 261 Throughout 1947 and 1948, Klemperer often expressed how he felt his presence within the higher education system, the KB, and the KPD was increasingly marginalized. See, for example, his comments in Ibid, 175 262 John Connelly, 'East German Higher Education Policies and Student Resistance', 271 263 Victor Klemperer, The Lesser Evil, 43, 162, 214

83 Romance. He described the instance, on 16 August, 1947, as such: "During the discussion he [professor von Jan] had not once looked at or addressed me, but matter-of- factly given way to me in everything [...] what will he have been thinking? He knows that I have driven him out of Leipzig to Jena, yet myself have not gained Leipzig [...] So for once at least I sat down with the Leipzig Philosophical Faculty and even had a decisive influence on the curricula."265

Whereas Klemperer joined the KB and KPD for pragmatic reasons, why he chose to accept a chair in Greifswald, then Halle and Berlin, and finally the Academy of

Sciences was personal. His motives for refusing to leave Germany once Hitler rose to power were strongly related to the Klemperers's longing for a home (Heimat). When they returned, however, they were able to get their old house back without joining the KPD.

This raises the question of why would he consider leaving their much loved house in beautiful Dolzchen for the aesthetically unpleasant city of Greifswald. Firstly, it is undeniable that Klemperer was motivated by a sense of duty to the cultural reconstruction of Germany; secondly, he was motivated by personal gains, what he described early upon his return as the "satisfaction of vanity [which was] to be balanced by [the] absolute uncertainty [of the future]."267 His sense of relief expressed after being appointed a chair at Greifswald University was not for the continuation of his academic work. On 2 May

1947, when reflecting on whether or not to accept the post, he wrote, "I am squandering myself, I think: I must go to G[reifswald]. We talk about the pros and cons x times a day

264 Klemperer held a strong opinion concerning Leipzig University because of the relative strength of its Romance languages studies. In late July 1951, for example, he described Leipzig as the "sole important centre of Romance language studies in the GDR." See Victor Klemperer, The Lesser Evil, 364 265 Ibid, 214 266 Christopher Hitchens, 'Survivor', in The Atlantic Monthly, (December 2004, 294, 5), pp. 140-46, 143 261 Victor Klemperer, The Lesser Evil, 16

84 [...] Eva is clearly for staying, only does not want to inhibit me. I am attracted by the new, I am haunted by the thought of being laid up as a pensioner."268 Rather, he

expressed emphatic joy at the realization of his life-long dream: "I can hardly bear to

admit to myself, what a relief it is to me, that now at the end of my life I have after all obtained a chair."269

His time spent at Greifswald, however, was an altogether unpleasant experience.

Reflecting on his achievements over the past year, Klemperer wrote on 31 December

1947, "And Greifswald, which is making us both unhappy. G[reifswald], for which I am to blame. Because I wanted to be a university professor."270 At Greifswald, he felt as though he went into a form of inner immigration, isolation, or retirement. On 10 January

1948, he complained that, "worse than the apartment, underwear etc. calamity is the dullness. There is no life in G[reifswald], we are buried alive." Nevertheless, he refused to leave Greisfwald until he was offered another position. The 'inner

immigration' he experienced under the Nazis was forced upon him, whereas he chose what turned out to be a similar form of isolation when he decided to go to Greifswald.

Furthermore, his experience with 'inner immigration' during Nazism was an important

factor in explaining why he felt obliged to play an active role under the new regime.

When he learnt of his appointment as chair of Romance Languages and Literature at

Halle, he wrote, "Freedom! E[va]. in bliss. Re-entry into life."272

The egoistical essence of Klemperer's motives was not driven solely by greed.

They were a result of his personality as a German academic of his age. For one, his

268 Ibid, 191 269 Ibid, 222 270 Ibid, 234 271 Ibid, 238 272 Ibid, 242

85 academic conceit towards his colleagues after the war was due to his conviction that he had a moral right to play an important role in the cultural reconstruction of Germany, especially after he joined the KPD. He rationalized his attitude by pointing out what he perceived to be general incompetence present across the higher education system, which powered his feelings of bitterness and resentment for not being appointed to certain positions, including some which he had no interest in accepting. One early example when

Klemperer expressed such sentiments was on 22 February 1946, after hearing of a struggle for political power between Meinke-Gluckert, rector at the TH, and Fischer, deputy president at the TH, when he wrote, "I came home feeling detached and disgusted

[...] very small and very ignorant people are sitting on shaky little chairs, have big titles and don't know whether they will still have a chair and title tomorrow." After learning that Neubert had fled to the Free University of Berlin, Klemperer wrote, "It can be assumed [...], that he will be expelled from the Academy, that I will be admitted in his place, and his chair given to me. I consider it to be out of the question, want to consider it out of the question and am nevertheless prisoned by the thought." He was devastated when he was not appointed to replace Neubert. He had retained his earlier sense of superiority over many of his colleagues. At a ceremony on 13 July 1950, shortly after learning that he had not been awarded a position in the Academy, Klemperer became infuriated when one of the Academy's members mispronounced the Italian city of Pavia:

"Pah-via [...] I thought it was a disgrace. I am already exasperated when I hear foreign names mispronounced on the wireless. But here in the elite centre of democratic

Ibid, 100 Ibid, 301

86 education!" In the last passage, a simple, petty nuisance activated a large emotional response towards his colleagues, suggesting a connection between his inability to achieve a personal goal—in this case, an appointment to the Academy—and his growing frustrations.

Klemperer busied himself with work in order to escape a dreaded fear of emptiness caused by a lack of purpose. Such motivation reached its climax with the death of his wife Eva. His entries over the next few days, starting on 8 July 1951, demonstrate the confused nature of Klemperer's emotional state. After describing the circumstances surrounding her death, he questioned the value of his existence: "I have purely egoistical feelings: what will become of me? I am quite alone, everything is valueless for me now."276 A sense of pity for his wife quickly transformed into self pity once he realized the implications of her death: "Again and again: what will I do at all? What still has value to me?—I am very egoistical; I think only about myself. I think it is a harder blow for me than for her [...] Everything about me is blunted and false. Only the emptiness, the fear of emptiness, the fear of the emptiness of the rest of my life and the fear of the emptiness of death is genuine."277

By summer, 1951, Klemperer had adapted to his new position within the state. He dealt with the death of his wife by continuing his day-to-day business within the higher education system and the Party. Within a year he fell in love with a 25-year old student named Hadwig Kirchner, whom he wed on 23 May 1952. He described the wedding as a

"comical-dignified-embarrassing ceremony" because of the age difference of the two.278

275 Ibid, 323 276 Ibid, 359 277 Ibid 278 Victor Klemperer, The Lesser Evil, xi, 389

87 During a visit to Warsaw in early 1952, he wrote, "And now into the unknown. The house, the Academy, the Soviet Union holiday, Hadwig! [...] Everything is uncertain. I

shall let myself be carried along. Nothing is long term anymore."279 Despite the unpredictability of the present circumstances, his marriage to Hadwig, although

symbolising a new beginning, permitted a sense of continuity in Klemperer's day-to-day

affairs. "Work and don't think of anything!" was the slogan he adapted to describe how he was able to continue working within the GDR.

Hadwig was a devout, if left-leaning, Catholic, who had a more pessimistic

attitude towards the GDR than Klemperer. His inability to answer her criticisms of the new regime led to his own revulsion with the GDR and a reaffirmation of his liberalism:

"in the very final analysis people like us are liberal."281 A few years before his death, he recognized that the "atmosphere was as if we were threatened by the Gestapo again."282

Nevertheless, Klemperer remained in the GDR until his death on 11 February 1960, just over a year before the construction of the Berlin Wall. He remained loyal to the regime for as long as it provided him with a genuine sense of duty in the rebuilding of the East

German higher education system and as long as it provided him with opportunities to further his academic career. His final disillusionment came at the very end of his career and life, when his physical health and criticism, caused mostly by political censorship, restricted him of the possibility of continuing his personal work.283

Ibid, 387 Ibid, 379 Ibid, 433 Ibid, xii, 514-5 Ibid, xii

88 Personal Motives and Contextual Themes

Klemperer's motives for joining the KPD and backing the SMAD must be understood in its contextual framework. Because of his experience with Nazism, he joined the KPD in order to re-launch his academic career. In this sense, his reasons for joining the Party were essentially pragmatic. The Soviet predisposition towards material determinism prevented them from sympathising with racially persecuted minorities. Because

Klemperer never associated himself with his Jewish identity, he never sought retribution because of his race. He therefore did not have much of a problem with joining the KPD in order to be recognized as a Victim of Fascism. In contrast to most other recognized

Victims of Fascism who were quickly disillusioned with the SED's policies, Klemperer took advantage of his position early in the transition so that by the time the SED reversed its stance concerning the value of the Victims of Fascism he was able to disassociate himself of the bourgeois connotations associated with his Jewish identity by conforming to political standards.

His most pressing concern was to rid the higher education system of those he regarded as having 'turned their backs' on their cultural identity by collaborating with the

Nazis. This has to do, once again, with his particular experience during the Third Reich, but also with his age. Klemperer survived National Socialism as a Jew, and felt as though he was given another chance at life. He took this chance as a gift that came with responsibility. He chose to use the time given him actively. He played an important role in de-nazification by providing testimonies to those he regarded as innocent and fought aggressively against those he regarded as culpable. His aggressive attitude toward de-

89 nazification was not only out of revenge. It was, more importantly, attributed to its role in setting the foundation for reconstruction.

Throughout the first series of purges between 1945-46, Klemperer was able to gain a significant amount of influence due to his anti-fascist approach that increased as the SED gained control over the SBZ and GDR. By 1948, he had finally achieved his life-long ambition of being appointed as professor in a university by accepting a chair at

Greifswald. By the time of the second wave of purges that concentrated on purging political undesirables from the humanities, he had gained a significant reputation, which ultimately earned him a post at Humboldt University in Berlin, and a place in the

Academy of Sciences.

Despite all his success from 1947 until 1950, Klemperer's entry on 31 December,

1949, describes a man tormented by the defeats of the previous year, specifically his failure to get the National Prize, a seat at the Academy, and a Berlin chair. Nevertheless, his entry points out how conscious he was of the circumstances surrounding his successes: "And yet I know in truth none of this is due to me, that never in my life have I been a philologist. And that I owe the successes which have come to me since 1945 solely to the absolute lack of competitors in the East."284 Moreover, this realization points to the fact that he was aware of the impracticality of him fleeing for the West precisely because of the willingness of western universities to accept Nazis, a policy which also furthered the amount of competition in the western zones.

Klemperer's experience of Nazism was extremely negative. Negative not only because of his racial persecution, but also because of the way he perceived the willingness of the German population, including his friends and colleagues, to continue

284 Ibid, 306

90 living under a destructive regime. His experience with communism, however, was substantially more positive in comparison: the new regime returned to Klemperer what the Nazis had taken away. Moreover, he was rewarded as never before. He was able to use what he learnt during the Nazi years to take advantage of the possibilities that arose in the SBZ and GDR. His motives for joining the party were essentially pragmatic, because he regarded the KPD as the only party capable of constructing an anti-fascist

German culture. Once he had achieved his life-long dream of becoming a professor at a

German university, in Greifswald, however, his reasons for participating in the so-called

'socialist re-organization' became primarily personal.

91 CONCLUSION

The diaries of Victor Klemperer provide insight into a number of themes in the historiography of East German higher education. Firstly, they reveal that power relations between individuals 'on the ground' played a more important role in the transformation of East German higher education following the Second World War than 'top down' theories of totalitarianism would suggest. In other words, this interpretation questions the uniformity of Stalinization in Eastern Europe after the war. Secondly, it demonstrates how the 'brain drain' and the communists' differentiation of the sciences and humanities led to the introduction of ex-Nazis to increase academic standards. Thirdly, the nature of the differentiation between the sciences and humanities implies a different kind of interference from the SED when dealing with each. They also reveal that switching

allegiance from one ideology to the next, or choosing 'the lesser evil', was often a

gradual process. Whereas Klemperer criticized his colleagues for gradually accepting the

Nazi regime, he gradually chose to overlook the possibility that the GDR was created on

an 'anti-fascist foundation' myth and conformed to the SED's political stance.

Another interesting source on the transition to Communism in East Germany

comes from Wolfgang Leonhard's memoirs, published in English as Child of the

Revolution?*5 Leonhard provides an exceptional example of the inconsistencies found within Stalinist ideology and political culture. He was educated in Russia to be an official utterly loyal to Moscow. He remained a staunch Stalinist until his disillusionment with the intellectual dishonesty of his superiors and the confusing changes to party policies

Wolfgang Leonhard, Child of the Revolution, Trans. CM. Woodhouse, (Ink Links Ltd.: Kent, 1979)

92 during reconstruction. Nevertheless, he remained a committed communist and fled, in

1949, to Tito's Yugoslavia.

Both sources are exceptional in their own right and suggest something particular.

Leonhard spent most of his life outside Germany, was educated in Russia, was a firm believer in the anti-nationalist ideals of communism, preferred to speak Russian rather than German, and had no first-hand experience with Nazism. Victor Klemperer was an

assimilated German of Jewish descent, who survived the Holocaust without leaving his homeland. In contrast, Leonhard was nearly half Klemperer's age when he fled the GDR.

He felt no attachment to Germany as a nation, had no first-hand experience with Nazism,

and, as a result, like many other emigre functionaries from the Soviet Union, found it

difficult to face the realities East German reconstruction presented him. Even though

Leonhard remained a committed communist into the 1950s, his ideology moved him

away from East German socialism.

Klemperer was a German nationalist and a firm believer in individualism and

liberalism. He rejected communist ideology nearly to the same extent as he did Nazism.

Nevertheless, he was able to compromise his ideals in order to play a role in the 'anti­

fascist democratic transformation' and 'socialist re-organization' of East German higher

education because of his attachment to German culture. Leonhard, on the other, was unwilling to make such a compromise precisely because of his lack of experience with

Nazism.

The task of reconstruction was based fundamentally on the radical changes that occurred during Hitler's time in power. Immediately after the unconditional surrender of

Germany, the Soviets were left with the unavoidable task of labeling Germans based on

93 their role during the Nazi regime, which ultimately depended on the Soviet authorities' interpretation of one's past actions. Nazi educational philosophy held a particularly negative view of communism. As Nazism's antithesis, Communists and Communist

sympathizers had a very difficult time maintaining what few academic positions they had,

and were ruthlessly attacked when their political orientation came to light. By the end of the war, Soviet authorities were met with a crucial dilemma concerning the political reliability of academic culture: they had the task of re-building an institution that was practically void of politically reliable individuals and filled with its antithesis. This forced the majority of professors with a compromised past to flee the SBZ in the early post-war years for the West, where de-nazification was less severe.

Those who decided to stay and work within the SBZ had to continuously reflect on their past, how authorities would interpret it, and how they would be able to work

'normally' under the new, uncertain political and social conditions. The uncertainty of historical perspective played a role in how most German professors viewed the SED's

early policies, because it clearly separated Nazism as a thing of the past while placing it

as the centerpiece of the re-constructional framework. Part of the uncertainty must also be

attributed to the authorities' lack of coordination regarding how to rebuild and which policies to emphasize. This was especially the case during the 'anti-fascist democratic transformation' of higher education from 1945-48. The creation of the FRG and the

GDR marked a demarcation in SED policies towards higher education. The SED called

for a 'socialist re-organization' of the higher education system and demanded conformity.

Even though the SED declared de-nazification to be complete, there remained a

significant minority of Nazi professors within higher education as the SED tried to make

94 up for the large numbers of scientists lost to the West or brought to the Soviet Union.

The reasons why individuals left—to the West or East, willingly or not—are generally well known and not necessarily of interest here. The reasons why certain individuals decided to stay, however, are less well understood.

Victor Klemperer's diaries were only published in 1995; the last volume, covering the years from 1945-59, only in 2005. Nevertheless, there has been no major study of

East German higher education that has made extensive use of the source; most have only used it sparingly, if at all. The strength of the source, however, only comes to light as a day-to-day chronicle. Because Klemperer represents a German and a Jew, he embodied the most pressing issue of dealing with the Nazi past that defined the early post-war years. He chronicles his racial persecution not from the victims, perpetrators, or bystanders' point of view. As a chronicler, he presented his experience as a German obsessed with the power of words in the search for truth. His diaries therefore serve as a symbol of an individual who embodied the complexities of reconstructing the East

German higher education system after the war. Klemperer's motivational factors may not be applicable to all German professors throughout the time period examined.

However, they do suggest a link between Klemperer's experience 'on the ground' and the chronology of events that changed the higher education system so radically between

1945-53.

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