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Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, Ml 48106 Copyright 1985 by Lauwers-Rech, Magda All Rights Reserved THE INFLUENCE OF NAZISM AND WORLD WAR II ON GERMAN STUDIES IN THE UNITED STATES DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of the Ohio State University By Magda Lauwers-Rech, M.A. { ****** The Ohio State University 1985 Dissertation Committee: Approved by Prof. Henry J. Schmidt Prof. David P. Benseler Prof. Heimtraut Taylor German Copyright by Magda Lauwers-Rech 1985 To Charles and Caitlin ii VITA 1961 ......... i ..... Licentiaat Philosophy and Letters, cum laude, University of Louvain, Belgium 1972-74..................................Teaching Associate, Department of German, Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 1973.................................... M.A., Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio FIELDS OF STUDY Major Fields: German Literature, GermGerman Philology, Dutch Literature iii TABLE OF CONTENTS DEDICATION................................................ ii VITA ....................................................... iii INTRODUCTION .............................................. 1 Purpose and Scope.................................... 1 State of the Research............................... 20 PART I: NAZI GERMANY AND WORLD WAR II AS A CONCERN OF AMERICAN GERMANISTS . ...................... 33 CHAPTER I: 1930-1932 ............................... 35 1. References to World War I and Its Aftermath............................. 37 2. Nazism As a Subject M a t t e r ............ 41 CHAPTER II: 1933-1939............................... 49 1. 1933-1934: First Reactions to the Nazi Government............................... 49 2. 1935-1939: Reactions to the Established R e g i m e .................................... 56 a. Discussions For and Against the Study of Nazism.................................. 56 b. Conspicuous Absence of Comment on Nazism.................................. 64 c. Pro-Nazi Comments .................. 67 d. Anti-Nazi Comments................... 70 e. Book Reviews as Expressions of Divers­ ified Interest in Nazism............. 80 f. Criticizing Colleagues.............. 80 g. Attitude of the Professional Organiz­ ations.................................. 87 iv CHAPTER III: 1940-1946................................ 98 1. New Approaches to Understanding Germany 99 2. Fight Against Nazi Principles ............ 108 3. Contribution to the War Effort........... 116 4. "After the W a r " ........................... 122 SUMMARY................................................ 130 PART II: AMERICAN GERMANISTS AND THE INTERACTION BETWEEN LITERATURE AND NAZISM......................... 136 CHAPTER IV: American Germanists and Inner-German Literature............................. 138 1. 1930-1932 .................................. 138 2. 1933-1939 .................................. 145 3. 1940-1946 .................................. 174 4. S u m m a r y ..................................... 191 CHAPTER V: American Germanists and Nazi Literary Criticism 195 CONCLUSION................................................ 221 NOTES. ..................................................... 228 WORKS CITED. 258 INTRODUCTION Purpose and Scope Until recently, detailed historical studies regarding Germanistik were uncommon. When in 1977 and 1980, respectively, Susan Pentlin and Richard Spuler wrote dissertations on the history of American Germanistik, they deemed it necessary to defend the scholarly principle and pragmatic value of such a historical approach to the profession.! American Germanists were not inclined to delve into the past. In 1983, Walter Lohnes noted: "Historical awareness has been in the air in recent years, beginning with the Bicentennial of the United States in 1976; in 1983,' much is being made of the Tricentennial of the first German settlement in Germantown. The foreign language disciplines, however, have not recently undertaken any major review of their history."2 Neither did American historians pay much attention to the heritage of institutionalized German language education, as Steven Schlossman remarks: "In actuality, historians know little about these subjects. Even in the context of broader considerations of political, economic, social, and cultural assimilation, historians of immigration have rarely found language issues particularly interesting or problematic."! But in the last three years the situation has changed. Not only have monographs been published by individual scholars, the professional organizations and language periodicals themselves have begun to encourage and direct research into the history of German studies. (A survey of these activities appears at the end of this chapter.) Discussing the rationales for a historiography of Germanistik, Victor Lange believes that retrospection is an important dimension of our vision, and retrospection is merely the complement of introspection. Having for more than a century and a half operated as American transmitters of a foreign language and a foreign culture, we are invited to ask ourselves if we have learned from the history of our profession, if at any given time the degree and kind of introspection has been adequate, and whether we should not now take a fresh and critical look at our goals and the assumptions of our practices.4 The purpose of this dissertation is to examine the influence of Nazism and World War II on German studies in the United States. Specifically, I will discuss the reaction of American Germanists to events within the Third Reich and to the ensuing war between Germany and the United States as expressed in professional journals. By investigating a small segment of institutionalized German studies, I hope to contribute to an overall history of the Germanistic profession in this country. Several factors have led to my choice of the Third Reich era as a subject of study. In the first place, it is of importance to determine how American Germanists, many of them native Germans, reacted publicly to the radical political changes that took place in Germany. That question becomes all the more provocative when we remember that less than twenty years earlier, at the outbreak of World War I, many Germanists had openly and fanatically taken sides with the German Kaiser, admired Germany's militarism, rejoiced in its victories, and vilified England, France, and their allies. When the United States declared war on Germany in 1917, the American public brutally and indiscriminately turned against all things German, including the teaching and speaking of the German language. One of the immediate consequences was that the majority of teachers lost their jobs. Historical accounts of the World War I events, while condemning the anti-German hysteria, agree that the vociferous chauvinism of certain German-Americans, German teachers among them, and their authoritarian zeal in propagandizing the superiority of German culture were contributing factors to the outbreak of the furor: "To be sure, these elements [immigrant German] superpatriots comprised only a minority of German-Americans, but they made themselves heard before all others. It is not surprising that they became associated, in the simple thinking patterns of the masses, with everything G., including German L. instruction [sic]."^ By 1933, Germanists had not yet recovered from the calamity of 1917. Would it be at all surprising, then, if German teachers should hesitate to comment publicly on German politics for fear of being identified with it? The question posed in 1939 by an outsider, Dean Henry Grattan Doyle, "Shall History repeat Itself? The Fate of German if Another War Comes" must have been asked years earlier by every member of the German profession.6 Besides the Germanists' reaction to the policies of Nazism,