ACADEMIC FREEDOM IN GERMANY

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22307, 22 January 1938, Page 16

ACADEMIC FREEDOM IN GERMANY

The German Universities and National Socialism. By Edward Yarnall Hartshorne, Jun. Allen and Unwin 184 pp. (6/- net.)

In the last years of the nineteenth century, Helmholtz, then Rector of Berlin University, boasted that Germany alone among the European countries cherished the ideal of complete freedom of scientific discussion within her universities. In this book Mr Hartshorne shows, in a strictly impartial investigation, how far this ideal has suffered under the Nazi regime. His study includes a sympathetic review of the causes of the present dictatorship in Germany. It is obvious that other natioi—. have a large share of blame for the conditions which, produced the Hitler domination. In order to further the "national socialisation" of Germany, the Leader and his colleagues have purged the staffs, the curricula, and the student-bodies of the universities. In the last four years, one-fifth of the teaching staff has had to be replaced and the number of students reduced by 30 per cent. Mr Hartshorne expresses his views on the. life of a German university professor or lecturer thus:

Uncertain of the duration of his appointment and even of his salary; continually on his guard before nonintellectual critics; competing with glamorous, quasi-militaristic extracurricular appeals for the interest of his students; lecturing before rows of brown-shirts, flanked in his seminars and informal discussion groups by zealous Nazi teachers; in his free time called upon to participate in official functions, and to read official papers and periodicals; harassed by the thought of his banished and often expatriated colleagues and masters; disgusted at the habit of cqmpromise and self-deception practised by others, and even forced upon himself; fearful or cynical with regard to the future, the university teacher lives a truly unenviable existence.

The author's conclusion is that science as a whole has lost by the changes which the Nazis have brought about in the universities. Germany has gained something by way of reform in the organisation, administration, and solidarity of her educational institutions, but whether she will continue to gain despite the loss to science yet remains to be seen.