National Socialism and War

The rise of national socialism as a political force in the 1930s did not only impact on German universities from outside, in the sense of politically violent measures to enforce conformity. Antidemocratic traditions, economic problems of the Weimar Republic and the crisis of the parliamentary system had paved the way and enabled national socialism to growon an already fertile soil of pre-existing political, ideological, social and scientific views and dispositions and to merge with them. Since 1918, university intellectuals and those belonging to the wider Bildungsbürgertum had adopted an attitude of “wait and see”. The Republic had not been loved by university professors and the “apolitical” ones had behaved reservedly. Once nazism became an established political force, the Association of German Universities (Verband der Deutschen Hochschulen) stated their belief in national socialism, because they realised that it best represented nationalistic aims. The Verband had been founded in 1920 and was a kind of an umbrella organisation. It was characterised by a nostalgia for the Kaiserreich, was consciously conservative in outlook and represented and safeguarded the scientific, but most of all, the financial interests of both the universities and their academics. The German University Day, organised annually by the Verband, was a major event in its calendar. Prior to the elections of 5 March 1933, just over three hundred professors put their names to The German Intellectual World for List 1 (Die deutsche Geisteswelt für Liste 1) in support of national socialists and Adolf Hitler