This article discusses universities in

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German Reich, German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a Totalit ...

. In May 1933 books from university libraries which were deemed culturally destructive, mainly due to anti-National Socialist or Jewish themes or authors, were burned by the Deutsche Studentenschaft (German Student Union) in town squares, e.g. in

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

, and the curricula were subsequently modified.

Martin Heidegger Martin Heidegger (; 26 September 1889 – 26 May 1976) was a German philosopher known for contributions to Phenomenology (philosophy), phenomenology, hermeneutics, and existentialism. His work covers a range of topics including metaphysics, art ...

became the rector (and later head) of

Freiburg University The University of Freiburg (colloquially ), officially the Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg (), is a public university, public research university located in Freiburg im Breisgau, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. The university was founded in 1 ...

, where he delivered a number of National Socialist speeches and for example promulgated the ''

Führerprinzip The (, ''Leader Principle'') was the basis of authority, executive authority in the government of Nazi Germany. It placed the Führer's word above all written law, and meant that Law of Nazi Germany, government policies, decisions, and officia ...

'' at the University on August 21, 1933.

Well-known expelled professors

Albert Einstein Albert Einstein (14 March 187918 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist who is best known for developing the theory of relativity. Einstein also made important contributions to quantum mechanics. His mass–energy equivalence f ...

Max Born Max Born (; 11 December 1882 – 5 January 1970) was a German-British theoretical physicist who was instrumental in the development of quantum mechanics. He also made contributions to solid-state physics and optics, and supervised the work of a ...

Fritz Haber Fritz Jakob Haber (; 9 December 1868 – 29 January 1934) was a German chemist who received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1918 for his invention of the Haber process, a method used in industry to synthesize ammonia from nitrogen gas and hydrog ...

Otto Fritz Meyerhof Otto Fritz Meyerhof (; 12 April 1884 – 6 October 1951) was a German physician and biochemist who won the 1922 Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine. Biography Otto Fritz Meyerhof was born in Hannover, at Theaterplatz 16A (now:Rathenaustrasse ...

Theodor W. Adorno Theodor W. Adorno ( ; ; born Theodor Ludwig Wiesengrund; 11 September 1903 – 6 August 1969) was a German philosopher, musicologist, and social theorist. He was a leading member of the Frankfurt School of critical theory, whose work has com ...

Martin Buber Martin Buber (; , ; ; 8 February 1878 – 13 June 1965) was an Austrian-Israeli philosopher best known for his philosophy of dialogue, a form of existentialism centered on the distinction between the I and Thou, I–Thou relationship and the I� ...

Ernst Bloch Ernst Simon Bloch (; ; July 8, 1885 – August 4, 1977; pseudonyms: Karl Jahraus, Jakob Knerz) was a German Marxist philosopher. Bloch was influenced by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and Karl Marx, as well as by apocalyptic and religious thinker ...

Max Horkheimer Max Horkheimer ( ; ; 14 February 1895 – 7 July 1973) was a German philosopher and sociologist best known for his role in developing critical theory as director of the Institute for Social Research, commonly associated with the Frankfurt Schoo ...

Ernst Cassirer Ernst Alfred Cassirer ( ; ; July 28, 1874 – April 13, 1945) was a German philosopher and historian of philosophy. Trained within the Neo-Kantian Marburg School, he initially followed his mentor Hermann Cohen in attempting to supply an idealistic ...

Herbert Marcuse Herbert Marcuse ( ; ; July 19, 1898 – July 29, 1979) was a German–American philosopher, social critic, and Political philosophy, political theorist, associated with the Frankfurt School of critical theory. Born in Berlin, Marcuse studied at ...

Lise Meitner Elise Lise Meitner ( ; ; 7 November 1878 – 27 October 1968) was an Austrian-Swedish nuclear physicist who was instrumental in the discovery of nuclear fission. After completing her doctoral research in 1906, Meitner became the second woman ...

* Louis Hamilton, 1879-1948 (not Louis Kemppel Hamilton, 1890–1957)

Austrian universities

The

University of Vienna The University of Vienna (, ) is a public university, public research university in Vienna, Austria. Founded by Rudolf IV, Duke of Austria, Duke Rudolph IV in 1365, it is the oldest university in the German-speaking world and among the largest ...

participated in National Socialism.

Eduard Pernkopf Eduard Pernkopf (November 24, 1888 – April 17, 1955) was an Austrian professor of anatomy who later served as rector of the University of Vienna, his ''alma mater''. He is best known for his seven-volume anatomical atlas, ''Topographische Anatom ...

(rector 1943–1945) compiled a "Topographical Anatomy of the Human Species". Hans Sedlmayr, a declared National Socialist, led an art institute throughout the war.

Germanized universities

The first ''Reichsuniversität'' began operations in

Prague Prague ( ; ) is the capital and List of cities and towns in the Czech Republic, largest city of the Czech Republic and the historical capital of Bohemia. Prague, located on the Vltava River, has a population of about 1.4 million, while its P ...

on November 4, 1939. The

University of Poznań A university () is an institution of tertiary education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase , which roughly means "community of teachers and scholars". Univ ...

was closed by the German Occupation in 1939, and reopened on April 27, 1941 as Reichsuniversität Posen, a ''Grenzlanduniversität'' aligned with Nazi ideology. Its faculty included historian and anatomist Hermann Voss. The German university ceased operations in 1944, and the University of Poznań reopened in 1945. The

University of Strasbourg The University of Strasbourg (, Unistra) is a public research university located in Strasbourg, France, with over 52,000 students and 3,300 researchers. Founded in the 16th century by Johannes Sturm, it was a center of intellectual life during ...

was transferred to

Clermont-Ferrand Clermont-Ferrand (, , ; or simply ; ) is a city and Communes of France, commune of France, in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes regions of France, region, with a population of 147,284 (2020). Its metropolitan area () had 504,157 inhabitants at the 2018 ...

in 1939 and

Reichsuniversität Straßburg The Reichsuniversität Straßburg was founded in 1941 by the Nazis in Alsace after the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine by Nazi Germany. The University of Strasbourg had moved to Clermont-Ferrand in 1939. The university's purpose was to restore ...

existed from November 23, 1941 until the Allied recapture of the city in 1944. It was notably the site of medical experimentation on and murder of Jews and other concentration camp inmates led by the Dean of the Medical School,

August Hirt August Hirt (28 April 1898 – 2 June 1945) was an anatomist with Swiss and German nationality who served as a chairman at the Reich University in Strasbourg during World War II. He performed experiments with mustard gas on inmates at the Natz ...

References

Sources

* * *
When books burn
' (web exhibit).

University of Arizona The University of Arizona (Arizona, U of A, UArizona, or UA) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Tucson, Arizona, United States. Founded in 1885 by the 13th Arizona Territorial Legislature, it ...

Library. 2006. Retrieved 2019-05-07.
''Historiker im Nationalsozialismus...''
by

Ingo Haar Ingo Haar (born 3 February 1965) is a German historian. He received his Master of Arts from the University of Hamburg in 1993 and his PhD in History in 1998 at the Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg. His doctoral dissertation was on "Hist ...

*Wechsler, Patrick (1991).
La Faculté de Medecine de la „Reichsuniversität Straßburg“ (1941-1945) à l’heure nationale-socialiste
' , dissertation, University of Freiburg. Published online, 2005. Retrieved 2019-05-07. urn:nbn:de:bsz:25-freidok-18966 * Louis Hamilton, A British Scholar in Nazi Germany, 1933–1938, in Nigel Copsey (ed.), Journal of Comparative Fascist Studies, 2016. * Hentschel, Klaus (ed. 1996) ''Physics and National Socialism. An Anthology of Primary Sources'', Basel: Birkhäuser 1996. * Teresa Wróblewska: ''Die Reichsuniversitäten Posen, Prag und Strassburg als Modelle nationalsozialistischer Hochschulen in den von Deutschland besetzten Gebieten'', Marszalek, Toruń 2000. * “Louis Hamilton, a British academic and Canada specialist in Germany”, in William Keel (ed.), Yearbook of German-American Studies, 2008. Education in Nazi Germany Higher education in Germany History of universities and colleges in Germany {{Nazi-stub

Well-known expelled professors

Austrian universities

Germanized universities

See also

References

Sources