The post-war British ‘re-education’ policy for German universities and its application at the universities of Göttingen and Cologne (1945–1947)

Abstract

The crux of British aims for Germany following the Second World War focused on ‘re-education’ and democratisation. Well aware that the victors’ policies following World War One had failed to prevent Germany from pursuing an expansionist path once again, the plan was to help Germany learn from her problematic past. These aims extended to higher education – British reformers believed fascist ideology had perverted the universities, and that they too needed to be made democratic again.

This article offers a fresh academic angle compared with other studies on the British ‘re-education’ policy. Some of these works refer to several, wide-ranging facets of the policy – such as in the German press or in schools – or compare aspects of British policy with that of the other occupying powers. This study focuses specifically on the successes and failures of Britain’s ‘re-education’ policy at two of the six universities in the British Zone: one in the relatively undamaged town of Göttingen, the other in the heavily bombed city of Cologne. The article aims to show that, despite several policy failures at both institutions, the ‘Re-education’ policy was more successful in Cologne on the whole. This was due to factors such as a more imposing location, denazification successes and heightened Anglo-German relations.

The main primary sources used are Foreign Office files from The National Archives at Kew, England. The study also refers to the 1945–1947 publications of the British Zone Review, as well as a source from the London School of Economics archives.

Introduction

In 1945, in the aftermath of the Second World War and Hitler’s quest for world domination, the Allied powers faced the momentous task of dealing with the ‘Problem of Germany’ and what to do with the defeated nation in the centre of Europe. Aiming to learn from the failures of the victors’ policy following World War One and its inability to prevent Germany from pursuing an expansionist path once more 20 years later, British policymakers turned to the ‘re-education’ and ‘democratisation’ of the German people during the Second World War as a potential solution for this problem. The British believed that, to permanently quash the possibility of a future German threat, more than harsh demilitarisation and denazification of the country was needed. These wholly negative approaches were not enough to permit Germany to re-enter the European community as a trustworthy member state. Germany had to learn from her past mistakes and genuinely develop a positive appreciation of democracy, as well as the importance of peaceful co-operation with fellow European nations. Yet, this could not merely be achieved by means of imposing a British system on the Germans from above. As Con O’Neill, then Secretary of the sub-committee of the Post-Hostilities Planning Committee, emphasised in a secret 1944 memorandum for the War Cabinet: ‘Germans alone can re-educate their fellow countrymen’ (‘Minister of State’ for the War Cabinet, 1944). The British, however, had to provide a firm helping hand along the way to show their German cousins how to teach democracy to themselves.

The purpose of this study is not to analyse the various facets of the British ‘re-education’ policy as a whole, such as its effect on the German press or on educational institutions such as schools. Rather, the research compiled focuses solely on the successes and failures of the British ‘re-education’ policy towards the universities in the British Zone, with a particular focus on the institutions of Göttingen and Köln. German universities received particular criticism by British authorities during the Second World War. British reformers believed that the clear ‘decay of traditional universities was one of the causes of National Socialism’ (The Foreign Press and Research Service (FPRS, Second Draft), 1942), allowing fascist ideology to pervert both the staff and student body. British occupational policy had to ensure that German universities were brought in line with democratic society once more (Kettenacker, 1985).

The first part of this study will briefly outline the various tenets of the British ‘re-education’ policy for the German universities between 1945 and 1947. The next section highlights the development, successes and failures of the policy’s implementation in the University of Göttingen in Lower Saxony, located in the south east of the British Zone. This university was the first to open in the Zone in September 1945, providing the British with a testing ground for their policies. The town of Göttingen had also escaped severe bombing during the war, with the university being one of the least damaged of the six in the Zone. Part three turns to the sixth oldest university in Central Europe, set at the heart of a much bleaker environment – that of the heavily bombed city of Köln, or Cologne, in North-Rhine Westphalia. These damaged urban surroundings provided a setting for policy implementation that contrasted starkly with that of Göttingen. A comparative conclusion then follows, attempting to assess the positive and negative aspects of policy implementation in both universities, as well as whether the contrasting locations affected the success of the British ‘re-education’ policy itself.

Scholars disagree as to the success of the British ‘re-education’ policies. Günther Kloss (1968), for example, claims that all foreign occupation authorities worked hard to infuse democratic principles into public life after 1945, yet ‘universities somehow escaped their attention’ and the opportunity to make a ‘fresh start’ was ‘lost by the universities’. David Phillips (1983b: 4–20), however, notes how radical changes could not be implemented by the British due to the ‘strong conservative forces which still prevailed in the German universities after 1945’, yet emphasises that the achievements of the Education Branch in the re-opening and running of German universities ‘were quite considerable’.

Contributing to this debate, this study aims to show that, between 1945 and 1947, the implementation of the policy did not run equally smoothly at each university. At Cologne, more non-academic international exchanges were carried out, as well as a clearer emphasis on Political Science as an academic discipline. This led to a notably increased political and democratic awareness in the student body. At Göttingen, however, these policy tenets were not as well implemented, resulting in the student body’s more conservative outlook. In the field of science, on the other hand, Göttingen became notably active again in the international academic sphere. The author also aims to show that the British failed to quash the autocratic role of old professors (notably at Cologne), or improve working-class students’ admissions. The denazification policy, which was a central tenet of the process of ‘re-education’, was certainly more successful at Cologne than at Göttingen. Nevertheless, its imperfect implementation at both institutions brought several faults in the British system to light and, crucially, failed in its mission to rid the universities of all traces of Nazism.

The main primary sources used are Foreign Office (FO) files from The National Archives (TNA) at Kew, which include documents in English, German and French. The work also draws on the 1945–1947 publications of the British Zone Review and a source from the London School of Economics (LSE) archives.

Part one

The British ‘re-education’ policy towards Germany and her universities, 1945–1947

Wartime preparations

The idea of future ‘re-education’ for a defeated Germany was conceived during the war by Chief Diplomatic Adviser to the Government Robert Vansittart (1941), who held that the inherently violent nature of the Germans was to blame for the rise of Nazism. The differences of opinion regarding the ‘blame’ of all Germans varied within the British administration, yet the ‘re-education’ of Germany – in the hope of re-integrating her into Europe – gradually became official policy. In July 1944, a Draft Directive on the Re-education of Germany included the long-term objective of fostering in her ‘interest in the ideas of popular democracy, such as freedom of opinion, speech, the press and religion’ so that she could never again become an international threat (Chairman of the Committee on Armistice Terms and Civil Administration (ACAO), 1944).

During the war, the British had been avidly attempting to gather information regarding the status of education in Germany in preparation for any future occupation. The Foreign Press and Research service (FPRS, Third Draft) was established in Oxford with the aim of pursuing post-war international planning (Phillips, 1986). In December 1942, the FRPS finalised a 13-page report for the FO focusing on the problems within the German universities at the time. Importantly, elements within this document formed the foundations for the specific ‘re-education’ policies implemented at the German universities following Germany’s defeat. The report reveals that the perverse intrusion of Nazism into the universities was not the sole problem within the institutions; several criticisms are listed that largely stemmed from the structure and actions of the pre-war German university itself.

1. Each full professor ‘was an autocrat’ in his own department, with other – notably younger – staff members often denied a say in departmental matters (para. 3).

2. There was a lack of both academic development in the field of the social sciences and a true ‘sense of social responsibility’ among staff and students (para. 6).

3. German universities had remained socially elitist, with few students belonging to the working classes (para. 9).

4. The universities had become increasingly politicised during the First World War, yet the Weimar Governments had been unable to implement a ‘thorough reconstruction on democratic lines’ (paras. 10–13).

5. German academia had been cut off from the outside world by the Nazis since 1933. By 1939, the Nazi re-organisation of the institution was complete, including an intense purge of both the staff and student body (paras. 19–21).

Post-war improvements could therefore not simply turn back the clock to emulate pre-Nazi, Weimar institutions; rather, sweeping new improvements were required to ensure the future democratic nature of the universities.

Post-war occupation: First steps

The Protocol of the Potsdam Conference (July–August 1945) highlights the famous ‘four Ds’ of the Allied powers’ initial blueprint for Germany – such as demilitarisation and disarmament – yet also includes a short, often-quoted reference to education: ‘German education shall be so controlled as completely to eliminate Nazi and militaristic doctrines and to make possible the successful development of democratic ideas’.

The ‘re-education’ policy therefore included two of the ‘Ds’ in its two-tiered approach: denazification and democratisation. This was the main policy left to the Education Branch of the CCG(BE), Control Commission for Germany (British Element), which started its activities in the British Zone when it moved to Bünde (North Rhine-Westphalia) in July 1945 under the directorship of Donald Riddy, whose expertise was the teaching of modern languages (Jürgensen, 1985). Indeed, the major political personalities – Churchill, Eden, Montgomery, Roosevelt, Stalin – make only ‘fleeting appearances’ in the history of German ‘re-education’ in general, as the planning ‘was left to others’ (Phillips, 1983a: 6). The Education Branch included various departments that dealt with different aspects of education, such as the Universities Section (Phillips, 1983a: 145). The Control Office for Germany and Austria, to which the Education Branch belonged, had been established in October 1945 in Norfolk House at St James’s Square, London, and was led by the then-Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, John Byrns Hynd (Phillips, 1983a: 140).

However, before Branch staff could implement the Potsdam policy in the Zone, an enormous amount of material re-construction had to be completed. Schools, universities and student accommodation had been badly damaged. Education Branch members were initially concerned with finding enough paper and pencils, glass for broken windows and oil for heating. The first Military Governor, Field Marshal Montgomery, in an August 1945 message to the population of the British Zone forcefully depicted the material and political challenges faced by staff of the Education Branch:

The reputation of your Universities fell low in the world’s esteem under the Nazis. Their buildings suffered severe damage during the war. I shall allow no professor or lecturer to continue in office who prostituted his gifts in the service of Nazism. Buildings will be restored where possible.

University affairs

In order to ensure the success of such extensive material reconstruction and subsequent democratisation, University Education Control Officers (UECOs) from the Universities Section of the Education Branch were each appointed to one of the six universities in the Zone.

Tasks assigned to Education Branch staff from the Military Governor were labelled Education Control Instructions (ECIs). ECI No. 53 of March 1946 clearly highlights the tasks and duties of the UECOs; they were to supervise specific developments of policy implementation in the universities and provide a detailed monthly report to Education Branch HQ (Bünde), for example covering ‘Progress of building repairs;… Staff (e.g. dismissals or comments on individuals); Students; Matters concerning the organisation of the university, teaching or research’ (Letter from Military Governor to Education Branch, 1946).

The minutes from the monthly conferences of the UECOs, however, provide an insight into further aspects of the ‘re-education’ policy that was to be implemented by them (Minutes in File, FO945/137). They often discussed problems linked to classification in the notorious denazification ‘Fragebogen’, or questionnaires, used to gather background information about Germans in the field of education and thus analyse whether they should consequently be dismissed on grounds of previous Nazi activities. Indeed, a March 1946 memorandum shows how the Military Government (notably the Public Safety Branch, which often co-operated with the Education Branch) had initially independently scrutinised the ‘Fragebogen’ of the university teaching body, leading to rife dismissals and a ‘serious shortage’ of university staff (FO Research Department, 1946). The UECOs would oversee any decisions made. Regarding students, however, the denazifying ‘selection was left in the hands of the university authorities themselves’, who were guided only by ECI No.12 of 22 August 1945 (FO Research Department, 1946). This instruction did not define with any certainty the categories of students who were not to be admitted (FO Research Department, 1946). It emphasised that ‘control of admission to German universities will be exercised as indirectly as possible, normally through the university authorities themselves’ (FO Research Department, 1946). This led to several embarrassing denazification errors, particularly at Göttingen. A new directive (ECI No. 52) was issued on 15 March 1946, which provided clear-cut categories of students who had higher priority for admission than others, based on their political background (FO Research Department, 1946). All admissions candidates, under this directive, had to re-apply for their university places and had to appear before Special Committees (composed of German university staff and external German individuals appointed by the local Denazification Panel; FO Research Department, 1946); this process was monitored by the UECOs. By the summer of 1946, the denazification of staff was also managed by local German panels in co-operation with both Public Safety Branch and the UECOs.

Apart from denazification, UECO conferences focused on other aspects of policy, such as the ‘numerus clausus’, which had been imposed by the British authorities so that the universities could ‘operate with reasonable efficiency despite the enormous problems caused by physical destruction’ (Phillips, 1983b: 13). Reflecting the concerns of the FPRS’ 1942 report, UECOs also aimed to expand the student body to include all social classes, making it possible ‘for children of working-class families to study at a University’ (Minutes of third UECO conference, 1946). In addition, UECOs attempted to co-operate as much as possible with foreign universities in order to enable their German institutions to become players in the global academic field once more; they spent time arranging lectures by British visiting professors and student or resource exchanges.

‘Ordinance 57’

Already on 1 January 1947, the responsibility for the Zone’s education system was passed from the British authorities to the Länder (federal states), pursuant to Military Government ‘Ordinance 57’ of 1 December 1946. The Military Government no longer exercised full control over policy implementation. In the annex of an April 1947 memorandum to the Cabinet, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster explained that the work of the Education Branch was now limited to ‘Negative control (i.e. control of undesirable tendencies); Positive suggestion and advice; Restoration of contacts with the outside world’ (The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, 1947). Hynd remained ‘convinced that it was right’ to transfer responsibility for education to the Land governments as the initial tasks of reconstruction were complete (The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, 1947). It was ‘good training for the Germans themselves’ to handle their own educational institutions (The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, 1947). The Handover of 1947 was therefore a direct continuation of the pragmatic British policy of allowing the Germans as much freedom as possible – within certain boundaries – to teach themselves democracy. Not everyone, however, agreed. Major Leonard of the Education Branch, for example, believed the 1947 Handover to be ‘absurd’; tight British control was needed so that the ‘traditional authoritarian nature of German educationalists does not once more get the upper hand’ (Letter from Major TJ Leonard to Arthur Deakin, 1947).

With regards to the universities, the minutes of the 7th UECO conference detail how the officers’ role changed in light of Ordinance 57. They no longer exercised ‘absolute power’ over their institutions (Bird, 1978: 146). The proposed advantage of this was that ‘officers were released from much routine work and left free to act as advisers to the University authorities’ and could play ‘a more active part in university affairs’ (Minutes of seventh UECO Conference, 1946). To mark the UECOs’ new advisory capacity, the term ‘Control’ was dropped from ‘UECO’, renaming officers ‘University Education Officers’ (UEOs).

The year 1947 also brought a blow to the Education Branch in the form of a scathing report by the AUT (Association of University Teachers) in February, based on their January visit to universities in the British Zone, commissioned by the Control Commission. A ‘marked psychological tension’ existed, reportedly, among the academic staff due to the ‘slow and uncertain procedure of denazification’; a ‘small number of senior professors’ continued to dominate all other university teachers (Delegation of the AUT, 1947). The visiting delegation of teachers recommended increasing the proportion of working-class students and encouraging ‘a wider development of social studies’, including Political Science (Delegation of the AUT, 1947). Despite the hard work of the Education Branch, therefore, one wonders whether the universities had made any progress at all since the re-opening of Göttingen in 1945. Indeed, it was this report that formed the precursor to the British-led ‘Studienausschuß für Hochschulreform’ Commission of 1948 and its recommendations for further university reform, published that year in the so-called ‘Blaues Gutachten’ report.

Part two

The application, successes and failures of the policy at Göttingen University

Material reconstruction

It is unsurprising that Göttingen, a ‘famous German University founded by a British King in the 18^th century’, (British Zone Review, 1945b) was the first university in the British Zone to re-open (on 17 December 1945). This was due to its ‘nearly intact’ buildings, which had escaped much bombing damage (Director of Education Branch, nd). Certainly, there was some material work to be done. The university lacked textbooks and stationery, especially at the beginning of the occupation (Sutton, 1945) and the ‘buildings of the university library, …severely damaged by bombs’, were in need of repair (Letter from the Curator to Military Government, 1945). The other main buildings, however, could be used almost immediately.

Consequently, as other universities began to re-open and the British ‘re-education’ policy came to be applied at these institutions, Göttingen remained the primary location for initial policy implementation. It was the first university to establish a post-war student newspaper, which had already been ‘running for some time’ before UECOs had even considered the possibility of doing the same at the other higher education institutions in the Zone (Minutes of first UECO Conference, 1946). The first post-war ‘Student Conference’ was also held at Göttingen in the summer of 1946 and included student representatives from the various universities in the Zone (Minutes of third UECO Conference, 1946). Sources therefore suggest that Göttingen’s lack of damage did indeed speed up and facilitate the application of British ‘re-education’ policy, allowing favourable conditions for quick democratisation. Interestingly, the one clear disadvantage for German students caused by Göttingen’s well-preserved buildings – namely that the British College of the Rhine Army was housed at the university too, taking up much-needed classrooms and accommodation – was even described by LH Sutton (Göttingen’s first UECO) as being advantageous to the process of ‘re-education’. The British officers around campus were to ‘help by precept and example, and later perhaps by closer relation, to mould a new German University’ (British Zone Review, 1945c), thus contributing to the pragmatic ‘re-education’ policies of teaching by example rather than restrictive rules.

Denazification and political awareness

This pragmatic approach to democratisation, however, was hampered by initial key failures of the denazification policies. On the one hand, documents regularly refer to the political apathy and immaturity of the student body at Göttingen – the direct result of having grown up under the stifling conditions of the Nazi regime and consequently losing political self-confidence following its defeat. In November 1945, Sutton notes that both staff and students mistakenly believed it to be a virtue to be disinterested in ‘elections or politics… They still utterly fail to see that their cursed lack of interest in politics is the reason why things can always seize power in Germany’ (Letter from Sutton to Major Beattie, 1945). This criticism also applied to the students who participated in Göttingen’s AStA (Allgemeiner Studierendenausschuss), the Student Representative Council set up especially by the UECOs at each higher education institution in the Zone. To encourage independent thought and democratic development of a non-overtly political nature, Military Government encouraged the establishment of Students’ Associations; already in December 1945 applications for the formation of clubs such as the ‘Neue Akademische Freischar’ were under consideration for approval by British authorities (Note from Major Beattie to UECO Göttingen, 1945).

On the other hand, many sources refer to Göttingen’s ‘small hard core of die-hard’ nationalist students (Note from Major Beattie to UECO Göttingen, 1945). There was great controversy regarding the behaviour of these students between 1945 and 1947, their political sentiments linked to the number of former active or reserve officers who were allowed to enrol at Göttingen following their submission of a ‘Fragebogen’. An article from The Observer, dated 17 February 1946, reported that ‘demobilized officers of the Wehrmacht are now flocking to the Universities and… form the majority of the undergraduates’ (Report by the British Council for German Democracy, 1946). The article also claimed that Göttingen students interrupted the inaugural address of the university’s principal by shouting ‘It is time that a new Feme was created in Germany’ (Report by the British Council for German Democracy, 1946), referring to the old illegal ‘courts’ that passed verdicts of death on pacifist German politicians and had been formed by nationalistic bands of demobilised officers following World War One (Report by the British Council for German Democracy, 1946). An earlier American HQ Intelligence report in November 1945 also noted that, during a lecture for all faculties on the ‘Moral and Economic Basis of World Peace and Justice’, where the lecturer sharply attacked the former Hitler regime, the students responded unfavourably, before ‘almost the entire audience got up and walked out’ (FO Research Department, 1946). Internal British reports emphasise the over-exaggerated nature of such claims, as they were not supported by solid evidence (FO Research Department, 1946). Yet, of all six British universities in the Zone, it is Göttingen that undoubtedly features most regularly in articles and reports regarding Nazi activities. Further, censorship intercepts at the institution had yielded ‘a specially large number of letters’ that contained nationalist sentiments (FO Research Department, 1946). Even the then-Deputy Director of the Education Branch, Dr Ansten Anstensen, wrote that there may well have been a ‘germ of truth’ – albeit exaggerated – in most Göttingen-focused newspaper reports (Letter from Dr Anstensen to Mr Granville-Smith of the Control Office, 1946).

In response, a new university-wide policy was issued in March 1946 (ECI No. 52) tightening the denazifying admission rules imposed by its predecessor, ECI No.12 of August 1945. Indeed, sources suggest that the British denazification failures had initially strengthened the influence of the small ‘hard core’ nationalist band. A report from January 1946 reveals how the screening of university staff by the local Military Branch had been inadequate, with no screening at all occurring in some cases, with certain university teachers simply allowed to ‘remain in their posts pending a decision which has never been given’ (Sutton, 1946). This inefficiency, combined with the difficulty of finding suitable staff replacements, ensured that teaching staff at Göttingen in March 1946 still consisted mostly of older men who belonged to nationalist or conservative circles (FO Research Department, 1946). Student admissions had initially been in the hands of such men under the rules of ECI No.12 – it was therefore not surprising that students with ‘good war service’ had been given ‘preference over those with anti-Nazi views’ (FO Research Department, 1946). Of the approximately 4500 students enrolled at the university in January 1946, ‘none’ had yet been ‘satisfactorily screened’ (Letter from Sutton to Education Branch HQ, 1946). In March, 98% of the male students had served at least one year in the armed forces, with 10.8% of them having served for seven years; 65% of the student body was of middle-class background (the social class that had formed the backbone of support for Nazism) with only 6% from the working classes (FO Research Department, 1946). The logical conclusion is that inadequate British checking of staff ‘Fragebogen’ led to the continued employment of particularly conservative staff members, who then got away with a lax interpretation of ECI No.12. The failure to introduce more working-class students to the institution during the 1945–1946 winter semester had also deprived Göttingen of well-needed alterations to its political make-up. The stricter ECI No. 52 was not implemented until the summer term of 1946 to prevent a harmful ‘crop of sudden dismissals’ during the spring term (Letter from Sutton to Education Branch HQ, 1946). Until the summer term, therefore, only the most dangerous of young Nazis were removed (Letter from Sutton to Education Branch HQ, 1946). The denazification of staff was accelerated by the summer term of 1946, with ECI No. 52 also determining which students were allowed to recommence their studies.

Figures from 14 August 1946 suggest, however, that the presence of former officers continued to be stark at the university towards the end of the summer term: among the 4285 students, there were 197 former ‘active’ officers and 996 former ‘reserve’ officers (the highest number of all universities in the Zone) (Minutes of fifth UECO Conference, 1946). Indeed, as late as December 1947, Göttingen continued to be linked with the notion of secret, youthful nationalism in the Zone. An article entitled ‘An undirected nationalism’ in The Times (1947) referred to the continuing lack of interest among students for political parties; only a few hundred students attended any student club with political affiliations. Sentiment dominated over rational thought, with the ‘greatest political appeal to sentiment’ being nationalism; nationalist remarks by professors were occasionally applauded by students.

Although these claims may have been exaggerated by journalists, few TNA documents suggest any noticeable growth in political understanding or appreciation by the students between 1946 and 1947. A detailed report by the academic JP Stern (1948) on his visit to Göttingen in December 1947 notes how discussions during student society meetings moved ‘only on two planes; either on a purely theoretical or on a purely emotional one’. Politics was regarded as something ‘in which it is better not to meddle unless you are one of the chosen’ (Stern, 1948). Stern (1948) even suggested that it was ‘not too late’ to teach the students some ‘political responsibility’, to prevent this political indifference from becoming a foundation upon which violent nationalism could grow. British presence had therefore failed to help Göttingen students develop a sufficient political awareness between 1945 and 1947, with their initial denazification failures having briefly encouraged this political apathy to manifest itself in petty displays of nationalistic fervour.

International exchanges, the UECOs and the Handover of 1947

Another reason behind the continuing political apathy at Göttingen during this period was the infancy of the university’s commitment to ‘re-educate’ students via international exchanges of informative resources or visits.

Certainly, there were attempts to make British academic life felt at Göttingen and to allow the university to break free of its post-1933 academic isolation. Between late 1946 and 1947, the inaugural meetings of the revived German Medical Society and the German Physical Society were held at the university, which were ‘valuable opportunities for renewing contacts between German scientists and research workers in England’ (Author unknown, 1947). Indeed, ‘a remarkable revival of scientific activities’ took place at the institution during the first 18 months of the occupation (Kingsley, 1947). This scientific development was partially facilitated by the then-Rektor, Dr Rein, a distinguished physiologist, described by Geoffrey Bird – who gradually took over from Sutton as UECO in early 1946 (Phillips, 1983a: 177) – as ‘certainly not’ a Nazi (Bird, 1978: 146–158). This beneficial British-Rektor co-operation formed a stark contrast to that between UECO Dr Beckhoff and the problematic Professor Kroll at Köln.

Moreover, a report by FR Winton (1947), Professor of Pharmacology at University College London (UCL), regarding his visit to the university in October 1947, provides an insight into Göttingen’s links to British academia at the time. This visit was an implementation of a policy devised at the UECO conference in July 1946, whereby British Zone institutions were twinned with those in Britain – Göttingen was paired with UCL (Minutes of fourth UECO conference, 1946). Despite the visit’s success in allowing Göttingen students to benefit scientifically from the Professor’s lectures, Winton’s (1947) report highlights the Military Government’s inability to thoroughly organise an academic visit, such as the failure to notify him of the exact academic audiences to whom he was to give his lectures.

Political Science, however, failed to gain ground at Göttingen under British guidance. Curiously, this subject is hardly mentioned in the documents at TNA within the specific context of this university. Indeed, JP Stern’s late 1947 report highlights the British need to better display ‘the philosophical respectability of politics as an empirical science’ and to establish a Political Science department (Kingsley, 1947).

Non-academic and purely democratic connections between the university and the outside world, designed to politically ‘re-educate’ students seem, during this period, to have been few and far between. Compared with Köln, the British were slow to gain success with this element of their policy. Indeed, according to Geoffrey Bird, the emphasis of his work as UECO shifted following the January 1947 Handover ‘from reconstruction to encouraging as much contact with the outside world as possible’ (Bird, 1978: 153). This explains the post-1946 slight increase in international activity at the university. In September 1947, a ‘successful’ vacation course was held at Göttingen, attended by 32 British students and six British lecturers (Kingsley, 1947). Five British students were also fully matriculated for the winter semester of 1947–1948 (Kingsley, 1947), at the beginning of which a visit from Lord Frank Packenham, the new Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, in early 1948 (to lecture on ‘The way the British Government works’) was eagerly awaited by staff and students (Telegram from Education Branch HQ to FO (German Section), 1947). These exchanges were both too infrequent and too late to carry out successful ‘Re-education’ before the end of 1947, however, and had limited influence on the student body’s political outlook.

Despite the somewhat heightened international activity after 1 January 1947, the Handover was not welcomed by all at Göttingen. Winton notes that even the Germans themselves seemed ‘bewildered’ by the ‘stupidity’ of British attempts to encourage them to organise themselves democratically, especially due to their political inexperience (Winton, 1947). His 1947 report also suggests that the Handover did not necessarily influence the work of the UECO in a positive manner. Geoffrey Bird appeared to be doing a thorough job that was much appreciated by the Germans, yet his work continued to be either ‘negative’ (e.g. vetoing university applications) or ‘neutral’ (making travel arrangements for university staff), and did not demonstrate enough ‘positive leadership’ to re-educate (Winton, 1947). Stern also criticises Ordinance 57. In order to teach political responsibility, the UECO ‘ought to be the spiritual and intellectual guide’; his liberal and purely ‘advisory’ status being unsuitable for this (Stern, 1948). More direct spiritual guidance, Stern claimed, would help alleviate political apathy and consequently lessen the risk of emerging nationalism.

The case of Göttingen University therefore highlights several problems that came to light during the attempted implementation of the British ‘re-education’ policy, notably during the denazification of the student body. Indeed, one wonders whether ‘re-education’ took place at the university at all given the slow organisation of international democratic exchanges and the lack of emphasis on Political Science. The institution’s scientific reputation, however, was much improved under British rule following successful Anglo-German academic co-operation.

Part three

The application, successes and failures of the policy at Köln University

Material reconstruction

The University of Cologne recommenced with teaching around two months after Göttingen, on 12 December 1945, being the last university to open in the Zone (Phillips, 1983b: 4). The surrounding city (unlike Göttingen) had been heavily damaged due to wartime bombing – 66% of its houses had been destroyed (Knowles, 2013). Echoing Göttingen’s well-preserved architecture, however, ‘most of the main University building was structurally intact’ (British Zone Review, 1945a), although its scientific institutes had indeed suffered heavily (British Zone Review, 1945a), thus hampering the university’s chances of initially matching Göttingen’s successes in the world of science. Cologne University was also prevented from operating at full normality due to several of its intact buildings being requisitioned ‘for a variety of municipal purposes’ (Phillips, 1983b: 4); this usage therefore offered far less potential for British Re-education at Cologne than did the use of such buildings by the Rhine Army College at Göttingen and the officers’ example-setting behaviour.

Sources reveal that the immense surrounding devastation and the over-shared university buildings did impair the British ‘re-education’ policy’s effectiveness to some extent. For example, the university struggled to attract new professors from the Zone due to the great ‘dwelling and general living and teaching difficulties’ on site, according to the UECO at Cologne, Dr Harry Beckhoff (1947a). Despite this, the devastation gradually shook students out of their torpor as well as their social and political numbness (which remained so evident at Göttingen) and forced them to actively participate in post-war student life. In May 1947, members of the ‘Oreon’ Society independently took the decision to begin clearing the rubble around the university, thus actively engaging with the consequences of the Nazi past and helping the university take its next step towards material reconstruction (Beckhoff, 1947a). Beckhoff also noted with delight how circa 400 students displayed clear signs ‘of their awakening to civic consciousness and responsibility’ when they decided, at the end of the 1947 summer term, to repair the gas pipes in the university’s Chemical Institute, medical clinics and hospitals, thus improving general community healthcare and allowing fellow students to continue with key practical experiments (Beckhoff, 1947b). Student Friedrich Ossenbrink (1947) noted his determination to contribute: ‘Hier musste die Studentenschaft helfen!’ The local paper also reported how the students worked vigorously and ‘im Akkord’ (Kölnische Rundschau, 1947). Therefore the surrounding devastation, less prevalent at Göttingen, became a form of ‘re-education’ in itself for the students, encouraging them to tackle remnants of past Nazi conflict and remove their own political apathy in the process.

Denazification and political sentiments

To Beckhoff’s frustration, the denazification of staff at Cologne proved to be a problematic procedure that may be regarded as a British policy failure. Beckhoff’s (1947c) reports repeatedly highlight the continuing delays in the bureaucratic processes carried out by local German panels and Military Government’s Local Intelligence, as well as Public Safety Branch. In May 1947, several staff members who had originally been dismissed by university authorities continued to wait months for the final decision regarding their individual post-dismissal appeals, despite Beckhoff having provided the German Denazification Committee and Military Government with a detailed analysis of individual cases without professors (Beckhoff, 1947d). German-British co-operation, therefore, did not always produce positive results. The filling of staff vacancies was also made more difficult due to these delays as the university could not employ a new staff member until the final decision on the previous academic’s appeal had been given (Beckhoff, 1947d). This often left students without professors (Beckhoff, 1947d). Furthermore, some staff continued to be employed by the university as they awaited their appeal result and were ‘becoming more and more restless and worried’ about their positions as time went on (Beckhoff, 1947a). In late 1947, Beckhoff (1947c) also noted that there was ‘no balanced policy in the German panels’, with some professors previously dismissed by Military Government being re-registered into less ‘Nazi’ administrative categories and reintegrated into the staff body. Beckhoff repeatedly emphasised his belief throughout 1947 that the final say regarding academic staff denazification should have lay with him, as opposed to German Committees and other Military Government branches. Indeed, these denazification issues, combined with the difficulty of attracting new staff to Cologne due to material problems, meant that most of the staff between 1945 and 1947 were old and beyond the age of retirement (Beckhoff, 1947d). The university therefore needed fresh blood to dilute the staff body’s conservative nature.

With regards to the student body and its denazification, however, sources suggest a more successful story. Compared to Göttingen, Cologne University was far less associated with underground post-war Nazism among students following its re-opening. Only one quote by a Cologne student, dating from March 1946, suggests the presence of nationalistic political sentiments in the early post-war days at the university: ‘The old spirit is not dead. It is bubbling up everywhere’ (Nationalism at Universities in the British Zone, 1946). Despite this isolated claim, no repetitive rumours of Nazism surfaced with regards to Cologne University in particular. Notably, Cologne was set a lower ‘numerus clausus’ at the outset because of the material problems surrounding the university and its accommodation. In the winter term of 1945–1946 (which was two months shorter than that at Göttingen due to its late re-opening), only 1500 were allowed to enrol, the second lowest of all the institutions in the Zone (Riddy, 1946). Statistics from 14 August 1946 (following the application of ECI No. 52 and the re-screening of students for the summer term) also highlight how Cologne’s student body contained a comparatively low proportion of certain former military officers. Of the 2195 then-registered students at the university, 511 of them were former ‘reserve’ officers (roughly the same proportion as those in Göttingen), yet only 44 of them were former ‘active’ officers (less than half the proportion at Göttingen) (Minutes of fifth UECO Conference, 1946). The thoroughness of student denazification may be seen in Beckhoff’s December 1946 report, noting that all students had been ‘carefully selected’ for the winter term and that ‘each one’ of the former regular officers had been examined by the Denazification Committee; several ‘Fragebogen’ had been sent for further checking to Beckhoff himself (Minutes of fifth UECO Conference, 1946).

The effect of ECI No. 52’s application so soon after Cologne University’s late re-opening, as well as the thoroughness of this denazification procedure, is reflected in the student body’s political make-up and development. Unlike the connection made between political indifference and nationalism in the previous section of this study, an enthusiasm for political discussion and democracy grew among Cologne students between 1946 and 1947. While they had initially seemed ‘mentally paralysed’ at the end of 1945, according to Beckhoff, they had – as early as late 1946 – organised ‘activities, clubs, discussion groups’ as well as an all-student newspaper (Minutes of fifth UECO Conference, 1946). The success of the Student Representative Council (AStA) at Cologne also contrasted starkly with the apathy at Göttingen’s AStA – students had successfully voted for their representatives by late 1946 and were ‘not afraid to criticise’ the council’s work and offer their suggestions for improvement (Minutes of fifth UECO Conference, 1946). AStA had also asked Beckhoff to provide four lectures on topics such as ‘The German University’ and ‘The Problems of Denazification’, which he did (Minutes of fifth UECO Conference, 1946). By January 1947, Cologne students were ‘no longer scared of politics’ and had ‘eagerly’ talked about global affairs at a public discussion at the Philosophical Faculty that month (Beckhoff, 1947d). A February 1947 report by Monsieur Zimmermann, a lecturer in French at the university, also reveals how the students were initially ‘assez réservés’ during his classes, but had gradually gained enough confidence to pose politically delicate questions, such as regarding the ‘guerre éventuelle entre Anglo-Saxons et U.R.S.S’ (Zimmermann, 1947). Furthermore, even Frau Margaret Schreck (1947), a non-Nazi lecturer in English at the university who noted the apathy among some students in late 1947, admitted that the British occupation had witnessed ‘a very fundamental development in the mental outlook of the students’. Due to this clear contrast with student denazification problems encountered at Göttingen, a link may be formed between the smoother denazification of Cologne’s student body (e.g. earlier application of ECI No. 52 in the university’s post-war existence; thoroughness of denazification checks) and its subsequent heightened political awareness and growing appreciation of democracy.

What is certain, however, is that these positive political sentiments were not linked to a noticeable increase in working-class students at the university. Interestingly, Cologne documents do not place much emphasis on this facet of the ‘re-education’ policy at all. A Bristol student, following a vacation course at Cologne in July 1947, recorded that of the 3238 students enrolled at the university at the time, only 177 received any student grants or loans; the rest received varying degrees of financial support from their families (Report by a University of Bristol Union Student on ‘Visit to Cologne University 2^nd to 26^th July 1947, 1947). This underlines a persistently weak working-class student representation.

International exchanges and political science

The increasingly positive political outlook of Cologne’s student body was undoubtedly aided by the success of two further facets of the British ‘re-education’ policy: international exchanges and the increased presence of Political Science at the university. Indeed, much credit is due to Beckhoff himself for his personal determination to succeed with this policy implementation.

Like Göttingen, Military Government at Cologne University also established academic connections with British academic institutions in order to break down its post-1933 isolation. A December 1946 report on the British Zone universities notes how both Bonn and Cologne universities had arranged a scheme for the exchange of journals and books with Oxford’s Bodleian Library (Report by ‘Education Branch; Internal Affairs and Communications Division’, 1946). Visiting lecturers also regularly gave politically oriented talks at Cologne. In January 1947, for example, Dr Otto Kahn Freund from the LSE lectured on ‘Labour Legislation in England and Germany’, and Lady Violet Bonham Carter delivered her ‘New Beginning’ speech on British democracy (Beckhoff, 1947d) to a ‘packed audience’ (Beckhoff, 1947e).

Where Cologne differed from Göttingen, however, was in the more numerous non-academic and purely democratic connections set up with the outside world, aimed at politically ‘re-educating’ students via communication and friendly co-operation. For example, at the end of 1946 (a year earlier than the successful summer course at Göttingen), around 250 passes had been obtained for Cologne students to visit the French Zone during the Christmas holidays (Beckhoff, 1946), thus offering them an insight into the democratisation work of the French occupational authorities. Around this time too, concrete liaisons were formed between Cologne and Bristol University (which were now ‘twinned’ universities, following the UECO conference in July 1946). Bristol students, encouraged by Beckhoff, took the decision ‘to communicate with and help Cologne students’ (Beckhoff, 1946). In conjunction, Cologne students took on the ‘Burg Wahn’ project: to build a student hostel offering accommodation for visiting foreign students. Construction was completed by June 1947, with 95 accommodation spaces on offer for the (mostly English) foreign students attending a vacation course at the university in July – the first foreign students to do so in the Zone since the war (Minutes (‘Niederschrift’) of the ‘Sitzung des Kuratoriums der Universität’, 1947). This course encouraged ‘personal contact and co-operation’ between the German and foreign students, and was a chance to ‘exchange views’ (Report by a University of Bristol Union Student on ‘Visit to Cologne University 2^nd to 26^th July 1947, 1947). By November 1947, an Oxford University athletics team had also attended a gala sports day at Cologne Stadium, an experience that served as a ‘tonic’ for Cologne students, and 40 students had also spent a month in Switzerland working with farmers (Beckhoff, 1947c). Therefore from late 1946 onwards, students at Cologne had received significant exposure to several non-academic, often entertaining, means of ‘re-education’ by mixing with others from nations untainted by Nazi rule.

Cologne documents also reveal a greater emphasis on Political Science at the institution. During the meeting of the university’s board of trustees in June 1947, members discussed a recent visit by representatives of the British Council, who agreed to search in Britain for a potential candidate for Cologne’s Chair of Political Science and also explained to the Rektor the importance of Political Science as an academic discipline in Britain (Minutes of the ‘Sitzung des Kuratoriums der Universität’, 1947). Dr Pünder, Mayor of Cologne and present at the meeting, ascertained the interest of the entire board in the occupancy of the chair; Beckhoff’s efforts to find suitable foreign candidates were also ‘besonders begrüßt’ (Minutes of the ‘Sitzung des Kuratoriums der Universität’, 1947). Indeed, by November of that year, political scientist Sir Ernest Barker had agreed to take up the chair at the university, moving to Cologne with his family (Beckhoff, 1947c). Although Sir Ernest was to leave by the end of the winter semester in early 1948 (Beckhoff, 1947f) the university’s efforts – led by Beckhoff – to improve the impact of Political Science squared fully with British ‘re-education’ policy.

The Handover of 1947, the UECOs and University hierarchy

In May 1947, Beckhoff praised Ordinance 57, as students were ‘beginning to understand and to like our loose control and are by no means as anti-British as they were during the past winter semester’ (Beckhoff, 1947a). The Handover therefore encouraged a pro-British attitude among the German students.

Clear problems, however, arose regarding the staff body and the university’s continuing emphasis on its pre-1933 hierarchy due to this Ordinance. There is no doubt that the staff body’s most conservative personalities (kept in their posts due to staff replacement difficulties and aforementioned denazification complications) became stronger and more self-confident following January 1947. By April of that year, leading university staff were beginning to feel their ‘own strength and power’, and were no longer so willing or ready to take Beckhoff’s advice (Beckhoff, 1947e). Even in June 1947, Cologne’s young ‘Assistenten’ continued to be repressed by older, autocratic staff members, and were over-worked and badly paid, with the old professors almost entirely opposed to any reform in the Assitenten’s position and wanting to return to the ‘good old days’ and past traditions (Beckhoff, 1947g). Beckhoff did eventually manage, in late 1947, to convince the University Senate to ‘engage many more young Assistenten’ and encouraged them to consider establishing lecturer positions with full right of pension, but only after he had had ‘a minor explosion’ during a Senate meeting (Beckhoff, 1947c), highlighting the difficulty he faced in persuading the Germans to implement his policy suggestions.

In contrast to the mostly co-operative relationship between Bird and the Rektor at Göttingen, the conservative and nationalistic Rektor Professor Kroll occasionally prevented the smooth application of the ‘re-education’ policy. A January 1948 report on Kroll by the Cologne Intelligence Section depicts his dominating character; he had ‘considerable personable charm’ yet was in fact a ‘hard man’ who had been favouring ‘his creatures’ (Faitelson, 1948). Kroll continued to exercise ‘almost absolute’ power over the administration – and thus the personnel – of the university and was able to prevent staff from approaching UECO Beckhoff on any subject (Faitelson, 1948). With almost unanimous support from the Senate, he had even been able to change the University’s constitution to extend his rectorship beyond its mandatory one-year duration, against Beckhoff’s well-intentioned advice (Faitelson, 1948). He frequently influenced the selection of academic personnel, favouring his own old acquaintances and preventing the employment of younger staff members (Faitelson, 1948). Moreover, a report by Beckhoff in September 1947 revealed a ‘trick of the Rektor to beat Military Government’ (Beckhoff, 1947h). This involved an illicit system of ex-matriculating students who reached the end of their penultimate semester in order to re-enrol them as ‘Gasthörer’ (auditing students), thus creating more spaces for incoming students (Beckhoff, 1947h). Filling the university like this would then increase the Rektor’s and old professors’ ‘pay, power and prestige’ (Beckhoff, 1947h). It is therefore clear that, following the Handover of 1947, Beckhoff’s influence as UECO was weakened by the overbearing power of Rektor Kroll and his following of older professors. Between 1945 and 1947, the British policy thus wholly failed to penetrate the staff body’s conservative outlook. Indeed, Beckhoff scathingly described the majority of the university’s professors in October 1947 as backward and ‘useless for the work of re-education in which we are engaged’ (Beckhoff, 1947i).

This section has shown that policy implementation at Cologne University was highly mixed with regards to its success. As at Göttingen, denazification proved to be problematic at Cologne, although British mistakes affected the staff body (and its political outlook) more than the students. The implementation of the international exchange policy – both in an academic and democratic context – teamed with the attempt to improve Political Science teaching, undoubtedly thawed the students’ political apathy, and diffused their potential nationalistic tendencies in favour of more democratic learning.

Conclusion

The aim of this study has been to analyse the successes and failures of the British ‘re-education’ policy between 1945 and 1947 at the two notable universities of Göttingen and Köln.

Certainly, Göttingen and Cologne as contrasting locations influenced the ‘re-education’ policy’s potential for success. Köln, with its numerous physical reminders of the Nazi past and its consequences, forced students to snap out of their torpor and become active members of both the student and local community. By contrast, despite the potential for ‘re-education’ by the British Rhine Army, Göttingen’s undamaged setting did not exert this kind of shock treatment upon its students.

Indeed, a close analysis of denazification policy implementation at Göttingen suggests that its undamaged setting may have led the British authorities to rush the institution’s re-opening. The British, so early on in the occupation, were clearly overwhelmed by the task of denazifying the Göttingen staff body. This was reflected in their inadequate checking of the staff ‘Fragebogen’, which – combined with the more ambiguous ECI No.12 used by these German staff to denazify the students – encouraged political apathy and occasional underground nationalism at the university. This negative political sentiment continued to be the subject of criticism in late 1947. At Cologne, on the other hand, denazification was carried out marginally more successfully. There was a quick and thorough application of ECI No. 52; students’ political apathy soon faded, with no major incident of bubbling nationalism recorded at the institution. Denazification problems and delays, however, prevented the quashing of the staff body’s overtly conservative views. Therefore, the denazification facet of the ‘re-education’ policy, despite producing some successes, may be categorised as a failure overall.

Similarly, the aim of introducing more working-class students to both universities, as planned by British authorities since 1942, was not achieved between 1945 and 1947 and may be described as a complete policy failure. Comments and statistics from both 1946 and 1947 confirm that the working class continued to be severely underrepresented at both institutions.

The application of other ‘re-education’ policy facets generally proved more successful at Cologne than at Göttingen. With regards to international exchanges, the latter university succeeded in establishing important academic contacts with British institutions, leading to Göttingen University regaining its confidence as a contributor to the international scientific and academic arena. At Cologne, however, the British went a step further than merely forming Anglo-German academic links; they also established beneficial democratic exchanges between both countries from an early stage. Similarly, the focus on Political Science was much more prevalent at Cologne. It is these elements that ensured the impressive democratic development in the student body’s political outlook until the end of 1947. The successful implementation of both policy facets at Cologne rather than Göttingen may be put down to Beckhoff’s own efforts and encouragement; despite Geoffrey Bird’s actions at Göttingen, Cologne documents repeatedly underline Beckhoff’s relentless determination to implement the ‘re-education’ policy. The quality of the UECOs’ work at the Zone’s higher education institutions certainly influenced policy success.

The Handover of 1947 also partially contributed to the positive impact of the ‘re-education’ policy at the universities. At Göttingen, Bird had greater opportunity to implement the international exchange policy facet due to the Germans’ taking full control, yet still did not have the opportunity to display positive leadership. At Cologne, however, Ordinance 57 proved to be more of a mixed success. Students, on the one hand, gradually came to approve of the pragmatic British policy. The continuation of international exchanges also shows that the Handover did not detract from the implementation of this policy facet. On the other hand, backward-looking staff members, led by Rektor Kroll, took advantage of the Handover as an opportunity to deviate from British policy and reinstate their own past traditions. Beckhoff certainly had less influence on staff behaviour after January 1947.

It is therefore apparent that the British ‘re-education’ policy and its implementation were in their infancy between 1945 and 1947. Echoing the sentiment of the AUT delegation in early 1947, this article has demonstrated that there were certainly more failures than successes in policy implementation at the universities. Differing from Günther Kloss’ overtly negative analysis of policy achievements, however, and reflecting David Phillips’ appreciation of British efforts, this comparative analysis has highlighted a notable improvement at Cologne in student political sentiment and an increased awareness of Political Science due to a more imposing location, denazification successes, heightened Anglo-German relations and a highly enthusiastic UECO. Cologne students, following years of exposure to a nationalistic dictatorship, showed clear signs of gradually becoming ‘re-educated’ at the hands of the British Military Government. During the first two years of the occupation, therefore, the ‘re-education’ policy – albeit with varying levels of success at each Zone university – helped lay the foundations for a future democratic West German youth who, already in May 1949, would belong to the independent and democratic Federal Republic of Germany.

*For further study