Edward Hartshorne

Edward Yarnall Hartshorne, Junior (born April 10, 1912 in Hanover (New Hampshire) , USA; † August 30, 1946 ) (the name is pronounced Harts-Horn ) was the main university control officer in the Office of Military Government for Germany and responsible for the Reopening of German universities in the US zone of occupation after the Second World War .

Family and studies

Edward Hartshorne married Elsa Minot, daughter of Harvard historian Sidney Fay, in May 1934. They had three children together, Robin, Marian and Caroline. Hartshorne studied in the Department of Ethics and Sociology at Harvard College. In 1933/1934 he became a doctoral student at the Department of Anthropology and Sociology at the University of Chicago . For his doctoral thesis on "German Universities under National Socialism" he traveled to Germany in 1935/36.

Professional background

On his return he became a sociology professor at Harvard University , where he taught freshmen. In 1939, together with Harvard scientists Sidney Fay and Gordon Allport (psychologist) , he initiated the competition "My life in Germany before and after January 30, 1933", through which over 250 reports from emigrants from the Third Reich were collected and methodically based on the so-called Chicago School of Sociology were evaluated. This led him to speak out against isolationism publicly . For the winter semester 1941 / -42, Hartshorne was given leave of absence to complete a study; on July 10, 1941, he applied to the Bureau of the Coordinator of Information (COI) (which later became the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) and the Office of War Information ). On September 1, 1941, he left Harvard and became a government employee at the Research and Analysis Branch of the COI , a publication ban was associated with this. He moved to the Research and Analysis Branch of the OSS and became a lecturer at the Office of War Information . In 1943 he was used as an interrogator in the Psychological Warfare Division (PWD) in Tunisia and Italy . There he became one of the liaison men between the German ambassador at the Vatican Ernst von Weizsäcker and the Allies at the beginning of July . After the assassination attempt on July 20, 1944 , he was transferred to London and returned to the USA from there.

In Germany

From January 1945 Hartshorne was taken over by the Allied High Command (SHAEF ) u. a. used for the denazification of the Kölnische Zeitung . In April he took the opportunity to take over a team that was supposed to look for the Reichspresseleiter Max Amann in Germany . On this assignment he also came to Marburg , where he realized that he was more likely to be called upon to revive the German university system. He was transferred to the Department of Religion and Education ( Education and Religious Affairs Section ), which, after being renamed several times, was subordinate to the military government ( Office of Military Government , US for Germany ). First, in July 1945, he accompanied Major General Morrison C. Stayer on an inspection tour of medical schools. These turned out to be the loophole with which the universities as a whole could also be preserved, because according to the orders they should have been completely closed.

Hartshorne was soon considered to be the most knowledgeable specialist in higher education in Germany. As a university control officer ( higher education officer ) he was directly responsible for Heidelberg and Marburg . Using these two examples, he worked out the standard operating procedure for the denazification and reopening of all seven universities in the US zone. He selected the universities that seemed suitable for reopening - the University of Giessen was initially closed in this process -, planned and monitored the opening process. He also worked as a political advisor. Before the local planning committees began to function, Hartshorne was constantly out and about in the country without spending more than four days in one place. After the state of Greater Hesse had been proclaimed with universities in Frankfurt , Gießen and Marburg, Hartshorne was responsible for higher education there. He also managed to convince his wife to come to Germany. She arrived with the three children in June 1946.

Early death

In the spring of 1946, American newspapers reported that the denazification of the Bavarian universities had not succeeded. General Lucius Clay sent Hartshorne to investigate the allegations. From August 1, Hartshorne also became a denazification officer for Bavaria. While he was on this assignment, he was seriously injured by a shot in the head on the evening of August 28 on the autobahn in the direction of Nuremberg after an overtaking and subsequent braking maneuver from a moving jeep. The perpetrator is said to have been a 19 year old German, drunk black market trader. A little later he was shot himself by the army police. The case has not yet been resolved. It could have been a contract murder, as Hartshorne may have learned that the Counter Intelligence Corps (CIC) smuggled high-ranking Nazis into South America via the Vatican's secret route (monastery route or rat lines ). Hartshorne did not regain consciousness two days later before he died. In just 15 months he had denazified and reopened the three universities of Heidelberg, Marburg and Frankfurt and, with one exception, prepared the opening of the other universities in the US zone.

literature

• Edward Y. Hartshorne: The German Universities and National Socialism . Allen & Unwin, London 1937 and reprint AMS Press, New York 1981. ISBN 0-404-16943-0
• Edward Y. Hartshorne Student Life and University Ideals in the United States of America , Frankfurt / Main, G. Schulte-Bulmke, 1946
• Edward Y. Hartshorne German Youth and the Nazi Dream of Victory , Oxford University Press 1941
• Academic Proconsul. Harvard Sociologist Edward Y. Hartshorne and the Reopening of German Universities, 1945-1946. His personal account . Ed. James F. Tent . Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier, Trier 1998. ISBN 3-88476-321-0 . (contains a long report to his superiors in psychological warfare, his diary, and the letters to his wife)
• Uta Gerhardt and Thomas Karlauf (eds.): Never back in this country , Berlin, 2009, ISBN 978-3-549-07361-2 (contains texts from Jewish emigrants collected by Hartshorne as part of the competition at Harvard University)
  • English translation: Uta Gerhardt, Thomas Karlauf The Night of Broken Glass. Eyewitness Accounts of Kristallnacht , Wiley 2012, foreword by Saul Friedländer

Individual evidence

1. ↑ A notable example comes from Karl Löwith : My life in Germany before and after 1933. A report . JB Metzler, Stuttgart 1986.
2. ↑ Uta Gerhardt in: Never go back to this country ..., p. 348.
3. ^ Review by Richard J. Evans, The Guardian, April 11, 2012