Concept
Vow of allegiance of the Professors of the German Universities and High-Schools to Adolf Hitler and the National Socialistic State
Overview
"Bekenntnis der Professoren an den Universitäten und Hochschulen zu Adolf Hitler und dem nationalsozialistischen Staat" officially translated into English as the "Vow of allegiance of the Professors of the German Universities and High-Schools to Adolf Hitler and the National Socialistic State" was a document presented on 11 November 1933 at the Albert Hall in Leipzig. It had statements in German, English, Italian, and Spanish by selected German academics and included an appendix of signatories. The purge to remove academics and civil servants with Jewish ancestry began with the Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service, passed on 7 April 1933. The vow of allegiance was signed by those who remained, in support of Nazi Germany.
Philosopher Martin Heidegger in his inaugural lecture in May 1933 as rector of the University of Freiburg, and who was later in October appointed "Führer of the university", said (translated):
"The much celebrated "academic freedom" is being banished from the German university; for this freedom was not genuine, since it was only negative. It meant primarily freedom from concern, arbitrariness of intentions and inclinations, lack of restraint in what was done and left undone. The concept of freedom of the German is now brought back to its truth".
After World War II, Heidegger was dismissed from the university and banned from teaching after denazification hearings at Freiburg.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
Possible passages
Found by search and not yet checked by a person; they may only mention the idea in passing.
None the less is it true that perverse ambition, once erected into theory, feels more at ease in working itself out to the end; a part of the responsibility will then be thrown upon logic. If the German race is the elect, it will be the only race which has an unconditional right to live; the others will be tolerated races, and this toleration will be precisely what is called "the state of peace." Let war come; the…
Henri Bergson, The Meaning of the War
States what Vow of allegiance of the Professors of the German Universities and High-Schools to Adolf Hitler and the National Socialistic State is.
And this is the Goethe to whom our cultured Philistines point as the happiest of Germans, that they may prove their thesis, that it must be possible to be happy among them--with the unexpressed corollary that no one can be pardoned for feeling unhappy and lonely among them. Hence they push their doctrine, in practice, to its merciless conclusion, that there is always a secret guilt in isolation. Poor Schopenhauer…
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, Thoughts Out of Season, Part II
States what Vow of allegiance of the Professors of the German Universities and High-Schools to Adolf Hitler and the National Socialistic State is.
It is the law of reason, "holy and inviolable," which impels man to the institution of the State, not natural sociability, much less considerations of expediency. And so necessary is the State to humanity's realization of its moral purpose that there can be no right of revolution. The overthrow and execution of the sovereign (Kant evidently had the French Revolution and Louis XVI in mind) is "an immortal and…
John Dewey, German philosophy and politics
Close in meaning to Vow of allegiance of the Professors of the German Universities and High-Schools to Adolf Hitler and the National Socialistic State; the term itself is not named.
Philosophers who discussed Vow of allegiance of the Professors of the German Universities and High-Schools to Adolf Hitler and the National Socialistic State
Related ideas
- Hans-Georg Gadamer
- Leipzig
- Nazi Germany
- University of Freiburg
- Martin Heidegger
- Hans Freyer
- Arnold Gehlen
- Otto Friedrich Bollnow
- Theodor Litt
Place in the tradition
Part of German philosophy.