• THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS Holocaust and 'Academic Responsibility' By REV. FRANKLIN LITTELL National Institute On the Holocaust PHILADELPHIA — To persons who value educa- tion, and to those who love alma mater, the role of the great German universities in preparing the Holocaust remains an agonizing re- flection. Who trained the SS doc- tors who worked on the staff of Dr. Josef Mengele? Who trained the lawyers, hun- dreds of them, who found the precedents and pre- pared the legal forms to rob and murder Jewish citi- zens? Who staffed the "People's Courts" that lynched Hitler's gentile op- ponents? Who trained the school teachers, thousands of them, who betrayed their stewardwhip of young lives — training and inspiring the young janizaries who carried the German war machine? Who trained the theologians and pastors and priests who skillfully waf- fled the truth, blending Christianity with Teutonic racism? Who, in sum, equipped technicians without wis- dom and professional ethics? One of the great books emerging from the Holocaust, Max Weinrich's "Hitler's Professors" (YIVO), tells the story in de- tail. But the larger question remains. What kind of uni- versities have functioned in the modern world — so long in technology, so short in wisdom — to make such things possible? And how have these faculties re- sponded to the lessons of the Holocaust? How have our own universities in Ameri- ca moved to correct the weaknesses and false com- mitments that the story of the Holocaust has exposed something to do with this, too.) But only one, the Univer- sity of Frankfurt, took a large step forward by can- celing the degrees of major war criminals. (Univer- sities may, of course, cancel as well as grant academic degrees.) Now a good word has come from Gottingen: the Council of Deans has an- nounced the decision to cancel the PhD degree of a neo-Nazi "historical re- visionist," Wilhelm Staeg- lich. FRANKLIN LITTELL The so-called "histori- to public view — and to the cal revisionists" are a verdict of history? group of Nazis and Nazi To date the encouraging reports are all too few. At- sympathizers who, using tention is still devoted to academic claims and pre- "business as usual," turning tenses, seek to make cre- out the technicians who will dible the notion that the do — and do skillfully — Holocaust never hap- pened. whatever is required, so In West Germany, to pub- long as the price is right. Yet there are few signs lish and distribute such of hope, a few indications political propaganda is il- of a turn toward true, legal. Most university ad- learning. One of the finest ministrations have been has begun in the glad to let the government Philadelphia area, with handle the problem. But the the founding at the Vil- faculty at Gottingen has lanova Law School — on _ recognized — unlike, for in- the initiative of Dean stance, the faculties at Willard O'Brien and a Northwestern University Catholic layman, John and the University of Connolly — of an Insti- California — that an impor- tute on Law and Moral- tant principle of academic ity. We may hope that in integrity is also involved. In 1979, Staeglich pub- other places, and in other faculties too, there may in lished a book entitled "The time be shown a like intel- Auschwitz Myth." Like lectual and moral com- most of the books of this mitment to truth as well genre, including Butz of Northwestern's "Hoax of as technics. Another good message the 20th Century," Staeg- has just come from a Ger- lich's tract has a political man university: Gottingen. rather than scholarly pur- After the war, few of the pose. The political themes universities immediately in all of them are the same; involved in the Nazi pro- in fact, most of them gram took appropriate steps plagiarize relentlessly from to master the lessons of the previous writings with the Holocaust. Many, to be sure, same purpose. The themes were set by refused to reinstate Nazi ac- tivists to professorial rank. one Paul Rassinier, a (Our Education Branch in French high school teacher Military Government had who published his study to Friday, Maf 1983 33 LEE DRIVING SCHOOL attack Raul Hilberg's classic, "The Destruction of Europen Jewry," and to "expose the Zionist plot." The "Zionist plot" was this: to invent a tale of the mass murder of Jews in order to gain sympathy for Israel, to "blackmail" the innocent Germans into paying inde- mnities, and to divert atten- tion from the monstrous crimes of the Allied gov- ernments during World War II. The head-of the Gottingen faculty, making the an- nouncement, has said that Staeglich is not entitled to retain his degree because he misused it to give an aura of scholarship to blatant Nazi propaganda. Teenagers & Adults MasterCharge VISA 851.9684 356.1424 EDIE and MIKE KING'S KLIPPER BARBER SHOP 19925 EVERGREEN at 12 MILE - 557-2005 < 4 \ ,1/ 0 4 \e 0 €6b t,t1/40 xxo, \O