National Socialist German Lecturers League

The National Socialist German Lecturers League (German: Nationalsozialistischer Deutscher Dozentenbund; also called NS-Dozentenbund, or abbreviated NSDDB), was a party organization under the NSDAP. The NSDDB emerged in 1935 from the National Socialist Teachers League and was established on the basis of an order of the Deputy Führer Rudolf Hess.

History

The purpose of the organization was to exert influence on the universities and to exercise political control over university teaching staff. In particular, massive influence was applied especially on appointments to staff positions. District leaders had a decisive role in the acceptance of an Habilitationsschrift, which was a prerequisite to attaining the rank of Privatdozent necessary to becoming a university lecturer. The expulsion of Jewish academics from the universities was largely carried out by the activists of the Dozentenbund.

In 1938, about a quarter of the German university teaching staff belonged to the Dozentenbund. Especially in the humanities faculties, the proportion of members was relatively high. Leaders in the Dozentenbund (for example, as Gaudozentenbund leaders) were often members (or graduates) of the medical faculties. Like all National Socialist organizations, the NSDDB was based on the leader principle. "Reich Lecturers Leader" from the institution's inception until June 1944 was the surgeon Walter Schultze. After taking office, he made his planned leadership clear in 1935. First, he had all party comrades among the university lecturers registered. However, the party badge on the lapel alone was not enough for leading positions; one also had to be able to "push the opposition against the wall". In addition to the party spirit, the recognizable will and the ability to educate the youth in the National Socialist spirit, above all the "race question" was to become a decisive factor in higher education. In his inauguration speech for the Reichsuniversität Straßburg on November 23, 1941, Schultze declared the "eradication" of everything "un-German" from the "world of thought of our people" to be the university's objective. Because of misconduct to the disadvantage of a party member, he was removed from office by the Supreme Party Court in 1944 and replaced by "Reich student leader" Gustav Adolf Scheel. Scheel was also a medical doctor.

In order to anchor the National Socialist doctrine among the lecturers, four scientific academies of the NS-Dozentenbund were established. They were located at the Universities of Giessen, Göttingen, Kiel and Tübingen.. However, the effectiveness of the Dozentenbund was limited by the chaos of offices typical of National Socialism, the imprecise demarcation of official jurisdictions and competencies. Thus, conflicts arose most frequently with the Rosenberg office, which equally claimed higher education policy as its territory. The NSDDB's ally in these conflicts was often the Heß office. Moreover, the NSDDB's impact was limited by the often low standing of their leaders at the universities. Many had the reputation of trying to compensate for a lack of academic reputation and competence with party-serving overzealousness.

A special kind of scientific training was the so-called "camp work", which was supposed to replace the old-style congresses and aimed at the intellectual coordination of the participants.

At the University of Leipzig, whose courses of study were changed in 1933 by the Saxon Ministry of National Education in the NS sense in an exemplary way by a three-stage concept of political education, the NSD-Studentenbund, on the initiative of the head of training Helmut Merzdorf, together with the NSDDB, operated an office for political training, which was the first stage of political indoctrination for the students. After that, they passed to the supervision of the Seminar for Political Education under the NS Gauschulungsleiter and later Oberregierungsrat Werner Studentkowski, who created a lecture program with many university lecturers, and finally to that of the Seminar for Politics under the newly appointed Prof. for Political Science Hans Freyer, who was equipped with an enlarged institute and also became a leader in the NSD-Dozentenbund. In 1936, the second stage was transferred to the NSD Student League as the National Political Seminar under Wilhelm Matthias, who was directly subordinate to the Rector and, from 1939, was also a lecturer in folklore at the Leipzig College of Teacher Education. In 1940, the whole concept was declared a failure and dissolved.

With Control Council Law No. 2 of October 10, 1945, the NSDB was banned by the Allied Control Council and its property confiscated.

References

• Helmut Heiber: Universität unterm Hakenkreuz. Saur, München et al. 1991–1994, T. I: ISBN 3-598-22629-2; T. II, 1+2: ISBN 3-598-22628-4.
• Hentschel, Klaus, editor and Ann M. Hentschel, editorial assistant and Translator Physics and National Socialism: An Anthology of Primary Sources (Birkhäuser, 1996) ISBN 0-8176-5312-0