Albert Einstein: One of the many great minds that fled

Germany only to be embraced by the United States.

Nan Fang Daily, People's Republic of China

America Should Thank Hitler for Its Strength

Is America's global dominance based on its policy of absorbing Germany's greatest minds before, during and after World War II? According to Ding Dong, a man whose name sounds like a wake-up call and is described as a Beijing Scholar by the China's state-controlled Nan Fang Daily, Americas wartime absorption of European Jewry should be a lesson for Beijing. The scholar then makes the bold statement that this should also induce China to allow far greater academic freedom, which is what permitted these immigrant intellectuals to make America what it is today.

By Ding Dong (丁东), a Beijing Scholar

Translated By Mark Klingman

December 20, 2010

People's Republic of China - NF Daily - Original Article (Chinese)

Adolph Hitler: Perhaps his greatest blunder was to kill or expel many of Germany's greatest minds on the basis if their religion. BBC NEWS AUDIO: British eyewitness recalls 'terrifying' Hitler rally, June 18, 00:01:47

The United States is undoubtedly the center of the scientific and educational world today. Who made the U.S. such a center? If one were to answer Hitler, some people would find it inconceivable. But that is indeed the case. As one American scientist put it, "We ought to erect a monument to Hitler to thank him for promoting the development of science and culture in the U.S."!

In Germany before Hitler, the world's center of science and education was not the U.S. - it was Germany. By the second half of the 19th century, Germany had entered a golden age of science and education, surpassing Britain and France as the world's scientific and cultural center. Entering the 20th century, the United States became the world's largest economy, but in science and education, German students were still number one.

Take the Nobel Prizes in physics, chemistry and physiology for example: as of 1933 there were 32 German winners, but only 5 from the United States. When Hitler came to power and implemented his racist policies, 500,000 Jews were forced into exile, with the U.S. received a quarter of these refugees. Being in America offered the intellectual elite of the group an atmosphere to put their talents to use. This resulted in a great intercontinental realignment of the world's scientific and cultural heart from Europe to North America - and from Germany to the United States. By the time World War II ended in 1945, Germany had only 14 Nobel Prize winners left alive in the categories mentioned, while the U.S. had 25. The intellectual elite that came out of Germany's centers of learning and sent to the United States studied under the most advanced and rigorous study methodologies and laid the groundwork for the U.S. to hold the leading position in science education. Today, there are more than 200 American Nobel Prize winners in the natural sciences, and some years, American scientists sweep the awards fir all three natural sciences.

Chinese scholars know little of the history behind this transfer of science and technology, and even less have they done specialized research on the subject. Wuhan University history professor Li Gongzhen's book Culture of Exile: Refugees of the Nazi Era in Europe fills this gap. Ten years in the writing, the book offers an orderly and detailed analysis of questions like: Why did Hitler incite racism? Why did he persecute the Jews when he took office? Why did he allow the Jewish "brain drain"? How were the policies of other countries implemented with respect to intellectual Jewish refugees? What was the public's stance on these gifted refugees? What kinds of living conditions were provided for their development? How did the refugees adapt to the environment in the receiving country? What kind of impact did they have on the society of countries that took them in?

Racism was at the core of Hitler's ideology, as well as that of the Nazi Party. Relying on incitement to racism during his rise, Hitler seized on the nationalist feelings of the German people and their longing for a turnaround after defeat in the First World War. Taking power in 1933, he immediately undertook a campaign of cultural cleansing, wantonly tormenting Jews and expelling "non-Aryan" scholars, driving out all Jewish scientists from their institutions and even the country. By 1937, German universities had lost 39 percent of their teaching staffs, and by the outbreak of World War II in 1939, 45 percent of all university instructors were Nazi Party officials. Hitler's crazy short term behavior, with the cooperation of mainstream German society, did grievous harm to the long-term vitality of the country's science education and cultural vitality.

Jewish refugees fled to more than 75 countries for their very survival, but in the end, only the United States received large numbers who were permitted to put down roots and make significant contributions to science and culture, thus becoming their biggest beneficiary. The reasons for this are very intriguing.

The destination of choice for Jewish refugees was certainly not the United States, but rather European countries that were closer to them physically and culturally. The U.S., after all, lay far across the vast Atlantic, and given the travel conditions at the time, seeking refuge there was far from easy. But for a number of reasons, many European countries, including their scientific and cultural elites, couldn't accommodate Jewish refugees. Switzerland, for example, was a neutral country with German as the main language, and certainly would have been preferable for the Jewish intellectual elite. But Switzerland had serious unemployment problems, and people feared that the Jewish refugees would compete for the few jobs there were. The government therefore imposed a regulation that foreigners could not engage in a profitable occupation, and strictly forbade employing refugees. This meant that scientists in exile couldn't adopt Switzerland as a platform for development; they could only use it as a transit point.

Another example is Canada, which, at it is sparsely populated, didn't reject the European immigrants outright. But Canada had a clear bias in its selection of immigrants: they preferred those willing to work as cheap labor in its mines, forests, and factories, rather than become part of the intellectual elite. "Between an artist and a farmer, a writer and a logger, a poet and a miner, a scholar and a mason, the Canadian government didn't hesitate to choose the latter in every case." This caused Canada to reject a large number of asylum applications from scientists, artists, bankers, professors, lawyers and doctors. It was even feared that if the government showed any flexibility, every Canadian university would be filled with refugees. Renowned German physicist Gerhard Herzberg was deported from Germany for having a Jewish wife and found a teaching job at a Canadian university. Because his salary was paid by the U.S., Canadian immigration allowed him to enter on a two-year visa. After two years they wanted to force him out, and only the most strenuous efforts from his school allowed him to remain. Ten years later, Herzberg was able to obtain Canadian citizenship, and in 1971 became Canada's first Nobel Prize winner.

Turkey was one of the few countries to welcome Jewish intellectual refugees. More than 190 scientists and artists in exile entered Turkey's universities, greatly enhancing the standard of science education in that nation. Unfortunately, President Ataturk's death in 1938 interrupted this process.

In contrast, the U.S. was the most attractive and tolerant of Jewish intellectual refugees, providing them with a wide stage on which to display their intelligence. American scientific and cultural leaders had extraordinary foresight, seeing keenly that absorbing the knowledge from Europe's intellectual elite refugees would have an enormous impact on the development of science and culture in America. In fact, they not only showed sympathy for the persecuted Jews, but even made efforts to counteract Americans' latent xenophobia and anti-Semitism. It's particularly noteworthy that allowing the intellectual refugees to settle and put their abilities to use was more the doing of American society than its government.

As the book says, "The real contribution was rendered not by the Roosevelt Administration, but rather by visionary intellectual leaders, private foundations and various non-governmental aid organizations. It was precisely because of their efforts, that the United States was not only the largest recipient of Jewish refugees, but of Jewish intellectuals, which partly consisted of 1,090 scientists (the vast majority of them professors), 811 lawyers, 2,352 doctors, 682 journalists, 645 engineers, 465 musicians, 296 artists, and 1,281 writers and professionals from other fields. The U.S. received at least 63 percent of the 12,000 "cultural elite" expelled by Germany and Austria, and at least 77 percent of the approximately 1,400 scientists. It might be said that a veritable galaxy of stars was exiled to the U.S. from Europe, including founder of the theory of relativity, Albert Einstein, "father of the computer" John von Neumann, "father of modern aerospace" Theodore von Karman, "father of the atomic bomb" Leo Szilard, "father of the hydrogen bomb" Edward Teller, physicists Niels Bohr and Enrico Fermi, mathematician Richard Courant, modern architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, musicians Arnold Schoenberg and Igor Stravinsky, sociologist Paul Lazarsfeld, political scientist Hannah Arendt, and many more.

America has always had an environment of cultural inclusion and free competition, and at a time when science, education, and culture were all on the rise, it might be said that having these world-class intellectuals "on the team" put America in the fast lane to scientific and cultural dominance. The successful absorption of Europe's intellectual refugees gave the U.S. a taste for more. Since then, American has more self-consciously developed openings to the global elite of science and education. The door of communication and immigration has always been wide open, as is the door for young talent to find study and employment opportunities. This has been one of the secrets to America's world leadership since World War II.

Posted by WORLDMEETS.US

In his youth during the Cultural Revolution, Professor Li Gongzhen witnessed the destruction of science education in China, and today has experienced the distorting and corrosive effect of power and money on Chinese higher education. Now, in surveying the globe, he has found that the success or failure of other countries has been rooted in their psychological power. He offers unique insights into questions of strategic social and economic development. His notion is that Americas independent model for developing science education that results in revitalization can be called "Science Education Leads to a Country's Prosperity (kejiao xingguo)." And the 19th century German model, when Kaiser Wilhelm invested universities with state moneys without interfering with academic freedom and leading to Germany's rise can be called "A Country's Prosperity Leads to Science Education (guoxing kejiao)."

Hitler's Third Reich was neither of these. Rather, it represented the decline of German science education. China's economy has developed rapidly in recent years, and the slogan kejiao xingguo has been heard for many years. But although investment in higher education and research is burgeoning, respect for academic freedom still lags behind. Administrators hold all the influence, so that flatterers of power and money are the ones who rise. The atmosphere at Chinese universities is growing ever-more corrupt. Professor Li Gongzhen's revelation to the Chinese people is this: we should learn from the experiences of other nations to benefit China.

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[Posted by WORLDMEETS.US January 18, 10:07pm]