Deutsche Akademie (1925) – Wikipedia

The Academy for scientific research and care for Germanism , short German academy was founded in Munich in 1925 as a cultural association for researching and spreading German culture and promoting the German language abroad. It was dissolved in 1945. The German Academy is the forerunner of today’s Goethe Institutes.

The foundation took place against the background of the “political” and “science -political” situation at the beginning of the Weimar Republic. In science, a specialization in coherent “individual disciplines” was complained about. Politically at universities, the unexpectedly experienced defeat of Germany in the First World War and the Treaty of Versailles perceived as “national humiliation”. ^[first] The position of Germany in the areas of cultural relationships on foreign countries, which through the First World War and the following Germany should be brought to an improvement according to these views. With a scientific academy, an attempt should be made to “establish a spiritual organization through the nation and the nation that wants to help a free German folklore to get its place in the sun in tough and purposeful work.” ^[2]

In 1923, several Munich scientists, including Georg Pfeilschifter, rector of the Ludwig Maximilians University, Hermann Oncken and Karl Haushofer, made the creation of the “German Academy (DA)” in the eye, ^[3] which was officially founded on May 5, 1925 as a private association. ^[4] According to the statutes, the task of the establishment was the maintenance of Germanism and the “not official cultural relations with the foreign and foreign Germans to the home in the service of the German national consciousness”. ^[5]

The first president became an arrow lifter and the first president of the “scientific department” onken. Among the other employees were mostly national conservative scientists such as Karl Alexander von Müller, Hanns Dorn, Friedrich von der Leyen and Otto von Zwiedineck-Südenhorst. They were supported by an advisory body, the “Senate”, whose 100 members should ensure the scientific and cultural policy integration and the financing of the DA. One of the “senators” was the later military economy leader Hermann Röchling. The academy was housed in the residence on Odeonsplatz until 1932, then in the Maximilianeum.

Organizationally, the academy was divided into a “scientific department” with four sections and a smaller “practical department” that was supposed to deal with cultural work abroad with concentration on German Germans in Southeast Europe. The practical department should primarily do language care and language teaching, the scientific should “create a spiritual center for all Germans in the world”. These work focus led to a financial crisis in the first few years, which was dependent on donations to be donated. ^[6] Since they faced a significant number of competing institutions, including the German Academic Exchange Service, the German Foreign Institute and the Association for Germanism abroad.

From 1928/29 there was therefore a realignment of the content work under the press officer and later general secretary Franz Thierfelder, in which “language support abroad” was now focused on “openness and reciprocity”. ^[7] In 1930 the first language schools in Southeast Europe, in 1932 as a further department, the “Goethe-Institut to continue the training of foreign German teachers” were set up as a further department. ^[8] From the beginning of the 1930s, the because of the Federal Foreign Office.

After 1933, they were politicized, adapted to the now required “ethnic” thoughts and organized the “driver’s principle” organizationally. The “Senate” was “cleaned” by unwanted members such as Konrad Adenauer, Max Liebermann and Thomas Mann. Thierfelder had to leave the academy at the end of 1937. ^[9] In 1934 Rudolf-Heß-Friend Karl Haushofer took over the presidency. ^[ten] His successor Leopold Kölbl, professor of geosciences at the Munich University and SA standard leader in 1939, had to resign from his office for the allegation of “fornication with men” and was punished for two years. SA and NSDAP deprived him of membership. ^[11] The old fighter and Bavarian NSDAP Prime Minister Ludwig Siebert took over his successor. ^[twelfth] which later the Himmler Protegé Walther Wüst and the Reich Commissioner for the occupied Netherlands Arthur Seyß-Inquart ^[13] followed.

Until the early 1940s, the Da was a banging apple in the cultural -political struggle between Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop, Heinrich Himmler’s research community German ancestry, Alfred Rosenberg and the Ministry of Propaganda, which ultimately won propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels. ^[14] In November 1941, the DA was converted into a corporation under public law by “leader”. ^[15] In the same year, President Siebert formulated the new orientation of the academy as a “weapon” in the worldview struggle:

The propaganda activity of the DA for the National Socialist state led to an extreme expansion of its activities for the National Socialist state. The annual budget grew from 550,000 Reichsmarks in 1939 to 9 million RM in 1944 and thus exceeded that of the renowned Prussian Academy of Sciences for 18 times, that of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences. The number of employees of the academy rose from less than 100 to around 1,000. 105 editing and around 250 language schools were operated in occupied, allied and neutral states. In 1942, about 64,000 listeners took part in language courses. In addition, the teaching materials published the teaching materials, according to a language primer for folk German members of the Wehrmacht and foreign volunteers of the Waffen-SS.

The war -related decline creeped. In April 1944, the Munich buildings were destroyed by bombing. 111 of the editors had been confiscated for military service, and others were hired to the Volkssturm at the end of 1944. In March 1945 the abroad was closed, in April 1945 the academy activities were stopped. ^[17]

After the end of the war, Thierfelder was appointed provisional general secretary in June 1945. However, the academy was dissolved by the US occupation power on December 31, 1945, as it was “operating Europe-wide propaganda and espionage center” ^[3] applied. In 1950 the “German Academy” was again registered in the Munich register of associations in order to ensure access to the considerable assets of the disintegrated institution. The money received on the comparison route from Bavaria was used in 1951 when the “Goethe Institute” (GI) was founded, in which Thierfelder was also involved.

In its initial phase, the “Goethe Institute” had a considerable personal continuity for its forerunner organization. Half of the subsequent certificate had previously worked for the DA, said the first GI President Kurt Magnus, as well as numerous employees as well as GI member of the board Richard Fehn, Dora Schulz and the later GI director Richard Wolf. ^[18] Thierfelder himself was on the board of the GI and until 1959 Secretary General of the Institute for Foreign Relations.

scientific literature:

• Christian Fuhrmeister: The art -historical seminar at the University of Munich and the section (German) of visual arts from the “German Academy for Scientific Care and Research in Germanism”. Connections, overlaps and differences . In: Elisabeth Kraus, ed.: The University of Munich in the Third Reich. Essays . Utz, Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-8316-0726-6 (contributions to the history of the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich, 4).
• Edgar Harvolk: Eichen branch and swastika. The German Academy in Munich (1924–1962) and its folklore section (= Munich contributions to folklore . Band 11 ). Münchner Association for Folklore, Munich 1990, ISBN 3-926844-10-8.
• Steffen R. Kathe: Cultural policy at all costs. The history of the Goethe Institute 1951 to 1990. Meidenbauer, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-89975-047-0 (at the same time: Trier, Univ., Diss., 2002).
• Eckard Michels: German as a world language? Franz Thierfelder, The German Academy in Munich and the Promotion of the German Language Abroad, 1923–1945 . In: German History . Band 22 , No. 2 , 2004, ISSN  0266-3554 , S. 206–228 (English).
• Eckard Michels: From the German Academy to the Goethe Institute. Language and foreign cultural policy 1923–1960 (= Studies on contemporary history . Band 70 ). Oldenbourg, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-486-57807-3. ( Full text digitally available ).

Original sources:

1. ↑ Christian Fuhrmeister: The art -historical seminar at the University of Munich and the section (German) of visual arts from the “German Academy for Scientific Care and Research in Germanism”. Connections, overlaps and differences . In: Elisabeth Kraus, ed.: The University of Munich in the Third Reich. Essays . Utz, Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-8316-0726-6, p. 176 ff. (Contributions to the history of the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich, 4)
2. ↑ Christian Fuhrmeister: The art -historical seminar at the University of Munich and the section (German) of visual arts from the “German Academy for Scientific Care and Research in Germanism”. Connections, overlaps and differences . In: Elisabeth Kraus (ed.): The University of Munich in the Third Reich. Essays . Munich 2008, p. 177.
3. ↑ ^{a b} Eckard Michels: German Academy, 1925-1945. In: Historical Lexicon of Bavaria. March 14, 2011, accessed on March 8, 2012 .
4. ↑ German academy . In: Cologne Volkszeitung , No. 108, February 10, 1925. German academy . In: Munich latest news , No. 120, 2. May 1925. Opening of the German Academy . In: Berliner Tageblatt , Nr. 211, 5. Mai 1925 (faksimile im hwwa).
5. ↑ The statutes of the German Academy (1925) . In: Messages from the Academy on Scientific Research and Care of Germanism , Issue 1/1924, pp. 35–40. (Reprint, PDF) in the Historical lexicon of Bavaria
6. ↑ Franz Thierfelder: Advertising for the German Spirit . In: Hamburg Correspondent Nr. 486 v. 16. Oktober 1928; The “German Academy” . In: Frankfurter Zeitung No. 786 v. October 20, 1928 (facsimile in the HWWA).
7. ↑ Kurt Düwell: Überepochale learning process. Away from propaganda, to language support: the Goethe Institute between 1932 and 1951. In: F.A.Z. , 5. September 2005. Annual conference of the German Academy . In: Frankfurter Zeitung No. 778 v. October 18 in 1929; Francs The Safety: German cultural advertising . In: Cologne newspaper , No. 590, October 27, 1930 (facsimile in the HWWA).
8. ↑ Foundation of a Goethe Institute of the German Academy for the further training of foreign German teachers in Munich. In: Messages from the Academy on Scientific Research and Care for Germanism , Heft 1/1932, S. 1–3. (PDF) in the Historical lexicon of Bavaria
9. ↑ Tammo Luther: People’s policy of the German Reich 1933–1938. Stuttgart 2004, S. 75, 142.
10. ↑ Change of president in the German Academy. In: National observer , No. 103, April 13, 1934 (facsimile in the HWWA).
11. ↑ Steffen R. Kathe: Cultural policy at all costs. Munich 2005, p. 75; Freddy suffered: The “merits” of a rector in the Third Reich – views about the geologist Leopold Kölbl in Munich. In: NTM. N.S. 11 (1) 2003, S. 34–46, Little.de (PDF; 929 kB)
12. ↑ Prime Minister Siebert President of the German Academy. In: German Allgemeine Zeitung March 25, 1939 (facsimile in the HWWA).
13. ↑ The mission of the German Academy. ( Memento from March 7, 2016 in Internet Archive ) In: Berliner Börsen-Zeitung , No. 41, February 12, 1944 (facsimile in the HWWA).
14. ↑ See also on the impact on personnel policy: Maximilian Schreiber: Walther Wüst . Munich 2007, pp. 197–202; Michael H. Kater: The “ancestor” of the SS 1935-1945. Munich, 4th ed. 2006, p. 281.
15. ↑ Decree of the guide on the German Academy. From November 15, 1941. In: Reichsgesetzblatt part I, No. 132 v. November 22, 1941, pp. 717–718. (PDF) in the Historical lexicon of Bavaria
16. ↑ Ludwig Siebert: Center of German humanities. In: People and the world , April 1941, S. 8–11. (PDF) in the Historical lexicon of Bavaria
17. ↑ Steffen R. Kathe: Cultural policy at all costs. Munich 2005, p. 73.
18. ↑ Steffen R. Kathe: Cultural policy at all costs. Munich 2005, p. 82 ff. Eckard Michels: From the German Academy to the Goethe Institute. Munich 2005, p. 239; Magnus In 1933, however, from his position in the Senate that was removed (see Michels 2005, p. 205).