Editor’s Note: Thomas Weber is professor of history and international affairs at the University of Aberdeen and author most recently of “Becoming Hitler: The Making of a Nazi” (Basic Books). He spent 7½ years at Harvard, the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, the University of Pennsylvania, and the University of Chicago. The opinions expressed in this commentary are his own; view more opinion at CNN.
When German Chancellor Angela Merkel delivers her commencement speech in May at Harvard University, a child of an Auschwitz survivor, Harvard President Lawrence Bacow, will sit right behind her. Yet Germany’s leader will also give her speech in a country in which four out of 10 people do not even know what Auschwitz is, or what happened there, according to a 2018 study. The figure for millennials is more shocking still.
Things are likely to get even worse than that, as most of America’s top universities have recently reduced or eliminated the resources devoted to teaching German history. We are facing the prospect of the next generation of American leaders talking about the Holocaust and the Third Reich without understanding it.
This is particularly troubling, as the emergence of Nazism in Germany and the genesis of the Holocaust have come to be seen, across the globe, as the quintessential example of how a nation can succumb to political radicalization and as an opportunity, for better or worse, to teach ethical thinking and citizenship.
At no time since the fall of the Berlin Wall has it been politically more urgent for Americans to engage with modern Germany. As liberty and open societies are under siege everywhere, the world cannot afford for the United States and Europe’s powerhouse to grow apart from each other. And yet, the study of Germany is on life support at many of the top institutions of American academia.
In the mid-2000s, when I spent almost half a decade in American academia, the United States was still a vital venue for studying the tumultuous history and present of Germany. At the time, the 10 American universities regularly topping university rankings – Harvard, Stanford, Berkeley, Princeton, Columbia, Chicago, Yale, the University of Pennsylvania, Duke, and Brown – all had senior Germanists on the faculty of their history departments.
By the time I was back in America for three years in the middle of this decade, things had started to change. The generation of those who had spent their lives dedicated to studying Germany was dying. And the legacy of the 45 million deutschmark ($27 million) gift to Harvard, Georgetown, and Berkeley – dating back to the 1990 Harvard commencement speech of then-German Chancellor Helmut Kohl – was rapidly evaporating in front of my eyes.
As of this coming summer, only three of America’s 10 most prestigious universities will still employ senior Germanists (a full or senior professor of German history) on the faculty of their history departments. The corresponding number for political science and government departments is just as small. While other colleges and universities no doubt still have German scholars, their numbers are also likely declining.
The disappearing American academic engagement with Germany is likely to have dire consequences for both America and Germany.
This is because we are witnessing phenomena around the globe similar to those that destroyed the fabric of liberal democracy in pre-1933 Germany. Strongmen and illiberal democracies are on the rise everywhere, from the Philippines to Hungary and Venezuela. Anti-Semitism is alive in places where it was long believed extinct. The fabric of liberty and democracy is disintegrating almost everywhere. And a US president describes the media as “the enemy of the people” and calls for “retribution” against comedians.
How is it possible that at a time like this, universities training people, including many destined for public service, are giving up on studying the road that led Germany to democratic breakdown and ultimately to the death camp at Auschwitz?
How is it possible that at a time in which the world needs Europe and North America to stand shoulder to shoulder, as open societies and liberty are under assault around the globe, American and German leaders barely still know how to deal with each other?
As the standoff between Vice President Mike Pence and Angela Merkel at the recent Munich Security Conference or President Trump’s repeated complaints about Germany indicate, mutual American-German incomprehension is at an all-time post-1940s high. All this will not go away once Donald Trump has moved on.
Trans-Atlantic trouble has been brewing for years, as evident in the German-American fallout over the Iraq War and the National Security Agency’s activities in Europe during the tenures of Trump’s two predecessors. Worryingly, most Americans are unaware of the dire straits in which the American-German relationship finds itself. Unlike the President, who has been critical of Germany all his adult life, the dominant American mood toward Germany is one of benign ignorance.
Quite possibly as a consequence of the disappearing engagement with Germany in the United States, seven out of 10 Americans believe that relations with Germany are in good shape, according to a survey by Pew Research Center. Meanwhile, almost three-quarters of Germans state the exact opposite in a study conducted in Germany. Similarly, 70% of Americans desire even closer cooperation with Germany, while a majority of Germans favors less cooperation with United States, all the while supporting closer cooperation with Russia and China. It is little surprise then that Germans fear Donald Trump more than they do Russian leader Vladimir Putin.
Americans and Europeans would be deluding themselves if they believe they can go their separate ways and still succeed in shaping a world that both would wish to live in. Authoritarian aggressors, illiberalism, and poverty will flourish in a world of German-American mutual incomprehension. Ungoverned spaces of the kind we have grown familiar with in Syria and east Africa, banditry, and piracy will spread unless Europe and North America are willing to act hand in hand.
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In short, unless Americans training for public service are re-engaging with Germany and unless trans-Atlantic bridges are being rebuilt, both sides will lose out. Yet this will only be possible, if the dramatically rising mutual incomprehension is tackled. Merkel would thus be well advised to announce an initiative in her Harvard speech aimed at reviving American engagement with the nation at the heart of Europe.
If Merkel were to announce an initiative aimed at training the next generation of American leaders and thinkers, an investment of just $50 million – slightly less than Kohl pledged in 1990 when adjusted for inflation – it would be enough to endow chairs at America’s 10 most prestigious universities. With that, American academic engagement with Germany would be secured in perpetuity.
The emergence of a new generation of leaders and academics ignorant of America’s most important European partner and of the darkest chapters of the 20th century would thus be prevented, as the world once again stands at the crossroads. And in announcing a new initiative of this kind, Merkel would signal a powerful commitment to close trans-Atlantic relations at a time in which the United States and Germany need each other more than they have for many, many years.
Author’s note: The statistics of senior German scholars teaching at the universities in question are based on my professional knowledge, backed up by input from colleagues and the information provided on departmental websites. America’s 10 most prestigious universities as described in this article are defined as those topping the Shanghai 500, Times Higher, QS, Business Insider, Forbes, and U.S. News & World rankings as well as a ranking by entry acceptance rates. Institutes of technology and liberal arts colleges are excluded, as are intellectual historians.
