Scholarship and the Swastika: The Politics of Research in Occupied Poland

At midday on November 6th, 1939, the academic staff of the University of Cracow assembled to hear a talk on the relationship between National Socialism and higher education. An SS officer strode to the dais and told them that since the academic year had begun without the permission of the authorities (he had ordered the meeting), and because it was 'well- known' that the lecturers were 'hostile' to German scholarship, all those present would be sent to concentration camps. He added, 'any discussion and any comment on this matter is forbidden. Whoever offers any resistance to my orders will be shot'. With their ranks swollen by twenty teachers from the Academy of Mines and two students who happened to be collecting degree certificates from the same building, 183 scholars were deported to Sachsenhausen. Although most of them were eventually released, thirteen died of malnutrition or misuse, and in their absence, equipment from the university's 130 or so institutes was pillaged by German academics and industrial concerns.