Reply #63: A little knowledge is a dangerous thing: HARVARD accused of coddling NAZIs

[Octafish]

So here goes the case for more of a good thing in a democracy:

When Harvard played host to Hitler's right-hand man

Peter Conradi
IHT - Tuesday, November 30, 2004

LONDON -- It was one of the most controversial episodes in Harvard history. When Ernst Hanfstaengl, a close aide of Hitler who was the most senior Nazi to have set foot on U.S. soil, attended his 25th reunion at his alma mater on June 16, 1934, his visit reverberated far beyond Cambridge, Massachusetts.

The decision to let such a high-ranking representative of the fledgling Nazi regime join his former classmates made headlines in the East Coast press. From the moment Hanfstaengl's ship landed in New York harbor, his every movement was followed by news photographers, while his arrival at Harvard provoked noisy demonstrations and several arrests.

Seven decades later, the visit has come back to haunt Harvard. At a recent conference on the Holocaust at Boston University, the warm welcome extended to Hanfstaengl was cited by the historian Stephen Norwood as evidence of his charge that Harvard maintained friendly relationship with the Nazis in the mid-1930s. The old battles are set to be fought again.

SNIP (where this particular Nazi got out of Dodge)...

Yet it was as an unashamed anti-Semite and apologist for Hitler that Hanfstaengl took his place in the Harvard parade in 1934, despite one commentator's warning to the university that to welcome him was to endorse a man "whose fundamental activity consisted in organizing, abetting and defending persecution and violence."

Hanfstaengl had an enthusiastic champion in the youthful editors of the Harvard Crimson, the student newspaper. Hanfstaengl, it argued, should even be given an honorary degree "as a tribute to the position to which he has risen." Such a view was far from out of character. The Crimson had been strongly criticized by a student group that had held protests against Nazism and Fascism.

CONTINUED...

http://www.iht.com/articles/2004/11/29/news/edconradi.h...

"Harvard accused of coddling Nazis" was the headline in a Chicago Tribune article by Ron Grossman, since archived. In it, historian U of Oklahoma professor Stephen Norwood made clear Harvard wasn't alone in welcoming NAZI turds:

"Yale University, for example, entertained a delegation of Italian Fascists in 1934," Norwood said. "Columbia University hosted Nazi Germany's ambassador, who gave a speech defending Hitler's foreign policy."

Source:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-0411300178...

... and Octafish's print-outs.