Transnational Far Right and Nazi Soft Power in Eastern Europe: The Humboldt Fellowships for Romanians

Nationalist Politics, Nazi Soft Power, and the Foreign Students: An Overview

In their competition for cultural supremacy, especially in the context of imperial rivalry at the end of the nineteenth century, it was common for countries such as France and Germany to develop cultural diplomacy strategies in order to “export” their cultural products abroad. At the beginning of the twentieth century and particularly after the First World War, East-Central and South-Eastern Europe became a primary target of such strategies, with both France and Germany trying to transform it into their “cultural colony.” Consequently, contrary to the popular belief that the German Kulturpropaganda in this region was initiated by Nazi Germany, in fact soft power mechanisms of promoting German language and culture abroad existed before, and were a key element in the foreign policy of the Weimar Republic. It was in the 1920s that Germany developed a coherent policy regarding foreign students, establishing institutions meant to finance and support them and strategies for bringing them closer to German culture and higher education. The Nazi regime took over the already existing infrastructure and further politicized it, transforming it into an instrument of Nazi propaganda. ¹²

Student exchanges in particular were one of the most important propaganda mechanisms used by Nazi Germany in order to project its political and ideological “values.” The German authorities were thus trying to counteract the much stronger influence of other “big cultures,” such as the French or British/American. In other words, Nazi Germany wished to counteract what they considered the “negative propaganda” developed by Jewish circles from democratic Europe against Hitler’s Germany. The foreign students were carefully chosen and closely supervised, so that they would adopt and promote Nazi ideology:

Across all the great cultural countries, studying in another country is considered one of the most effective means of promoting political relationships with other peoples. Besides France, which is ahead of all other nations in this respect, countries such as England, the United States of America and, in particular, the new Italy are looking to attract students from other countries through the granting of very generous incentives. In Germany, the concept of foreigners coming to study has achieved a particular character of its own by seeking, first and foremost, to repel undesired and detrimental elements. However, there remain numerous groups of foreigners that it is considered well worthwhile attracting by any means possible in order to arouse their understanding and sympathy for Germany. This is entirely dependent on the success of introducing the foreign guests in an appropriate way to the German people and the essence of being German. To this end, it is absolutely essential that the foreigners are well looked after from the German side, but also that the guiding hand is not allowed to slip over time as greater academic freedom is progressively granted to the foreigners. ¹³

In order to fully benefit from the foreign students’ soft-power potential, the Nazi authorities used two types of mechanisms: a mechanism of preferential selection, according to Nazi ideological criteria, of the foreign students’ political orientation and their propaganda capacity; and a mechanism of instrumentalization of the students for the purpose of ideological transfer, which I discuss in detail in the following sections.

The issues discussed here need to be understood in the broader political and legal context affecting the field of education. The general tendency was to limit the number of students in German universities—through the “Law against Overcrowding the German Schools and Universities.” However, the Nazi authorities were simultaneously trying to attract as many foreign students as possible. However, not any kind of foreign students; these were divided into two broad categories: the welcome (erwünscht) and the unwelcome students (unerwünscht). Among the unwelcome were the Jews, considered to be “in a natural opposition to the new Germany,” and also the “foreigners who do not feel comfortable, nor should they feel comfortable in the new Germany,” in other words those who did not sympathize with the Nazi regime. ¹⁴

Immediately after Hitler’s rise to power, the Jewish students in Germany were victims of expulsion from German universities. The “Law against Overcrowding the German Schools and Universities,” adopted on 25 April 1933, restricted the number of students, mostly based on the racist criteria of “Aryan origin.” As a result, the percentage of “non-Aryans” admitted to German higher education was limited to 1.5 percent, whereas in the academic year 1930–1931, for example, Jews had represented 4.39 percent of the total number of students in German universities. ¹⁵ In addition, the law enforcement regulation stipulated that the first students to be eliminated were the non-Aryans who would soon be awarded their diplomas! ¹⁶ However, Jewish students did not suddenly disappear from German universities in 1933. The process of their complete elimination from German higher education went on for several years. Along with the aforementioned law, the German Reich also resorted to financial measures meant to discourage them from attending German universities: they could not receive scholarships or fee exemptions anymore; by 1937, they could no longer receive the title of doctor; and by 1938 “full Jews” (Volljuden) could not enrol as students in Germany. Only “half-Jews” (Mischlinge) were still admitted to the universities, but they had to use distinctive badges and certificates in order to be easily identifiable. ¹⁷ Starting in 1940, people having two Jewish grandparents could no longer enrol in any German higher education institution and those already having the status of students were isolated and subjected to bullying.

The politics toward Jewish students from other countries was far less coherent than that toward the Jewish students from the Reich. On the one hand, it was preferred that the foreign students be racially consistent with the Nazi ideology. On the other hand, in the context of a decreased percentage of foreign students at German universities after 1933, the Nazi regime made concessions in this respect, often allowing the enrolment of Jewish foreign students in its higher education institutions. Thus, in November 1938, the Minister of Science, Education and National Culture, Bernhard Rust, sent to the rector of the University of Munich a letter with the following content:

For cultural and political reasons, the study and formation of foreigners is of great interest [to us]. It will be supported by consistent German scholarships. I have to point out here that the Reich’s law on non-Aryans should not be applied to foreigners. It is wrong to ask from foreign scholars, whom we want, for cultural-political reasons, to educate in Germany, a certificate of Aryan or of descent as far back as the eighteenth century, according to the German regulations. Foreigners are not subject to German law and the questionnaires intended for German citizens can’t be addressed to them. ¹⁸

So different was the treatment of Jewish students who were German citizens from that of Jewish students who were citizens of other states that German Jews were even given the opportunity to renounce their German citizenship in order to receive the same treatment as Jewish students from abroad and to be tolerated in the German higher education system. ¹⁹ However, this permissive politics towards the foreign Jews did not last long. From January 1940, no foreign student was able to enrol in any German university without declaring the following: “I declare that I am not a Jew, I do not belong to the religious community of Jews and I am not married to a Jew.” ²⁰

Additionally, women, whether German or foreign, also became unwelcome in the Nazified universities. From the point of view of the Nazis, women were not supposed to be active in economic, social, political, or cultural life. They were considered to belong to the private sector and were intended to only raise children, support their husbands, and do household chores. In this context, they were not supposed to obtain higher education, nor to work. As a result, following the general trend in Nazi Germany, the number of foreign female students at German universities decreased, including that of female students from East-Central and South-Eastern Europe: for example, in 1931–1932, they made up almost 17 percent of the total number of students from this region, while in 1934–1935 that proportion decreased to just over 13 percent. ²¹

Moreover, the selection of foreign students was made less according to their intellectual or academic capacities, and more according to their political sympathies and their propaganda potential, since they were assigned with the task of publicly supporting Nazi Germany’s totalitarian and anti-Semitic politics against allegations made by the foreign media. For example, after Hitler’s rise to power and as a result of the concerns over the undemocratic regime in Germany, in the autumn of 1933, the DAAD, the Ministry of Education, and German universities asked foreign students to send letters to their parents and friends at home to inform them that things were going well in Germany and that they were safe there. ²² Even earlier, in April 1933, some foreign students in the Reich mobilized—or were mobilized—to defend Germany’s image abroad: a group of foreigners (including Romanians) studying at the University of Jena addressed an open letter to intellectuals from other countries. The letter was highly publicized in Germany, both in the print media and on the radio, and it denounced foreign propaganda as the cause of the drop in the number of foreign students, describing the atmosphere in the German universities after 30 January 1933 as being one of total freedom, peace, and order! ²³

Romania itself experienced a constant slide toward the far right during the interwar period, which began almost immediately after the end of the First World War. Romanian universities were the main places driving this change. ²⁴ During the interwar period, the Romanian university milieu was marked by constant outbursts of violence against Jews in general, and Jewish students in particular. There were requests for a numerus clausus against Jews as early as 1919, first at the University of Cluj, and later also among the nationalist students from Iași, Bucharest, and Czernowitz. ²⁵ The Jewish students from the Faculty of Medicine were particularly targeted, being prevented from taking part in laboratory work with corpses and in autopsies, but at the Law Faculties the nationalist students also imposed “ghetto-benches.” In addition, they were boycotting classes, preventing the access of Jewish students to courses, attacking Jews on the streets, vandalizing synagogues and Jewish homes, etc. ²⁶ Several nationalist and anti-Semitic student organizations were established, such as the National Union of Christian Students in Romania. Officially, the state and university authorities banned these types of student actions; informally though, they were tolerated, since the nationalist students were considered to be “patriots to the fullest possible extent.” ²⁷

Political movements and parties that were openly far right and anti-Semitic emerged. Universities were the main places for propaganda and recruitment for these parties, especially in their beginnings. ²⁸ In 1923, the fiercely anti-Semitic university professors A. C. Cuza and Nicolae Paulescu established the League of National-Christian Defence (LANC), a far-right political party made up mostly of students. In 1927 the Legion of the Archangel Michael was founded by young members of LANC, led by a former student from the University of Iași and godson of A. C. Cuza, Corneliu Zelea Codreanu. The Legion (also known as the Iron Guard) was an autochthonous, Christian Orthodox religious and mystical organization, having in common with the Nazi Party a fiercely nationalist and anti-Semitic ideology and using Nazi-like strict hierarchical organization, paramilitary actions, and propaganda. Although the Iron Guard was outlawed several times during the interwar period, it became an acceptable political partner for some Romanian “democratic” politicians and political parties toward the end of the 1930s, won 15.5 percent of the votes in the parliamentary elections of 1937, and even came to power for a short period of time between September 1940 and January 1941, forming together with Ion Antonescu the Romanian National-Legionary State. ²⁹

At the same time, the official position of the Romanian state changed from neutrality and sometimes reluctance toward the Third Reich in the early 1930s to developing strong economic relations with this country by the mid-1930s, culminating with Romania becoming Nazi Germany’s political and military ally during the Second World War. Moreover, harsh anti-Semitic legislation was passed by 1938, stripping most Romanian Jews of their citizenship, rendering them unable to perform their professions and, by 1940, preventing them completely from attending university. ³⁰ During the war, between 280,000 and 380,000 Jews—but also other categories, such as the Roma—became victims of the Holocaust, murdered during pogroms or deportations to former Soviet territories that came under Romanian control (Transnistria). ³¹

Student Exchanges between Nazi Germany and Romania

The student exchanges between Romania and Nazi Germany developed gradually, using various channels. At first, the Romanian authorities were reluctant to allow too many Romanians to study in the Third Reich, out of concern that this would lead to an escalation of the far right and of the already frequently violent anti-Semitic rampages in the Romanian universities. Until 1936, a student needed additional approval from the Romanian Ministry of Education in order to enrol in a Nazi university, since it was considered that “all students going to study in Germany are bound to attend Hitlerist courses there.” ³² In the case of the German minority in Romania, sometimes the authorities asked for reports from the police headquarters in their respective hometowns; if they were known as sympathizers of the Nazi regime (“Hitlerists”), they were denied student visas. ³³

Consequently, the first organized student exchanges (three very politicized summer schools) were the result of the collaboration between German institutions (DAAD), the National Union of Christian Students in Romania (an Orthodox student organization), and the Iron Guard. ³⁴ These semi-official summer schools were a project that took place over three summers: 1934, 1935, and 1937. A summer school designed to take place in 1933 did not happen because the Romanian students gave up their places in favour of Polish students; consequently, German students could not visit Romania either. ³⁵ The first summer school that actually happened was in 1934, in Leipzig; the second took place in București and Constanța during the summer of 1935; and in 1937 the last summer school of this kind took place at the Polytechnics in Timișoara.

As the German ambassador in Bucharest at that time, Friedrich-Werner von Schulenburg, noted, these student exchanges were important “because it is an outstanding opportunity to gain influence over the Romanian academic youth and to bring them closer to the new Germany.” ³⁶ Thus, their program was highly politicized: while the Romanian students attended lectures on German language and culture, which were in fact propaganda courses that promoted Nazi politics and ideology, the German students were touring Romania, visiting legionary camps and even meeting the “Captain” of the Legion, Corneliu Zelea Codreanu. ³⁷

The selection of the participants was also made based on strategic political and propagandistic criteria. The German youth was highly Nazified after 1933 and their purpose during the visits to Romania was to convert their Romanian peers to the far right and to convince them to use their political potential in order to transform Romania in a nationalist, anti-Semitic way, based on the Nazi model. The Romanian participants, on the other hand, were deliberately chosen because they were either sympathizers of the Nazi regime or members of Romanian far-right organizations. At the summer school in Leipzig in 1934, for example, it was arranged that two-thirds of the Romanian participants were to be members of the Legionary Movement: “in establishing the list of participants, the leadership of the Iron Guard instructed the Union [National Union of Christian Students in Romania] to give the appearance of a list with independent character, and for that purpose 20 students will be Legionnaires, chosen from the chiefs of nests and of Legionnaire groups, and the remaining 10 won’t be members of the Guard, but will be supporters of this organization.” ³⁸ Also in the case of the participants to the 1937 summer school, organized at the Polytechnics in Timişoara, the reports stated that “the overwhelming majority of the local students stand on the side of the Romanian right-wing parties and feel some sympathy for the Germany of today.” ³⁹ It is thus clear that the aim of these summer schools was to create German-Romanian networks of far-right youth, composed of German Nazi students and Romanian nationalist and anti-Semitic students, many of them members of Romanian far-right organizations.

Another student exchange took place during the summer of 1936, organized by the Romanian-German Academic Association, an institution established in Bucharest in 1935 by a former Romanian student at the University of Leipzig, which stated in its status that it “consists of students and holders of academic titles, except Jews.” ⁴⁰ While twenty-five young Germans visited Romania for a period of two months, twenty-five Romanian students were visiting the Third Reich. In addition to attending the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin, the Romanians took Nazi propaganda courses on topics such as labour camps, German youth and students’ forms of organization, racism and eugenics courses, etc. As a result, the Romanian students participating in this exchange declared themselves impressed by the Nazi youth: “I have seen how successfully an entire generation has been taught to love its country and to fully subordinate its goals to the German nation.” When the German students came to Romania, one of their activities was to visit Corneliu Zelea Codreanu in the Carmen Sylva work camp. ⁴¹

These politicized student exchanges were part of the transnational fascist networks supported by the Third Reich, which presupposed a two-way transfer, even if an asymmetrical one. However, the Nazis had clear, one-directional propaganda goals regarding this region. In order to be able to achieve the desired political influence and ideological transfer, the student exchanges had to occur on a much larger scale, and thus needed the support of the Romanian authorities. As the Nazis observed during the 1935 summer school, the Legionary Movement and the Union of Christian Students “are not on good terms with the government of the day.” ⁴² Consequently, by 1935, the Third Reich’s authorities had already changed their strategy regarding the Romanian students: instead of investing in limited summer schools that did not enjoy the support of the Romanian authorities, they decided to develop official, mass student exchanges, at state level, between Germany and Romania.

The official student exchanges, supported by both states, were the result of Romania growing economically and politically closer to Nazi Germany during the second half of the 1930s, as a consequence of Romania’s need to export its grains—for which Germany was the main market at that moment—but also because of potential security threats and territorial claims from Hungary or the Soviet Union. ⁴³ The student exchanges were initiated in 1935 through a German-Romanian agreement, which stipulated that the Third Reich had to offer German currency at preferential price (the so-called advantageous currency) to at least 650 Romanian students to study in Nazi Germany. ⁴⁴ This agreement led to a considerable increase in the number of Romanian students enrolled in Nazi Germany’s universities. In 1934 and 1935, there were three to four hundred Romanian students per year in Germany, and by 1937 the number of Romanian students in the Third Reich already exceeded the number of 650 established by the 1935 agreement (e.g., there were 760 in 1937, 914 in 1940–1941, and more than 1000 in 1941–1942). ⁴⁵ This clause was followed by other agreements designed to facilitate student exchanges, culminating with the signing, on 7 November 1942, of the Convention of Cultural Collaboration between the two countries, which also highlighted the importance conferred by the Nazi propaganda machine to the student exchanges. Consequently, whereas France had traditionally been the preferred study destination for most Romanians, after 1936 Germany started to lead in this respect, with approximately 60 percent of the Romanian students abroad studying in the Reich, and more than 90 percent after 1940. ⁴⁶

The increase in the number of German scholarships and fellowships was also a sign of Nazi Germany’s increased interest in East-Central and South-Eastern Europe, and Romania in particular, and in the soft power potential of its students. Thus, for example, out of the approximately six hundred scholarships offered annually by the DAAD to students from more than fifty countries, most of them were awarded to people from this region: “We will consider first the countries of Southeast Europe, then the Far East, South America, the Near East, and Scandinavia.” ⁴⁷ Consequently, the fellowship schemes (most of them offered by the DAAD, Mitteleuropäischer Wirtschaftstag, and the Humboldt Foundation) established between Romania and Nazi Germany became much more intense and highly politicized after 1933. The Mitteleuropäischer Wirtschaftstag fellowships, for example, were dedicated exclusively to South-East European students, and limited to those studying technical or medical disciplines, economics, agriculture, and forestry. Nevertheless, their declared aim was “to promote Germany from an economic-political and cultural-political point of view in Southeast Europe.” ⁴⁸

Between 1936 and 1940, more than eighty ethnic Romanians (the scheme was dedicated explicitly only to students belonging to the majority population in their country; thus, the fellowships for Romania were only granted to ethnic Romanians) benefited from a Mitteleuropäischer Wirtschaftstag fellowship. All fellows were men; in addition to attending universities, they were also bound to work or be active in the German–Romanian collaboration institutions, and they needed to prove not only professional achievements but also an interest in politics. The application file of a Romanian applying for a German scholarship or fellowship contained the application form, a curriculum vitae, a German language certificate, matriculation sheets and diplomas, as well as letters of recommendation from professors or personalities of public life. The latter especially weighed heavily and confirmed the professional, but also the political potential, of the applicant. This explains why some applicants included in their applications references from professors who either had far-right sympathies or were enrolled in the Legionary Movement.

For example, in 1938, when applying for a Mitteleuropäische Wirtschaftstag stipend, the student Constantin Baca presented a reference letter from Grigore Manoilescu, a well-known member of the Iron Guard, editor in chief of the legionary newspaper Buna Vestire (The Annunciation), and later director of the Romanian Institute in Berlin, a propaganda institution where the majority of the employees and collaborators were either members or supporters of the Legionary Movement. ⁴⁹ Consequently, Baca received the scholarship since Manoilescu “is closely aligned ideologically to the Third Reich” ⁵⁰ and since the applicant himself was a member of the Iron Guard, as he mentioned in the cover letter:

This scholarship would be of great value to me, because the activity of our Legionary Movement, whose member I am, is today closely linked with the politics of the Reich, and more so would be useful for me to spend this time as a student in the new Germany. This all the more so as our Captain himself advised us to develop also our professional skills. As a student, I always participated in the national struggle, I was elected vice-president of the students of the Academy of Commerce and I was active in the organization of the Christian students, under the leadership of Prof. Manoilescu. ⁵¹

The Humboldt Fellowships during 1933–1945

As the documents show, no other fellowship scheme was as politicized and devoted to the aims of Nazi propaganda as the Humboldt fellowships for foreigners. Founded in 1925, the Humboldt foundation was, during the interwar period—and continues to be since its reopening in 1953—the institution offering the most prestigious German fellowships to foreign scholars. It financially and logistically supported graduates and postgraduates from virtually every country (from Asia, Africa, and Australia to Europe, the Middle East, and the entire American continent) to study and research in Germany for a minimum period of ten months. Most of the fellowships went to young researchers in the humanities, although there were also cases of fellows specializing in natural sciences, technical disciplines, or arts. The fellowships were not only prestigious but also generous, and the fellows were exempted from paying university fees. The money came from various German public sources, most notably from the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs. ⁵²

During the first years of the Foundation’s existence—more precisely 1925–1933—the fellowships went primarily to young people from East-Central and South-Eastern Europe (almost 30 percent), Scandinavia (approximately 10 percent), India and the Far East (more than 10 percent), but also to students from the USA (7 percent), Benelux (8 percent), and the Baltic states (6 percent). ⁵³ Within East-Central and South-Eastern Europe, the majority of the students came from Bulgaria and Yugoslavia, while the Polish students were mostly unsuccessful, although they did apply. While there were no clear regulations and quotas to determine the country of origin of the fellows, ⁵⁴ the fellowships were awarded to young people from specific countries, according to the political-cultural interests of the Weimar Republic. ⁵⁵

After 1933, awards of the Humboldt fellowships followed the patterns already established during the previous period. ⁵⁶ The trend of awarding the fellowships to students from East-Central and South-Eastern Europe became even more pronounced, since it was coherent with Nazi Germany’s new foreign policy and soft power strategies, which focused even more heavily on this region. Consequently, the Bulgarians, for example, received the most Humboldt fellowships both before and after 1933. However, while between 1925 and 1933, fifty-three Bulgarians were awarded the fellowship, in 1934–1939 there were 170 stipends awarded to them (this also includes the Mitteleuropäischer Wirtschaftstag fellowships). ⁵⁷ The same trend is visible in the case of the Yugoslav students—from twenty-two fellowships until 1933 to ninety-seven in the first six years of the Nazi regime. The numbers of Hungarian fellows, who were the sixth largest national group to receive the support of the Foundation (after Bulgarians, North Americans, Indians, Yugoslavs, and Turks before 1933; after Bulgarians, Greeks, Yugoslavs, Indians, and Chinese after 1933), were similar: There were twenty-one Hungarian recipients before 1933 and seventy-five between 1934 and 1939. ⁵⁸

In spite of the preference given by the Foundation to researchers from East-Central and South-Eastern Europe, in the period 1925–1933 not many Romanians received this type of financial support. Before 1933, Romanians were not among the national groups to receive substantial support from the Foundation. The number of fellowships for Romanian researchers increased in direct proportion with Nazi Germany’s interest in imposing its economic and political hegemony in this country. Consequently, after 1933 the number of Romanian fellows increased exponentially; the closer the two countries got (especially after the signing of the 1939 economic agreement, and in parallel with Romania’s radicalization toward the far right), the larger the number of the Romanian Humboldt fellows: four fellows in 1934–1935, six for each of the academic years 1935–1936, 1936–1937, and 1937–1938, seven in 1938–1939, and already ten in 1939–1940. ⁵⁹ Moreover, after Hitler’s rise to power in Germany, they made it to the top: between 1933 and 1939, the Romanians were occupying the seventh place among the national groups receiving most Humboldt and Mitteleuropäischer Wirtschaftstag fellowships (seventy-one). ⁶⁰ In 1934, for example, when recommending Ștefan Zisulescu for a Humboldt fellowship, the German ambassador in Bucharest stated that offering German financial support to Romanians was in the interest of Nazi Germany, especially since one of the aims of the Nazi cultural propaganda was to counteract French influence: “In view of the intensive propaganda activity led by France through large funds offered to Romanian universities, it is urgently necessary to exploit every possibility in order to keep the contact between German and Romanian science.” ⁶¹

By 1941, however, Romania was one of the countries benefitting most from Nazi Germany’s economic, political, and cultural interest, as a result of Romania’s political and military alliance with Nazi Germany, and also because of the new political regime—Ion Antonescu’s far-right, military dictatorship. Consequently, Bucharest was the capital where the Nazis opened the first of a network of German Scientific Institutes (Deutsche Wissenschaftliche Institut) that served as Nazi propaganda institutions throughout occupied Europe. ⁶² Prior to 1941, the German legations and embassies provided a first set of recommendations for the future Humboldt fellows. This task was later assumed in various European countries by the German Scientific Institutes. In this context, and taking into consideration that by 1941 more than 40 percent of the Humboldt fellowships went to people from East-Central and South-Eastern Europe, ⁶³ the Romanians became the second largest national group to receive the DAAD and Humboldt fellowships (after the Bulgarians).

The Humboldt Fellowships as Propaganda Instrument

As in the case of Nazi Germany’s foreign student profile, the profile of the Humboldt fellows changed in order to fit the Nazi ideology and the Third Reich’s propaganda purposes. Unofficially, after 1933 Jewish students could not become Humboldt fellows anymore. When instructing the German authorities from Bucharest about the awarding of the fellowship, the clerks from the Foundation gave the following advice: “It is requested to discourage the applicants with Jewish blood . . . from submitting the scholarship request in a suitable form, such as mentioning to them the already large number of applications.” ⁶⁴

The chances of women receiving the fellowship also decreased. As a consequence, although some very promising young Romanian female intellectuals applied for a Humboldt fellowship, not even one was successful. In 1938 for example, Alexandrina Madgearu, the granddaughter of the politician, economist, and sociologist Virgil Madgearu, was refused the Foundation’s financial support, with the following comment: “in principle it doesn’t seem appropriate to consider female students because they won’t practice their profession but, instead, they will marry. In the end, for them it is only a pleasant stay abroad,” and because she was considered “self-opinionated, quarrelsome, and a fashion doll.” ⁶⁵ In her particular case, one undisclosed reason could have been the politics of her grandfather, member of the National Peasant Party and an overt anti-Nazi. But there are other examples of female applicants rejected because of their gender, in spite of their excellent professional qualifications. Also in 1938, Alice Botez, a student in philosophy at the time who later became a famous Romanian writer, applied for a Humboldt fellowship and included in her file a recommendation from professor Nae Ionescu, who was not only a promoter and collaborator of the Legionary Movement, but also very appreciated by the Germans. Even if such a recommendation would have normally ensured the success of the application, in her case the result of the selection committee was negative, stating in their decision: “At this point we want to restate that we fundamentally oppose the granting of scholarships to female students, and would only agree to break this principle if it came to a woman who could dominate, both in terms of character and expertise, their male colleagues.” ⁶⁶ This explains why all Romanian Humboldt fellows between 1933 and 1945 were men.

In addition to being non-Jewish and male, the successful candidates had to certify their political and ideological profile, and were selected according to their propaganda potential: “we will consider only those candidates who, based on their professional qualifications and political options, can do something positive for a German-Romanian cooperation.” The selection committee chose only persons who were “highly qualified, already famous in their field of study, and promising future personalities in their home country” and who were able to “quickly adjust in Germany and not only train themselves in their actual academic formation, but also initiate lasting friendships with Germans.” ⁶⁷ In order to certify their political potential, various aspects were taken into consideration: the applicants’ CV and their past political and intellectual activity; the recommendations they received from intellectuals who were close to either Nazi cultural milieus or to the far-right movements in their country; and their cover letters, in which they stated their attachment to German culture and, in some cases, to the Nazi regime and ideology.

Emil Cioran, for example, in his cover letter sent to the Foundation in 1933, stated that “the Romanian culture could only be saved by its orientation toward the German culture.” ⁶⁸ Ironically, after receiving a two-year Humboldt fellowship, he ended up in Paris, where he remained for the rest of his life; this case highlights the difficulties in distinguishing the fellows’ remarks made out of conviction from those that were the result of opportunistic calculations.

When Dumitru Cristian Amzăr received the Humboldt fellowship in 1938, this was not only because he was a member of the Gusti School and thus had a strong social and professional potential; he was also a member of the Legionary Movement. Together with Ernest Bernea, Ion Ionică, and I. Samarineanu, he was part of the legionary nest “Axa.” He formed a dissident legionary group within the Bucharest School of Sociology and produced, over a period of three years, a pro-legionary magazine, Rânduiala [The Order]. Another recipient of the fellowship in 1939–1940, Romulus Stănculescu, did not have many professional achievements to be proud of, nor did he advance professionally afterwards; he was, however, a fierce anti-Semite, mentioned in 1928 in documents of the Romanian Ministry of Education as being among the students manifesting anti-Semitic violence. ⁶⁹

On the other hand, a certain Dumitru Enăchescu, who applied for a fellowship in 1937, received negative feedback, in spite of his positive professional profile, because of his lack of interest in politics:

Although there has otherwise been no negative feedback about the applicant to the fellowship, I do not believe it is appropriate to recommend Mr. Enăchescu for the stipend because he doesn’t show the slightest interest in national issues. In my opinion, preference should be given to those individuals who, in the process of acquiring specialised knowledge in order to get ahead in their homeland, also recognise the political and social achievements of the new Germany and will advocate for the understanding of these in their fatherland. ⁷⁰

Similarly, Mihai Isbășescu, who later became one of the greatest Romanian Germanists, did not receive the fellowship because “he shows no understanding at all for national and political questions, which, however, is to be considered a merit in the current situation in Romania,” although it was admitted that he “masters the German language so well that one forgets to see in him a non-German.” ⁷¹

As much as we can extrapolate from the scarce documentation still available, sometimes the Romanians receiving a Humboldt stipend were recommended by professors who were supporters of Nazi Germany or the Iron Guard. For example, many philosophers who received the fellowship were recommended by Nae Ionescu, professor at the University of Bucharest and ideologue of the Iron Guard, an autochthonist and Orthodoxist anti-Semite who was carrying out propaganda for the far right in his university courses. Another professor whose students were among the recipients of the Foundation’s financial support was the Germanist Ioan Sân-Georgiu, a close friend of the Germans. Moreover, Emil Cioran would have surely not received the stipend in 1933, when he applied after the deadline had passed, were it not for the intervention of Richard Csaki, a prominent German intellectual from Transylvania who relocated to the Third Reich after Hitler’s rise to power and became director of the German Foreign Institute in Stuttgart under the Nazi regime. ⁷²

The fellows were not only selected on propagandistic grounds, but propagandistic expectations were also invested in them. In 1934, Kurt Goepel, the executive director of the Foundation, expressed these expectations as follows: “Although for tactical reasons we can’t demand from the former fellows an open commitment to the political ideas of the new Germany, it may nevertheless be assumed and results from the content of the personal correspondence that the former fellowship holders transfer their sympathies for Germany also onto Nazi Germany and that they openly stand for Germany in their home country.” ⁷³ He was right: many of the former fellows, even those coming from traditional democracies, developed sympathies for the Third Reich, as one can note from their final reports. An astonishing testimony in this direction is provided by a fellow from England in 1934:

What I, as an Englishman, think about the German development in general and about various events in detail, is less important than the fact that I felt the atmosphere in which these events and this development were born, that I got to know their conditional prehistory and I gained thereby a deeper understanding. It was also the merit of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and its organization to have introduced us, the fellows, through word and in writing, into the world of ideas of the new Germany. Many things may have seemed strange and unrecognizable to us in the beginning, and they only appeared to us in a different light when we became acquainted with the peculiarity of the German nature and with the characteristics of the German post-war history. Raised and educated in the English liberal tradition, it was initially hard for me to grasp that Germans often find their freedom within an organization, working together with others for certain common ideals and goals. Therefore, we find many things in Germany as strange: I cannot agree with some, but I see that there is a sincere will, and therefore I try to look at German politics without bias. Precisely the necessity of this impartiality has always been emphasized to us, fellowship holders. I have reached now a point of view: the new Germany is here—we like it or not, we have to put up with it—but it is here and we have to deal with it. Therefore, I hope that England and also the rest of the world will realize that nothing could be gained by a lack of understanding, which would only lead to isolation.” ⁷⁴

A similar statement was given, that same year, by an American fellow:

After a longer stay in Germany, the foreigner must recognize in any case the pursuit of unity and the national rebirth of the Germans. Whether he agrees with the movement or not is not as important as learning to understand instead of simply rejecting everything. By trying to understand, the ability to grasp the new Germany arises, in a way. Abroad, it is not the duty of every foreigner to convince his own countrymen that everything in Germany is heavenly beautiful. You can’t claim that in any country. He should rather do his best to convince his listeners that the German people have a right to its life and its own development, and that it is not other countries’ business to intervene. Every country has the right to develop according to its own nature. It doesn’t demand favors from other countries, but only the attempt to understand the aims and values of the new Germany. ⁷⁵

The power of example that the totalitarian political regime of the Third Reich imparted on the Humboldt fellows was also visible in the final reports of the fellows, even in the first years after Hitler’s rise to power. A Chilean student wrote: “We had the opportunity to experience an awakening of a great people, that finds its expression in a strong cultural movement whose dimensions are not yet foreseeable today and from which we can extract valuable examples for our own countries.” The “new German way” impressed even young people from India: “I see and understand that one of the most important foundations of national-socialism is the daily and hourly practice of comradeship from person to person. This basic condition must be disseminated everywhere in the world. Of course, implemented differently in each country and people according to its nature and race.” A former fellow from Luxembourg stated: “I could see the situation with the eyes of the Germans. I have seen the situation in the same light as the Germans see it, which I could have never been able to do elsewhere. To put it short and conclusive, I gained understanding for the Germans and for Germany.” ⁷⁶

Far-Right Activism and Transfer of Ideology: The Romanian Humboldt Fellows

The evidence quoted above proves, beyond doubt, that the Alexander von Humboldt fellowships were instrumental in the transfer of fascist ideology and anti-Semitism from Nazi Germany to other countries. But how can we assess this transfer in the case of Romania, since most of the documents produced by the selection procedure for the Humboldt fellowships were destroyed during the war, when the DAAD office was bombed?

The impact the fellowships had on the dissemination of far-right ideology and on the political formation and professional development of the Romanian fellows can be convincingly inferred in various ways: from the selection process described above, through the fellows’ attitudes during their stay in Germany (as proven by the reports sent to the Foundation), to the way they practiced their professions afterwards.

Either out of conviction or out of opportunism, in order to receive an extension of the fellowship, the Romanian awardees fulfilled the role assigned to them by the Nazis. When the Foundation decided to extend Victor Pavelescu’s stipend for another year, they argued that Pavelescu wrote two books, one on “the impact of German philosophy on contemporary Romanian thought,” and that “he was actively and fruitfully involved in German-foreign debates in the Humboldt-Haus, showed a very convincing loyalty and gratitude, and will certainly be very useful later in Romania.” ⁷⁷

In awarding Emil Cioran the Humboldt stipend in 1933–1934, and then an extension the following year, the Foundation seemed to treasure his attachment to Nazi Germany, in addition to his academic activity: “In addition to study, C[ioran] took an active part in the daily life of the Foundation, gave presentations and outstanding reports, and tried in every way to understand the spiritual principles of the new Germany. There is no doubt that he managed to understand this issue more profoundly than the majority of the foreign students. As a representative in Berlin of the press organ of the Iron Guard, he was able to present also in the periodicals in his home country the developments in Germany.” ⁷⁸ It is not clear which periodical is the one mentioned in the Foundation’s report, but after arriving in Nazi Germany in the autumn of 1933, Cioran started sending back to Romania articles praising Germany’s new political regime and taking an apologetic stance toward Nazi violence, which were published in the journal Vremea [The Times]. ⁷⁹

Moreover, that same year he wrote to a friend in Romania: “Only a dictatorship can impress me now. People don’t deserve freedom. And I sadly think that people like you and others are wasting their time, by making the apology of a democracy which, in Romania, couldn’t lead to anything.” ⁸⁰ Consequently, Cioran became a member of the Legionary Movement and, for a while, pleaded that Romania should follow the German political path. After completing the first year of his fellowship, Cioran wrote to his sponsors:

In addition, I gathered material for a study that aims to address the issue of young nations. Since I intend, in the coming years, to write a book about the meaning of a national revolution in Romania, I have studied the work of Möller van den Bruck in order to discover, in a general sense, the same issue applied to the size of a large culture. From this perspective, there would be much to say about today’s Germany and about the example it gives us, representatives of rising nations. As far as I’m concerned, today’s Germany represents the awareness of politics’ true meaning and the abandonment of all prejudices and idols of our politics. Germany means to me the courage to be yourself. And because for us in Romania falsity encroaches upon our nature, the German example can be very useful, and Germany can represent an experience.” ⁸¹

In 1936 Cioran published, indeed, a book entitled Schimbarea la față a României (Romania’s Transfiguration), ⁸² even if its contents were not quite as political as the Nazi authorities might have hoped for.

Constantin Săndulescu-Godeni received the financial support of the Foundation for three academic years, from 1934 to 1937, which was something very rare. Not even the most brilliant fellows dared to hope for such a long stipend. But Săndulescu-Godeni was not only clever and hard working—publishing several books by 1940, although less known today—he was also, as the Germans noted, “an enthusiastic National-Socialist” and “showed strong political interests. He wants to pursue in his home country a scientific, journalistic, and political career.” ⁸³ In return, the Romanian fellow offered the Nazi authorities precisely what they wanted: loyalty to Nazi Germany and attachment to the far right. In one of his reports to the Foundation, Săndulescu-Godeni wrote:

As I studied earlier in Berlin, I knew well the political situation before the revolution: the economic crisis, the terrible unemployment, the communist danger, and the fierce struggle between the many small parties brought Germany to the edge of the abyss, and it could look into the future only with great concern. From the first days of my arrival, I was amazed by the radical changes and the great progress determined by two years of National-Socialist government. Now I could fully convince myself how futile are those Jewish press releases, seeking at all costs to make the name of Germany seem despicable abroad. I noticed that it is something else to see for yourself the political situation in Germany than to stay abroad and to judge falsely from there the real situation of the Third Reich. Under the iron hand and the political wisdom of the Führer and Reich chancellor Adolf Hitler, the new Germany represents a unified disciplined whole. Through the destruction of Marxism, he managed to save civilization and world culture. All countries owe him gratitude. Therefore, Europe should look to Berlin with great confidence, because talking about an imperialist Germany belongs to the world of fable. In public manifestations, in lectures and explanations of all kind, the German leaders, especially Adolf Hitler, always express Germany’s true will for peace. ⁸⁴

Some of the Romanian philosophers who benefited from a Humboldt fellowship showed in their philosophical works concern with the “national specificities” and spiritual future of their home country, inspired by Herder’s philosophy and strongly influenced by Martin Heidegger, professor at the University of Freiburg during the Third Reich. Ovidiu Papadima, for example, a Humboldt stipend recipient between 1938 and 1941, wrote about the “Romanian vision of the world,” ⁸⁵ a work that combined metaphysics, folklore, and nationalism in order to create an optimistic image of the country. Emil Cioran, in his “Transfiguration of Romania,” was also preoccupied with depicting the characteristics of the Romanian soul (although in a more pessimistic manner). Similarly, Dumitru Cristian Amzăr, who stayed in Germany after the war, founded in 1954 in Wiesbaden the association Frăția Ortodoxă (The Orthodox Brotherhood), which aimed to promote the religious works of Romanian writers such as Nae Ionescu and Nichifor Crainic (both former supporters and ideologists of the Iron Guard), and published, through his efforts alone, several issues of the journal “The Orthodox Brotherhood—Organ of Action for Orthodoxy and Romanianness.”

In order to be truly useful for Nazi propaganda, the Romanian Humboldt fellows had to occupy key positions in the Romanian academia or state apparatus. This explains the German interventions in favour of former Humboldt fellows. In 1937, for example, Ewald von Massow, the director of the DAAD, wrote to the German Legation in Bucharest, asking them to recommend Săndulescu-Godeni for a position at the Royal Foundation King Carol II, and the Legation addressed Constantin de Flondor, Marshal of the Royal Court, to this effect, although without success. ⁸⁶ Some of the Humboldt fellows also enjoyed the support of the Romanian authorities, especially given the political context and Romania’s orientation toward the Third Reich, which involved the need for diplomatic personnel who spoke German and had good connections in Nazi Germany. Consequently, during the war, four out of the ten lecturers of Romanian language in the Reich’s universities were former Humboldt stipend recipients: Iosif Matejka in München, Octavian Vuia in Freiburg, and Alexandru Dima and Ovidiu Papadima in Vienna. ⁸⁷ Vasile Tulescu also became an advisor at the Romanian Legation in Berlin, having been appointed to this position by the National-Legionary government.

Eventually, however, the conflict between Ion Antonescu and the Iron Guard shattered the prestige and influence of the Romanian former Humboldt fellows, as many of them were members or sympathizers of the Iron Guard, and thus distrusted by Antonescu after the Legionary rebellion of January 1941. In this context, Ovidiu Papadima, lecturer of Romanian language at the Academy of Commerce in Vienna, lost this position, while another former stipend recipient, Emil Cioran, who was recommended in 1941 by Sextil Pușcariu (director of the Romanian Institute in Berlin and rector of the Cluj/Sibiu University) for the post of Romanian lecturer at the University of Köln, was brutally rejected by the Romanian authorities because of his legionary activity. ⁸⁸

Conclusion

This article illustrates the various means used by Nazi Germany to transform foreign students into propaganda tools. My main focus was on students receiving financial support, as they were particularly dependent on the Nazi bureaucracy and interested in pleasing their financial and logistical sponsors in order to continue receiving a stipend. In addition, the prestige of the Humboldt fellowships meant that the fellows had important professional and political potential, thus rendering them even more important for the Nazi authorities. The Alexander von Humboldt Foundation’s activity was subordinated to the economic, political, and propaganda interests of the Third Reich, and the Humboldt fellowships played a role in the spread of anti-Semitism and far-right ideology, especially in East-Central and South-Eastern Europe. The case of the Romanian Humboldt fellows is relevant in this respect. Throughout the 1930s, the number of young Romanians pursuing their studies and research in Nazi Germany increased considerably, while the financial support they received from the Germans became more significant—including a greater number of Humboldt fellowships. This shows not only that Nazi Germany had a special interest in developing its relations with Romania, but also that Romania was embarked on a path of far-right radicalization, with students and youth becoming sympathizers of Nazi Germany and sometimes members of the Iron Guard.

The Romanian Humboldt fellows were politically instrumentalized by the Third Reich, which had both short-term and long-term results. In the short term, some of these fellowship holders became engaged in far-right political activism and sometimes even occupied various positions in the Romanian bureaucratic or diplomatic apparatus. In the long term, they were influenced by this experience in their professions and writings. For example, the philosophers Ovidiu Papadima, Octavian Vuia, and Dumitru Cristian Amzăr retained in their works a strong dose of nationalism, a search for “national authenticity” and “Romanianness”, with an inclination toward Orthodoxy. Even if they shared this with other Romanian philosophers who were neither Humboldt fellows, nor ever travelled to Nazi Germany, this type of writing can be linked to intellectual far-right milieus, and it is most probable that their long-term stays in the Third Reich and the influence of their German professors contributed to their vision of the world.

Moreover, some of them became part of professional and academic networks that sometimes continued to function after 1945 and were later reactivated by Nicolae Ceaușescu’s national-communism. This was once again the case with the nationalist philosophers who were Martin Heidegger’s students and devoted their works to searching for the positive characteristics of the Romanian “soul.” This type of work was, after 1965, in consensus with Ceaușescu’s aim of rewriting a triumphalist past, present, and future for Romania under his leadership, on the one hand, and opening toward West Germany on the other. This might explain how, for instance, young disciples of a philosopher like Constantin Noica, never a Humboldt fellow himself but a former student of Heidegger during the Third Reich and former Iron Guard supporter, managed, through his connections, to establish contacts in West Germany and receive Humboldt fellowships during the Cold War. ⁸⁹

The student exchanges and the fellowship schemes were only one part of the Nazi soft power strategies used to influence, politically and ideologically, the countries of East-Central and South-Eastern Europe, and Romania in particular. The case of the Humboldt fellowships is important not only because of their impact on youth radicalization and long-term consequences but also because it is one of the relatively few cases where there is adequate documentation to support an argument about the Nazi soft power in this region with persuasive historical evidence. However, the question of the far-right ideological transfer goes far beyond the student exchanges and involves other type of propaganda strategies used by the Nazis, as well as economic and foreign policy stimuli. Nevertheless, this specific case study proves that the university milieus in both Germany and Romania during the interwar period were radical and mainly oriented toward the far right; that possessing a far-right vision of the world and being active in such a direction was a precondition for achieving success in academia and in highly qualified professions; and that the academic youth in Europe at that time spoke a common language and shared common values, those of the far right, which enabled intense transnational collaboration and political and ideological transfer within the educational and university milieu.