Saturday, August 02, 2025
Excluding Jews
Howard writes that the Nazi purge of Jews from German universities “was not about excluding Jews per se but a broader attempt to control the generation and dissemination of knowledge that uniquely targeted Jews as part of a broader project.”
I think the passage was inartfully written (which is uncharacteristic of Howard). The Nazi program was very much about excluding Jews per se, not only from universities but also from schools at every level, as well as the professions and most other jobs, while also confiscating their property.
It would therefore be more accurate to say that the Nazi program was not exclusively about excluding Jews, as they had other plans for controlling education and information. So it is wrong to say that “target[ing] Jews was part of a broader project,” as though it was a secondary objective. If anything, the opposite was the case. Targeting Jews was actually the broader project, while controlling curriculums — which the Nazis called ridding them of Jewish influence — was the co-occurring part.
Posted by Steve Lubet on August 2, 2025 at 08:29 PM | Permalink
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