Wroclaw University took 80 long years to reconfer the stripped academic degree to the German Jews

After 80 years of severe perseverance, the Jews of Germany will receive their lost educational qualification that was removed by the Nazi Germans. Wroclaw University of Poland decided to do this justice to the German Jews who could not achieve their deserved titles because of the antagonistic behaviorof Nazi Germans.

Until 1945, Wroclaw was in the city of Breslau, Germany. Some historians say that the academic board members of the University of Wroclaw were in favour of denying the deserving titles to the Jewish candidates. Siegfied Fisher is one such victim of this incident. He is a famous professor of psychiatry and also fought for Germany in the war for which he holds an Iron Cross. In 1934, he was suspended forever from the University of Wroclaw because he was a Jew, The Telegraph reports.

There were about 262 victims of this act of anti-Semitism. “By the standards of Germany, Wroclaw University was at the forefront when it came to withdrawing titles: its senate was extremely zealous”, as told to a polish newspaper, Gazetta Wyborcza, by a German historian, Kai Kranich.  Another incident of withdrawing title can be seen in the case of Cardinal George Mundelein who was an archbishop of Chicago. In 1920, the doctorate degree that he received from the theological department of the University of Wroclaw was withdrawn from him in 1937. This happened when he described Hitler’s art as “bad wallpaper”.

The University of Wroclaw is located in the southwest part of Poland and is organising a felicitating ceremony where it will try to give justice by giving back the lost titles to the victimised German Jews. The proposed date for this ceremony is 22nd January 2015 and will be attended by the relatives of the victims and scholars from Poland and Germany.

Ian Harvey

Ian Harvey is one of the authors writing for WAR HISTORY ONLINE