Munich University of Applied Sciences (THM)

Known as the Munich University of Applied Sciences (THM) since 1877, it had its origins in the Polytechnic School founded nine years earlier by King Ludwig II and, with an average of around 2,800 students at the beginning of the 20th century, was the largest of its kind in Germany, ahead of the Berlin-Charlottenburg University of Applied Sciences. Even more than general universities, universities of applied sciences had been dominated by men for many years. In 1941, the Munich University of Applied Sciences admitted its first woman to the faculty, who became its first female professor in 1946. At the beginning of the 1930s, the share of women students was around three percent.

Like the University of Munich, the Munich University of Applied Sciences was a site of political conflict after the First World War and especially towards the end of the Weimar Republic. Among the 14 people killed in the aftermath of the Hitler Putsch in November 1923 was a student and an employee of the University of Applied Sciences. There were also Hitler sympathizers among the faculty, such as the historian Richard Graf du Moulin-Eckart and the electrical engineer Kurt Heinke. Moreover, in the winter semester of 1930/31, the National Socialist Student Association, which had demanded and obtained a numerus clausus for Jewish students two years earlier, became the strongest faction in the General Student Committee (AStA) of the Munich University of Applied Sciences for the first time. In addition, Munich University of Applied Sciences’ rector Johann Ossanna tolerated and welcomed nationalist and ethnic-chauvinist agitation in lectures and celebrations, while forbidding pro-republican students, for example, to show a film about trade union work in early 1930. Although there were only five members of the Nazi Party out of a total of 138 university lecturers before 1933, the vast majority of politically organized professors were “on the conservative or right-wing spectrum” (Pabst, p. 227), while a left-wing counterbalance was completely absent.

After the seizure of power, seven professors were dismissed as ‘non-Aryans’ (Paul Busching, Arthur Cohen, Robert Emden, Heinrich Frankenburger, Leopold Jordan, Heinrich Rheinstrom, Guido Zerkowitz) and four others were dismissed for political reasons (Anton Fehr, Hans Raum, Karl Sachs, Kurt Trautwein) under the Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service. There were no appeals or solidarity actions by university lecturers. The architecture professor Robert Vorhoelzer was placed in preliminary retirement on August 1, 1935, not because of political unreliability, but because his style was labeled ‘art Bolshevism’, an ‘unartistic and un-German way of building’ (quoted in Pabst, vol. 1, p. 254). The sculptor Karl Knappe, who had been teaching sculpture since 1930, was dismissed in the autumn of 1933 because he was considered politically unreliable. The few professors who were critical of the Nazis, such as Christian Prinz (mechanical engineering), became the target of militant campaigns by the University of Applied Sciences’ student body, which agitated in an even more radical Nazi spirit than its counterpart at the University of Munich. Prinz fell ill under the increasing pressure of persecution and died in 1933. Civil engineer Heinrich Spangenberg was dismissed in 1935 for his dissident views and committed suicide in 1936 under the pressure of disciplinary proceedings against him. In 1937, two professors whose wives were of Jewish descent were forced to leave the Munich University of Applied Sciences.

The first ‘Leader Rector’ of the Munich University of Applied Sciences, Anton Schwaiger, although a reliable Nazi supporter, was soon regarded by the Ministry of Culture and the Party as too mild and not energetic enough. With the appointment of the chemist Albert W. Schmidt in 1935 and his successor, the civil engineer Lutz Pistor (November 1938 to 1945), the position of rector was assumed by equally convinced National Socialists and ambitious university lecturers who aimed to transform the Munich University of Applied Sciences into a model Nazi university. Pistor quickly established a number of new institutes, which were able to secure substantial government funding. He also successfully initiated and pursued an early ‘alumni policy’ by involving prominent former students or graduates of the Munich University of Applied Sciences, such as Fritz Todt or Hans Frank, in the life of the university.

As at other general universities and universities of applied sciences, there were also politically motivated appointments at the Munich University of Applied Sciences, although several non-party members who had distinguished themselves through their scientific achievements were also appointed to professorships and chairs. Although Nazi ideology did not permeate the general curriculum, it did permeate certain subjects taught at the Munich University of Applied Sciences, particularly agricultural science. A number of lectures supported the Nazis’ ‘blood and soil’ ideology and racial and settlement policies, and university lecturers were also very sympathetic to the Nazi state. As a result of the Four Year Plan, huge sums of money were spent not only on road building and aeronautical research, but also on oil and fuel research and metallurgy. Industrial associations and companies, such as those in the construction, electrical and automotive industries (Siemens and BMW), as well as industrial associations, eagerly and generously donated to the relevant departments and research facilities at the Munich University of Applied Sciences.

There were many career opportunities for graduates of the Munich University of Applied Sciences within the regime’s repressive apparatus: Some pursued careers in the SS, such as the former agricultural student Heinrich Himmler, who became its Reichsführer (Reich Leader), or became commanders of concentration camps, such as the qualified agronomist and first commandant of the Dachau Concentration Camp, Hilmar Wäckerle. Others worked in leading positions in SS-run research and experimental facilities and, like the civil engineer Xaver Dorsch, were involved in the ‘Organization Todt’, including its military command and the military disciplining of workers. Unlike at its local sister university, there was no open resistance to the regime at the Munich University of Applied Sciences, although there was isolated criticism occasionally or a tolerant atmosphere, such as that in the Institute of Organic Chemistry under Nobel laureate Hans Fischer.

With the outbreak of the war, the importance of the Munich University of Applied Sciences for the regime, the war economy and the military sciences skyrocketed and continued to grow throughout the war. Unlike most other German universities, the Munich University of Applied Sciences remained open throughout. Many institutes were recognized as ‘vital to the war effort’; the university was awarded the title of ‘model war institution’ and classified as a ‘Spezialbetrieb’ (special enterprise) by the Wehrmacht High Command. 26 institutes carried out secret and urgent research for ministries, the Wehrmacht and the SS as armaments operations, which is why Munich University of Applied Sciences staff were among the scientists sent back from the war front to the research front as part of the ‘Aktion Osenberg’ (Osenberg Action) in 1944.

After the war, as with other Bavarian universities, the denazification of the heavily bombed Munich University of Applied Sciences was initiated by the American occupation authorities. A ‘purge committee’ was supposed to vet the lecturers, while an ‘enrollment committee’ was supposed to handle this with new students. In the winter term of 1945/46, 73 of the 119 professors and lecturers were dismissed, although 31 of them were reinstated by 1953. Only ‘followers’ and ‘exonerated’ were considered for return to the university. However, almost all of the lecturers dismissed from the Munich University of Applied Sciences, many of whom were temporarily employed at the Oskar von Miller Polytechnic University or the Academy of Civil Engineering, and even active Nazis such as Lutz Pistor, were eventually classified as ‘followers’. As a result, the Munich University of Applied Sciences was rebuilt after the Second World War “with the cooperation of reformed 'followers'” (Pabst, Vol. 1, p. 364). Three of its rectors between 1950 and 1970 were former members of the Nazi Party.