The role of the Geschwister-Scholl-Institut
In a country still beset with memories of National Socialist atrocities, the siblings Hans and Sophie Scholl rank alongside Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Oscar Schindler and Count Claus Schenk von Stauffenberg as welcome standard-bearers of German resistance in an otherwise bleak landscape of acceptance and compliance. In 1942, Hans Scholl and a fellow student at the University of Munich founded a group called the “White Rose,” which sought to offer passive resistance to fascism and other forms of totalitarian rule. His sister, two further students and one of their professors formed the group’s nucleus. Over a period of roughly one year, from early 1942 to February 1943, they published and distributed six pamphlets in Munich, exhorting their fellow students to exercise their free will in the fight against the spiritual and moral corruption of National Socialism. Their cries fell on largely deaf, not to say antagonistic ears. Hans and Sophie Scholl were arrested by the Gestapo after distributing leaflets in the university entrance hall. Along with their four associates, they were speedily tried and executed. The efforts of the Royal Air Force, which dropped copies of their sixth pamphlet over Germany in July 1943, saved their names and efforts from oblivion during the Nazi era. The Munich institute that now bears their name for posterity is the modern successor to a long-standing Bavarian academic institution. The first Bavarian university was founded in Ingolstadt in 1472 and later moved to Munich. Since that time it has focused on the importance of historical and administrative studies—the forerunners of today’s political sciences. Over the centuries, the University survived the vagaries of various Bavarian rulers as an institute notable for its brilliant albeit often conservative historians and lawyers with a tradition of high-level debate and political publications. As a counterpoint to historico-administrative studies, which emphasized the role of state and government, the last years of the 19th century were characterized in particular by the birth of sociology and the consideration of the individual’s situation in society. Only the National Socialists, for whom any form of intellectual debate on individual and state matters was necessarily anathema, were able almost completely to sever this tradition. Almost, but not quite. In their efforts to combat the moral turpitude of totalitarian rule, the students of the “White Rose” linked the University’s past with a very uncertain future. It was with good reason that the Munich Institute for Political Sciences, initially founded in 1958, was renamed the Geschwister-Scholl-Institut für Politische Wissenschaft der Universität München in the seminal year of the 1968 student uprisings: the Scholl name stands for a youthfully vigorous and courageous assertion of political rights and responsibilities that are essential in a working democracy. Many of the postwar generation of political scientists employed at the Institute survived the war as emigrants in the United States. The particularly Anglo-Saxon tradition of constitutional politics as well as Bavaria’s postwar American occupiers, keen to “re-educate” Germans as good democrats, inspired the growth of an institute that has become known on both sides of the Atlantic. It is famous for its wide-ranging and liberal approach to political sciences based on the instruction of political theory, political systems and international politics. Initially well endowed with funds and staff, it rapidly became a flagship of German academic excellence and remained so for over 30 years. The study of Third-World or ecology-related issues, as well as the recent introduction of a European Union Studies Certificate taught via electronic learning in Munich and Georgia, USA, ensured that the Institute kept pace with contemporary developments at both a political and technological level. However, popularity has its downside. Matriculation has increased steadily from 1975, when it totaled 633, to the current number of nearly 3,000 students crowding into what is now the second largest institute of its kind in Germany. With the current demands for reduced public spending (particularly in Bavaria, which is requiring a 10 percent reduction in spending of each local government department), the specter of radical budget cuts currently stalking the corridors of German academia has made its presence felt with a vengeance at the Geschwister-Scholl-Institut. Of the Institute’s eight chairs for political sciences, five are currently unoccupied, placing a huge burden on both the remaining staff and students. It is to be hoped that Bavaria’s tradition of political studies as an instrument encouraging political awareness does not succumb to what is ultimately a temporary financial predicament. Discussion of government policies affecting the political education of its citizens is needed now more than ever. The Geschwister-Scholl-Institut is eminently suited to fulfill this role and, hopefully, its survival will be ensured by the inspiration of its namesakes as well as its past successes.