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The "Ausldnderfrage " at Institutions of HigherLearningA Controversy Over Russian-Jewish Students inImperial Germany

BY JACK WERT HEIMER

From the very beginning of the mode rn e ra, Polish an d R ussian Jew s ha d come tostudy at German institutions of higher learning.* In fact, the first Jews tomatriculate at a German university were two students from Poland admitted bythe university of Frankfurt an der Oder in 1678. After the rise of the Haskalah(Jewish Enlightenment) in the late eighteenth century, study in Germanybecame more common. The journey of Salomon M aimon from the "ba ck wa rd"shtetl to the "enlightened" German milieu was prototypical. Still, as late as thesummer semester of 1888 fewer than sixty Russian Jews matriculated atuniversities in Germany.1The ir numb ers began to mou nt dram atically after the imposition of antisemiticquo tas in Tsa rist R ussia. As of Ju ly 1887, a numerus clausus limited Jew s to 10% of

student bodies at universities in the Pale of Settlement, 5% outside the Pale, and3% in St. Petersburg. In the early twentieth century, Nicholas II inte rpreted thequota to apply to each faculty, rather than to institutions as a whole, and sinceJew s conce ntrated in only a few faculties, such as medicine an d philo soph y, theirchances of gaining admission into Russian universities further diminished.Barred from access to higher education at home, a growing number of Jewishsecondary school graduates was forced to go abroad in search of educationalopportunities.2*I am indebted to the Leo Baeck Insti tute, the National Foundation for Jewish Culture, and theGerman Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) for funding my research trips to archives in the

German Democratic Republic, the German Federal Republic, and Israel .'On the presence of Eastern Jews at German universit ies prior to 1848, see Monika Richarz, DerEintritt derjuden in die akademischen Berufe. Jiidische Studenten und Akademiker in Deutschland 1678-1848,Tubingen 1974, (Schriftenreihe wissenschaftlicher Abhandlungen des Leo Baeck Instituts 28),especially p p. 30, 33, 80. For a classic portr ait of the jou rne y from Eas t to Wes t, see Salomon MaimonsLebensgeschichte, Mu nich 1911. According to statistics compiled by the Prussian governm ent, 38Russian Jews enrolled in Prussian universities and 19 in other German universities during thesummer of 1888. See data in Deutsches Zentralarchiv, Merseburg (DZAM), Ministerium desgeistlichen Unterrichts und der Medicinal-Angelegenheiten, Rep. 76 V a, Sekt. 1, Nr. 28. DerAndrang russischer Staatsangehoriger judischen Bekenntnisses zum Universitdtsstudium in Preussen und zumdrztlichen Stande i8go-ign, p p . 1 - 1 6 .

2 O n t h e R u s s i a n numerus clausus, s e e S i m o n D u b n o w , The History of the Jews in Poland and Russia, I I ,Philadelphia 1919, pp. 28ffand 158ff. and Salo W. Baron, The Russian Jews Under Tsars and Soviets,New York 1976, Revised Edition, pp. 48, 53, and 359, note 11.Th e pool of Jew ish students in Russia w ho were prepare d for work at university level expand ed187

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188 Jack WertheimerInitially, universities in Switzerland proved most attractive since theyadmitted women and provided radical students with a relatively high degree ofpolitical freedom. According to a rough study conducted in 1902, from 850 to

1,270 Russian Je w s studied in Switzerland, 655 in Germ any , 280-370 in Franc e,and 110 in Austria.3 But in the decade before the First World War, nearly asmany Russian Jews studied in Germany as in Switzerland. Some were attractedto G erm an universities by the repu tation s of famous professors: Boris Pa sternak ,for example, went to Marburg to study with Hermann Cohen. Others choseGe rm any for its internatio nal renown as the home ofKultur and Wissenschqft. Theoverwhelming majority, however, admitted candidly that they came becauseRussian quotas had forced them to study abroad, and German admissionspolicies were sufficiently lenient to provid e them w ith educa tional opp ortun ities.4dram atically as Jew s flocked in ever greater nu mbe rs to secondary schools. At Gymnasia, for examp le,Jewish enrolments had increased ten-fold between 1865 and 1884 (from 990 to 8984). Severalthousand additional students attended Pro-Gymnasia and Realschulen, while still others studied withpriv ate tuto rs. By 1911, over 50,000 Jew ish ch ildren atten ded formal second ary schools in TsaristRussia. They consti tuted a large population of potential applicants to Russian schools of higherlearning. See 'Enlightenment ' , in Evreiskaia Entsiklopediia, vol. 13, pp. 48-58. (Dr. MichaelStanislawski of Co lum bia U niversity dre w my attentio n to this ma terial and genero usly took the timeto translate relevant passages of the Russian text.)

3 On the attractions of study in Switzerland, see Shmarya Levin, Youth in Revolt, New York 1930, p.279. The estimates of enrolments refer only to universities, not technical schools; see Die Welt, 8thDecember 1905, pp. 9-10.According to the Germ an C onsul in Zurich, 1920 Russians (mainly Jew s) studied at Swissinstitutio ns of highe r learn ing in 1906; of these 1,195 were wom en. Fem ale studen ts constituted a farsmaller percentage of Russian Jews studying in the Reich because German universit ies admittedwom en only gradually d uring the early twentieth century, and then with many restrict ions. Foreignwomen faced even stiffer requirements and often needed permission from government officials toenrol at G erm an institution s of higher lea rning (out of nearly 2,000 foreign Jew s studying in Pru ssiain 1911/1912, only 77 were women). This essay will not examine the special problems faced bywomen from R ussia who sought an education in Germ any. O n this theme , see DZ AM , Rep. 76 Va,Sekt. 1, Tit . VI II , Nr. 3711, Die Immatrikulation von Frauen aus Russlandan den hiesigen Universitdten. T hePrussian statistics are in Zeitschriftfur Demography undStatistik derjuden (Z./.D.S.), X I, p . 83 ; for theconsul 's report see Generallandesarchiv (GLA) Karlsruhe, Abt. 235, Ministerium des Kultus undUnterrichts , Nr. 7305, Die Zulassung von Ausldndern zum Studium an den Badischen Hochschulen, letterdated 1st March 1907.

4Boris Pasternak, Safe Conduct, New York 1958, pp . 70ff. In 1902 Berthold Feiwel conducted a surveyof Russian-Jewish studen ts tha t el ici ted reponses on motives for studying abroad; the respondentsindicated that quotas in Tsarist Russia forced them to go abroad. See 'Enquete unter denwesteuropaischen j i idischen Studierenden' , in Alfred Nossig (ed.), Judische Statistik, Berlin 1903,p . 204.

In his memoirs, Shm arya Levin described the changed circum stances of Russian Jew s arriving inGermany:"T he re u sed to be Russ ian-Jew ish stu den ts in Berlin even before our time; bu t they had been few innum ber, and they had belonged to a special class. None of them h ad passed through a high school.The University of Berlin, l ike most of the German universit ies . . . made no demands on theforeigner-no examinations, and no previous certificates of any kind. These conditions had beenfreely taken advantage of by former Yeshiva students, who were caught up in the passion foreduca tion, an d w ho ha d no hopes of ever gett ing into a high school, or of picking up equivalentcredits. They o btained imm ediate and easy entrance into the University of Berlin. Some of them,the most gifted, went far, and achieved great reputations in the scientific world, particularly inmath ema tics an d m edicine. But most of them rem ained 'pe rpetual stude nts. ' Some of these typicalRus sian-J ewish stud en ts I still found in Berlin. After 1887 the pictur e change s. T he Unive rsity ofBerlin is flooded with Jew ish stud ents who h ad gone throug h high school and had been stopped at


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Russian-Jewish Students in Germany 189The growing influx of Russian-Jewish students sparked a controversy inGerman academic, parliamentary, and government circles known euphemisti-cally as the "problem of foreigners (Ausldnderfrage) at institutions of higher

learning". The terms "foreigners" and "Russians" were used interchangeablyduring debates and served as convenient code-words for Russian Jews whoconstituted over eighty per cent of Russians and a substantial portion of allforeigners studying in Germany.5 As the controversy intensified during thedecade before the outbreak of the First World War, Russian-Jewish studentsbecame the victims of antisemitic agitation and discriminatory admissionspolicies. Their mistreatment during the Ausldnderfrage controversy, forms an asyet unstudied chapter in the history of German antisemitism, a chapter whichalso has broader implications for the study of the "Jewish Question" in theSecond Reich.

IThe arrival of Russian-Jewish students coincided with a period of massiveexpansion a t Germ an in stitutions of highe r learning . Several new universities a ndtechnical schools (Hochschulen) opened during the Imperial era. Governmentsexpended vastly increased sums to fund higher learning. And schools relaxedadmissions policies in order to accom mod ate de ma nds by previously excluded orrestricted students, thereby increasing opportunities for children of the middleclass, graduates of Real- and Ober-Realschulen, women, and foreigners. Between1870 and 1914, enro lmen ts at both universities an d technica l schools qua dru pl ed ,growing from 14,000 to 61,000 students. 6

Pespite the dramatic increase in students thronging the universities,Russian-Jewish students formed a noticeable contingent. For one thing, thenumber of those emigres rose at an extraordinarily rapid pace: they multipliedten-fold during the late nineties and then quadrupled further during the decadebefore the First W orld W ar. By 1912/1913 over 2,500 Russian Je w s were stud yingat/German universities and technical schools.7Th e emigre studen ts were rendered more conspicuous tha n these figures wouldsuggest by their uneven geographic distribution. Like their Germanco-religionists, Russian Jews tended to concentrate at a few universities locatednear sizable Jew ish com mun ities. But whereas Germ an-Jew ish studen tseventually scattered to universities throughout the country, Russian Jewscontinued to study in large cities located in the eastern p art s of G erm an y. I n 1877the threshold of the Russian universit ies by the new decrees. The se decrees sent them abro ad inhordes, to Switzerland, and France and Germany, but chiefly the last ." (Youth in Revolt, p p .227-228).5In the Winter semester, 1913/1914 approximately 5,000 foreigners enrolled at German universities;

2,259 were Russians. (K. C. Blatter, 1st April 1914, pp. 166-167.) See Appendix, Table II for thepercentages of Russians at insti tutions of higher learning who were Jewish.6On this expansion, see Charles E. McClelland, State, Society an d University in Germany, ijoo-igi4,Cambridge 1980, Part IV.7See Appendix, Tables I and II for statist ical data on the increase of Russian-Jewish students.


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190 Jack Wertheimerfor exam ple, tw o-thirds of Ru ssian Je w s at Ge rm an universities studied in Berlin,Konigsberg, and Leipzig. While a more widespread distribution occurred insubsequent decades due to more restrictive admissions policies, as late as1912/1913 seventy-six pe r cent of Ru ssian Je w s at G erm an universities studied inBerlin, Breslau, Konigsberg, Leipzig, and Munich. Presumably, the prestigiousuniversities in Heidelberg, Tubingen, Gottingen, and Erlangen were too distant.from the Eas t or from large Jew ish com mu nities to attra ct Ru ssian stud ents.Regardless of the reasons for such an uneven distribution, the consequences ofover-concentration were apparent: the 500 Russian Jews studying in Berlin andthe 350 in Leipzig by 1912 were highly visible. (A somewhat wider geographicdistribution characterised Russian Jews at technical and vocational schoolsbecause these Hochschulen restricted foreign students from the beginning of thetwentieth century.)8

The presence of Russian Jews was further highlighted by their over-concentration in particular fields of study. Few chose the faculty of law becausethere was little chance to practise as a lawyer: as aliens they could not enter theGerman bar and as Jews they were not permitted to serve as lawyers in Russia.Initially, Philosophy was the most popular of all faculties, but it lost groundbecause Russian Jews could not expect to receive the teaching or civil servicepositions for which th is discipline prep ared them . As a result, a staggeringly highperc enta ge of these stude nts enrolled in medical an d, to a lesser exten t, chem istryand mathematics faculties since these provided more practical careeropportunities. By 1911, 85% of Russian Jews at Prussian universities studiedmedicine. In non-Prussian universities such as Freiburg, Heidelberg, Leipzig,and M unic h anyw here from 80 to 90 % of the Russian Jew s registered as m edicalstudents . Ge rma n technical Hochschulen were also attrac tive to Russian Jews , butthese schools put restrictions on the number of foreign students far earlier andmore rigorously than the universities. The few hospitable technical Hochschulenattracted disproportionately large numbers of Russian Jews. Thus, in 1910,Russians constituted one quarter of the total student body, one third ofmechanical engineering students, and an even higher percentage of electricalengineering students at Karlsruhe's technical Hochschule. Such disproportionateover-concentration in much sought-after fields hardly went unnoticed.9

Finally, Russian-Jewish students were conspicuous because of their socialaloofness. They constituted a sizable contingent of foreigners who removedthemselves from German university life. In his memoirs, Chaim Weizmanndescribed the world of his fellow Russian students in Germany as existing"o uts ide of space an d t im e" . In tru th, they merely lived psychologically outside of8 O n the initial pattern of Germ an-Jew ish distribution a t universit ies, see Richarz, op. cit., pp . 46 and98 . The 1877 data are in DZAM, Der Andrang ..., pp. 1-7. See Table II for 1912/1913 data.9See Table Ic on the distribution of Russian Jews by Faculties. Arthur Ruppin discusses theimpracticali ty of law as a vocation for Russian Jews. ( 'Die Juden auf den preussischenUniversi taten ' , Z./.D.S., I [1905 ], No. 11 , p. 14.) According to the Judische Rundschau, Russian Jew scould not work as lawyers or doctors in Ger man y (10th Ja nu ar y 1913, p. 11). Da ta on the Kar lsruheTechnische Hochschule are in GLA K arlsruh e, Abt. 235, Ministerium d er Jus tiz, Nr. 4051, Die Aufnahmerussischer Studierender an der T echnischen Hochschule, igo2-2i, l e t t e r f r o m t h e M i n i s t e r t o t h e Hochschule'sSena te, 15th O ctobe r 1910. Thes e figures do not dist inguish between Jew s an d G entiles; on the basisof general pa tterns , however, we can assume that over three-q uarters of the Russians were Jewish.


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Russian-Jewish Students in Germany 191German space and time. The students engaged in fierce ideological battles ofenormous importance to contemporary affairs in Russia but of scant interest inGermany. They shared little in common with their none-too-friendly Germanfellow-students and therefore withdrew into their own societies and clubs.German realities, however, impinged forcefully on the Russian Jews' insulatedworld, and they were soon engulfed by public controversies over the presence of"foreigners" at German Hochschulen.10

IIThe initial German response to the growing num ber of Russian-Jewish studentsconsisted of heightened vigilance on the part of ministries of education, theagencies that regulated institutions of higher learning in each German state.Between 1889 and 1891 Ju s t a few years after Russia had imposed quotas, severalstates began to gather statistical data and exchange information about thenumber of Russian Jews. Bureaucracies in Prussia and Saxony, where thepreponderant majority of these students enrolled, required universities to submitspecial reports on the number of Russian students at their institutions-listingJews and Gentiles separately. Significantly, state officials at first ordered thesereports in order to comply with requests for information subm itted by the Tsaristgovernment. D uring the early nineties, German officials also expressed concernto each other over the presence of Russian Jews at medical schools. In 1890Chancellor Bismarck specifically directed Prussia's Education Minister toexamine the number of such students who had enrolled during the previous threeyears i.e. since the imposition of Russian quotas and the Bavarian governmentinquired of the Reich's Interior Minister whether the influx of Russian Jewsnecessitated a revision of admissions policies at medical schools.11

This flurry of activity signified increased government awareness of thenewcomers but did not result in new policies. In fact, when native students a t theprestigious technical Hochschule in Charlottenburg petitioned in the early ninetiesfor restrictions on the admission of foreigners, Prussia's Minister of Educationrebuffed their demands. Government officials apparently decided not to takefurther action because university reports submitted during this period10 Chaim Weizmann, Trial and Error, Philadelphia 1949, p. 34.In a future vo lume of the LBI Year Book I propose to examine Russian-Jewish student societies inGermany and their responses to the increasingly shrill debates over the Ausldnderfrage."F or Prussian responses, see correspondence in DZ AM , DerAndrang...: Minister of Educ ation to theChancellor, 12th Febr uary 1890; Cha ncellor's response, 3rd M ay 1890; Directive of Minister to alluniversity rectors, 23rd Nove mber 1890; and the Bavarian inquiry of 27th Ju n e 1891. For Saxoncorrespondence, Sachsisches Landeshauptarchiv, Dresden, Ministerium fur Volksbildung, Nr.

10084 , Die an der Universitdt zu Leipzig und am Polytechnikum zu Dresden immatrikulierten Studierendenrussischer Nationalitdt:M inister of Foreign Affairs to Edu cation Min ister, 10th Ja nu ar y 1889(regarding inquiries from R ussian governm ent); Minister of Educ ation to academic adm inistrators,12th Jan uar y and 25th J u n e , 1889; see also correspondence from Prussian a mb assa dor in Saxonydated 24th June, 1889. (For the purposes of simplification, we will refer to ministers in charge ofeducational matters as Education Ministers, even though many supervised multi-facetedagencies-e.g. the Prussian official headed a Ministry of Religious, Medical , and EducationalAffairs and the Baden m inister supervised the Ministry of Ju stic e, Religion, an d Edu cation .)


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192 Jack Wertheimerdemonstrated that enrolments of Russian Jews had remained stable atnon-Prussian universities and had grown only slightly at Prussian institutions.12Even though no new policies emerged yet, developments during this earlyperiod are noteworthy because several patterns of response were set for the future.From the outset, the Russian government worked against the interests of itsJewish subjects, at first urging German states to supervise and regulate Russianstudents strictly and later prodding Germany to harass these students. Also, fromthe beginning, state governments consulted in an effort to coordinate a nationalpolicy on a m atte r that rightfully fell within the jurisdiction of individual states.And finally, despite later euphemistic talk about the Ausldnderfrage, Germangovernments from the start reacted to a problem posed in universities by Jewishvictims of Russian quotas. Moreover, it was not a surge in the absolute number ofRussian Jews that provoked greatest concern, but their over-representation inparticular faculties.

The presence of Russian-Jewish students ceased to be a subject solely ofinternal government deliberations when a variety of new circumstancesprompted public debates over the Ausldnderfrage at the beginning of the twentiethcentury. First, Russian Jew s now congregated in colleges in sufficient numbers toconstitute a recognisable contingent. Second, both within government circles andsociety at large, negative perceptions of Russian Jews were spreading: thenewcomers were pictured as a dangerous and subversive element that threatenedGermany's political stability, academic prestige, and industrial capability. Andfinally, a variety of organised and vocal groups began to press for changes inpolicies toward these unwanted foreigners.One source of pressure came from the Tsarist government which demandedGerm an cooperation in the battle against Russian radicals. Germany had obligeditself to cooperate in this campaign when in 1901 it negotiated and in 1904 ratifieda treaty with Russia and several other European states wherein it pledged tobattle against "anarchists" a term loosely applied to all radicals, socialists, and"nihilists". German states lived up to their treaty obligations and went evenfurther by permitting Tsarist agents to operate freely within the Reich. Thehistorian Barbara Vogel has argued plausibly that this highly unusualarrangement served as a simple and politically safe means to strengthen ties withRussia since collaboration in the fight against "anarchists" cost Germany littlewhile it united the two empires in a crusade against subversion. 13To a limited extent, governments had already kept a special watch on Russianstudents during the eighties and nineties of the nineteenth century, but effortsintensified in 1901 when the Tsarist Minister of Education was murdered by aRussian student who had lived in Berlin prior to the assassination. On orders12 Student demands: Selbst-Emancipation, J a n u a r y 1891, No . 4, p. 6, No . 5, p. 5 and Allgemeine Zeitung des

Judentums (AZJ), 12th February and 15th March 1891. See the rich statistical tables compiled byPrussian bur eauc rats detail ing the attenda nce of Russian Jew s at all Germa n universities between1877 and 1890 in DZAM, Der Andrang ..., pp. 4-7 .13 Leo Stern (ed.), Die Auswirkung der Ersten Russischen Revolution von igofy-oj auf Deutschland, Berlin(East) 1956, vol. 2/1, p. xxv. Barbara Vogel, Deutsche Russlandpolitik, Diisseldorf 1973, p. 87.


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Russian-Jewish Students in Germany 193from the Kaiser, university and police authorities in Berlin began to cooperatewith Russian secret agents operating in the German capital. Subsequently,Russian police were permitted to work freely in the rest of Prussia and later inother German states. Especially after the Russian Revolution of 1905, Germanpolice frequently harassed Russian students, searched their libraries and socialclubs for illegal literature, and spied on their meetings. 14

Foreign students ca ugh t engaging in revolutionary activities were subjected bypolice to severe and arbitrary punishment against which they had no legalrecourse. In several states, police closed down student clubs and reading roomsafter they discovered revolutionary journals on the premises. German officialsalso expelled individual Russian students for allegedly "anarchistic","nihilistic", or simply "troublesome" (Idstig) conduct. Police were especiallyquick to punish foreign students who appeared to contravene state laws anduniversity regulations forbidding non-citizens to attend German political ralliesor engage in election activities. T o cite ju st two instance s of swift retrib utio n foralleged interference in the German political process: a leading Bundist student inBerlin suffered expulsion from Prussia when he was observed spending time inthe offices of the Vorwdrts, the press organ of Ge rm any 's Social De mo cratic Party;and a student n ame d Rahe l Kirsch was ordered to leave Prussia five weeks beforecompleting her studies at a college of commerce on the grounds that she hadattended a German May Day rally. Russian students even faced severepun ishme nt w hen they dem onstrated on behalf of their own interests: in 1904 fourhun dred and twenty-eight Russians in Berlin signed a petition pro testing ag ainsta recent inflammatory Reichstag speech in which Chancellor von Biilow declaredwith explicit reference to Russian-Jewish students that Germany "will not be ledby the nose by such Schnorrers and conspirators". Within a month, Prussiaexpelled one hundred and sixteen of the petitioners, including ninety-nineRussian Jews .1 5

Althou gh these repressive actions stemm ed from a comp lex mixtu re of mo tives,including the desire to please Tsarist officials, fear of subversives, distrust ofSlavs, and xenophobia, they had serious consequences for all Russian-Jewish14 This theme is explored extensively in Botho Brachmann, Russische Sozialdemokraten in Berlin

i8gj-igi4, Berlin (East) 1962, especially Chapters I and V.l5 See Brachmann, op. cit., for numerous documents pertaining to the harassment and expulsion ofRussian students. (Brachmann claims that these actions were motivated by anti-Russian, ratherthan antisemitic motives.) Bundist: Stern 2/II Document Nr. 2, pp. 61-62. Kirsch: DZAM, Rep.77, Ministerium des Inn ern, Tit . 500 No. 38 Ausldnderwesen Miscellan., letter from the Berlin Office ofthe Alliance Israelite Universelle, 28th May 1907. Petition of 400: BrandenburgischesLand eshau ptarchiv, Potsdam , Polizeiprasidium C, Rep. 30, Nr. 12708, DieRusseninterpellation unddiegegen die Beantwortung gerichteten Protestkundgebungen. The Socialist Zionist , Nahman Syrkin, was theonly non-student among the 116 expulsion victims.On e of the Russian Jew s driven out of Prussia, a woman nam ed Ja nn ina Berson, challenged herimprisonment and expulsion at the han ds of Ge rma n officials. Th e state's M inister of the Interior,Biilow, ruled that Berson had no legal recourse since expulsion was an administrative prerogativetha t aliens could not challenge . In respon se to this well-publicised ca se, the Frankfurter Zeitung statedin an editorial that "foreigners have no rights in Ge rman y jus t as all inhab itants of Russia have norights". See Preussisches Geheimes Staatsarchiv Berlin, Dahlem, Rep. 84a, Nr. 14,Just iz-Ministerium, Die Ausweisung von Ausldndem, press cuttings from the National-Zeitung, 7t hJanuary 1905; Kolnische Zeitung, 9th January 1905; Frankfurter Zeitung, 9th January 1905.


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194 Jack Wertheimerstudents. The involvement of German governments in ferreting out Russianradicals and the constant communication between German and antisemiticRu ssian officials, led to the interna lisation of stereotypical n otions abo ut RussianJ e w s . In private discussions government officials increasingly linked RussianJews with political subversion: to quote the Kaiser in a letter to his cousin, TsarNicholas, Russian Jews were "the leaders of the revolt". More ominously,gov ernm ent officials publicly invoked these stereotypes in order to justify theircollaboration with Tsarist agents and their harassment of Russian-Jewishstud ents. In a speech before Prussia's parliame nt, M inister of Interior Bethm annHollw eg claimed tha t "o nly th e blind do not recognise the active and passive roleof the Je w s in the Ru ssian R evo lution" of 1905. And in the Reichstag, Chancellorvon Biilow .linked all Russian-Jewish stude nts with "M an de lstam m undSilberfarb", two well-known Russian radicals recently expelled from Berlinwhose names were recognisably Jewish. The historian Robert C. Williams hascorrectly concluded that "for many Germans, 'Russian', 'radical ' , and 'easternJew' became linked together after 1905 as a single type of undesirable". Thisassociation of Russian-Jewish students with bomb-throwing and subversioncoloured all discussions of the Ausldnderfrage.16

In ad ditio n, th e political repression of Ru ssian rad icals had a deleterious effecton all Russian stud ents b ecause it underm ined their legal rights and social status.Sh m arya Levin, a Zionist leader, depicted the bizarre situation in which he andhis fellow students were trapped:"German police would regard the political activity of the foreign students not as an internalGerman matter to be regulated by German law, but purely from the Russian point of view.More than once i t would occur that men were punished . . . for crimes that were not crimesaccording to German law." 1 7

Among other restrictions, it was illegal for Russian students to subscribe to theSPD new spaper, the Vorwdrts. M oreov er, the prom otion of stereotypes by leadinggo ve rnm ent officials a nd the well-publicised po lice ha rass m en t of radica ls servedto legitimise attac ks up on Ru ssian stu de nts. Since police and go vernm ent officialsdenounced Russian students, other sectors of the German populace felt free tofollow suit.

Student societies and professional associations opposed to the influx ofRussian-Jewish students undoubtedly took heart from their governments'political repression of the newcomers; but they sought additional restrictions tolimit the a cad em ic rights of foreign stud en ts, as well. Du ring the early years of thetwentieth century, they bombarded education ministers and academicadministrators with petitions that called for discriminatory admissions policies,16

Issac Don Levine, Letters from the Kaiser to the Czar, New York 1920, p . 224; AZJ, 18th May 1906 forBeth ma nn Hollweg's speech. On the "M ande lstamm -Silberf arb" speech, see files 12707/12 and12708 in Brandenburgisches Landeshauptarchiv, Potsdam. Robert C. Will iams, Culture in Exile,Ithaca 1972, p. 50.l7Youth in Revolt, pp. 237-239.


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Russian-Jewish Students in Germany 195particula rly at technical schools wh ere the Ausldnderfrage required urgen t solutiondue to the rising population of unwanted Russian students. 1 8A num ber of com plaints recurred in these petitions. 19 Native students blam edforeign intruders for the shortage of seats in lecture halls and over-crowding inuniversities. They, then, singled out Russian students as the true culprits: "theculturally inferior element from the East poses a danger to the national characterof our Hochschulen" .2 0 Russian students fail to master the German language andconseque ntly lower the acad em ic quality of classes, especially wh en they serve asteaching and laboratory assistants. Many Russian students possess "insufficientscientific training (Bildung)" and, in fact, are admitted to German Hochschulenwithout having passed a competitive exam (Konkurrenzprufung) or attainedcertification after their secondary school studies (Reifezeugnis). Some Germaninstitutions even admit students who had been rejected by Russian Hochschulen.This situation, claimed the petitioners, was unfair and insulting to nativestudents. German institutions, however, need not exclude all foreigners, butrath er they must institute selective proc edu res to ensu re tha t only "th ose wh o willenrich the student body" may gain admission.

Petitioners also raised several bro ad er issues. Th ey re gard ed it as the height offolly for Germany to educate foreign engineers and scientists in the mostadvanced techniques. These aliens surely would soon go abroad and help foreigncountries develop their productive capacities to rival Germany's industries.True , at first, these students might copy German production techniques andtherefore import familiar industrial machinery from the Reich, but in thelong-run, Germany was educating competitors and enemies. Furthermore,foreign students were politically unreliable: it was well known that "Slavic andJewish students work on behalf of the Social Democrats" and are "politicalradicals".

Th e petitioners propo sed a variety of chan ges in adm issions policies to rem edy18As late as 1906, foreigners and Russians constituted higher percentages of student bodies attechnical schools than at unive rsities. See data in the Frankfurter Zeitung, 14th March 1907 (cuttingin Bayerisches Hauptstaatsarchiv, Munich. Kultusministerium, Nr. 19630 K. Technische Hochschule

Munchen. Aufnahme der Studierenden, Zuhbrer, u. Hospitanten (Ausldnder- Generalia), 1 9 0 0 - 1 9 1 2 .It is not possible to ascertain the exact nu mb er of Russian Jew s at G erm an Hochschulen during thisperiod, bu t several types of sources indicate a steep rise early in the new centu ry: stu den t petitionsrepeatedly refer to this increase, and scattered statistical data point to the same conclusion. Forexample, enrolments of Russian Jew s at D resden 's Polytecknikum rose from 13 in 1895 to 61 in 1905(Dresd en, M in. fur Vo lksbildun g, Nr. 10084-85); of the 128 studen ts surveyed by Berthold Feiwel in1902 (see note 4), 110 studied technical subjects; also see text below for figures on Russians atvarious technical colleges.

l9 The following discussion synthesises the key arguments and demands of petitions submitted toHochschule officials in: Berlin-see AZJ, 12th Au gust, 1898 Beilage, p. 1, and B rachm ann, op. tit., p p .lOOff; Dresden-see Sachsisches Hauptstaatsarchiv, Dresden, Min. fur Volksbildung, Nr. 15804,petition from the Verein deutscher Ingenieure, dated 9th August 1901; M un ich -s ee StaatsarchivMunchen, Polizeidirektion Munchen, Nr. 4115 Russische Studierende in Ingolstadt, especially presscuttings from the Munchener Neuste Nachrichten, 3rd Ju ly 1901; Ka r l s ruh e-se e G LA Kar l s ruhe ,235/7305, petitions of 15th Sep temb er 1904 from the Verein deutscher Chemiker, and May 1905 from theVerband der deutschen Technischen Hochschulen, and 18th Ju ly 1902 from the student orga nisation at thelocal technical college. (Our summary of these petitions will imitate their use of the terms"Russians" and "foreigners" interchangeably.)

^Student peti t ion quoted by Im deutschen Reich, April 1907, pp. 238-239.


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196 Jack Wertheimerthe situation. Stude nt groups urged Hochschulen to impo se highe r aca dem ic fees onforeigners, permit aliens to enrol in classes only after all German students hadcompleted registration, and demand fluency in the German language as aprerequisite for study at institutions of higher learning. Some groups outside theacademic world dem anded a policy of "G erm an Hochschulen for Germans". TheSociety of G erm an Ch em ists, for exam ple, urged restrictions on foreign stude nts,excepting German-speaking students from Switzerland, Austria, and the Balticterritories of Tsarist Russia "so that the young students of our people and theGerman race outside the Reich's borders may enjoy unrestricted educationaloppor tuni t ies" .

Bu reau crats in the various ministries of education responded sympatheticallyto these demands, During the first decade of the century, they directed virtuallyevery institution of higher learning to impose a tuition scale that discriminatedbetween native and alien students. Generally, foreign students were required topay up to two or three times the normal sums for matriculation, laboratory,lecture, examination and certification fees. Some Hochschulen imposed even moteone rous financial bu rde ns: the college of com merce in Leipzig charged natives 20an d aliens 100 Ma rks for m atricu lation fees alone, while the same typ e of school inCologne charged 12 and 250 Marks respectively; at Dresden's technicalHochschule natives paid 12 Marks and foreigners 74 Marks. These fees, however,applied to all foreigners and did not fall more heavily on any one nationalcontingent.21

State officials also formulated a series of new admissions policies for technicalschools that were directed specifically at Russians. Early in the new century,Prussia set the preceden t when its Edu cation Minister ordered Russian studentsto furnish a Reifezeugnis valid for admission to a Russian Hochschule and proof ofprior study at a Russian institution of higher learning as a prerequisite forenrolment at technical schools in Prussia. In March, 1902, Bavarian officialsadopted the same policy, consciously modelling themselves after the Prussiansand adding a new regulation that permitted foreigners to begin registration at theearliest two weeks after native students completed selecting their courses. BySeptember, Saxony imposed a new regulation on students planning to enrol atDresden's technical school: Russian students needed proof of prior study at aRussian university as a prerequisite for admission; even previous enrolment at anon-Saxon Hochschule was deemed insufficient. In sum, Prussia, Bavaria, andSaxony henceforth would accept into their technical schools only transferstudents from Russian institutions of higher learning. 222 1 Fee structures at German insti tutions of higher learning can be gleaned from O. Koenen and W.Eicker, Hochschulen-Fuhrer, Leipzig 1911. M an y schools introduced higher fees for foreigners alreadydu ring the first year s of the ce ntury . See, for exam ple, Cen tral Archives for the History of the Jew ishPeople, Jeru salem TD /141 'Repo rt of Self-Aid C omm ittee for Jewish Studen ts from Russia inBerlin, 1902', an d the exch ange of corres pond ence rega rding fees for foreigners in various states, inDresden, Min. fur Volksbildung, Nr. 15804, April and May 1909 letters, especially pp. HOff.22 See press cuttings from the Munchener Allgemeine Zeitung dated 2nd April 1902 in GLA Karlsruhe,235/4051 and 19th September 1902 in GLA Karlsruhe, 235/7305. See also the exchange ofcorrespondence between Bavaria's Education Ministry and Munich's Technische Hochschule dated18th Septem ber 1901 and 19th Jul y 1903 in Bayerisches Hau ptstaatsa rchiv, Mu nich, M K 19630.


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Russian-Jewish Students in Germany 197Educational officials in other German states came under strong pressures toinstitute similar regulations. To begin with, ministers in the more restrictivestates pressed their counterparts in more lenient ministries to conform. When

representatives of education ministries gathered in July 1902, just a few monthsafter Prussia and Bavaria had acted and shortly before Saxony imposed newrestrictions, they were urged to coordinate policies towards foreign students atHochschulen.2* Bure aucrats w ho had not yet restricted R ussian stude nts were alsopressed at home by local student groups and parliamentary deputies demandinga justification for lenient adm issions policies. M oreov er, Hochschulen that did notregulate foreign students quickly experienced a dram atic increase in the nu m berof Russians because the restrictive policies in Prussia, Bavaria and Saxony setstudents in search of institutions tha t remaine d h ospitable. Th e pa ttern is evidentfrom the following statistics: The enrolment of Russians at Charlottenburg'stechnical Hochschule declined from 121 in 1901/1902 to 55 in 1912; in Dresden 61Russians were enrolled in 1905/1906 and only 11 by 1913/1914; and in Munich,the number of Russians dwindled from 243 in 1904/1905 to 123 in 1913. Bycontrast, the technical Hochschulen in Karlsruhe and Darmstadt reported thehighest percentages of foreigners in their student bodies (39-4% and 38-1%respectively in 1907) because they had not yet curbed Russian studentsvigorously. Clearly, Russian-Jewish students sought out educational institutionsthat did not bar them, and this movement increased pressures in Baden, Hesseand other states for more restrictive policies.24

Officials in Baden responded by imposing new curbs. In 1902, Baden'sMinister of Education ordered Russian students to provide proof of successfulperformance in a Russian competitive exam (Konkurrenzprufung) or of prior studyat a Hochschule in their homeland as a prerequisite for enrolm ent at K arlsru he . H ealso granted native students priority during registration for courses. By 1905Baden's educational authorities tested Russian students for fluency in theGerman language. Unlike their counterparts in other education ministries,however, bureaucrats in Baden did not require Russian students to provideevidence that they had studied at a Tsarist university prior to their admission toKarlsruhe's technical Hochschule.25

Authorities in other German states proved themselves less generous underpressure. In 1905, Braunschweig's technical Hochschule imposed a numerus claususon foreigners that limited their number to twelve per cent of the student body.Two years later, the Ministry of the Interior in Hesse required all Russianstudents at Darmstadt 's technical school to furnish a diploma from a Russian"Protocols of the 1902 meeting are in GLA Karlsruhe, 235/7305 d ated 18th-20th July 1902; see also235/4051 on the pressures exerted upon education ministers to con for m -e.g . th e Baden Landtag'sdebate of 6th and 22nd March 1902.24See Brachmann, op. tit., p. 100 for statistics. (Brachmann's data do not differentiate Russians byconfession, but for reasons discussed below, we can assume that the decline in the number ofRussians resulted from restrictions felt mainly by Jew ish victim s of Tsarist qu otas.) For Karlsruheand Darmstadt data, see the memorandum of Baden's Minister of Education dated 10th M ay 1907in GLA Karlsruhe, 235/4051."S ee the orders of Baden's Ed ucation Minister dated 14 Jun e 1902, 4th Novem ber 1904, 26thSeptember 1905 in GLA Karlsruhe, 235/4051.


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ig8 Jack WertheimerGymnasium and evidence of matriculation at a Russian university before they cameto study in Germany. (This rule was applied retroactively also to students alreadyenrolled.) And Stuttgart's technical college simply ceased to accept Russianstudents.26

In addition, by 1908 most states rejected students from Russian Realschulen attheir technical Hochschulen, even as they continued to accept those from GermanReal- and Ober-Realschulen. As a justification, ministers noted that studies atRussian Realschulen lasted only seven years, compared to the nine-year course ofstudy at German Realschulen; only graduates of Russian nine-year Gymnasia weredeemed sufficiently prepared. In fact, as bureaucrats admitted in their privatecorrespondence, they had seized upon the difference between Russian andGerman Realschulen as a further pretext to curb Russian students.27

While these new regulations ostensibly affected all Russians, they wereactually aimed at Russian Jews. Jewish, but not Gentile, Russians could notfurnish a Gymnasium diploma due to antisemitic quotas at Tsarist secondaryschools. Similarly, it was particularly difficult for Jews to present proof of study ata Russian institution of higher learning prior to their arrival in Germany: RussianJews went abroad precisely because the numerus clausus blocked them fromstudying in their homeland. And Jews, not Gentiles, faced special obstacles intaking Russian competitive exams and therefore could not meet Germanrequirements for successful completion of a Konkurrenzprufung. In short, despitetheir euphemistic language, the new admission policies at Hochschulen wereprimarily designed to curb one contingent of foreign students-Jewish victims ofTsarist quotas.

The final phase of the Ausldnderfrage controversy centred on the presence ofunwanted Russians at universities. Their numbers in universities had mountedonce technical schools began to enforce severe restrictions. Trends in the states ofBaden and Saxony illustrate the dimensions of this widespread shift: between1905/1906 and 1913, the number of Russians (including Gentiles) leaped from 89to 212 at Heidelberg's university and sank from 372 to 161 at Karlsruhe'sHochschule; during the same years, enrolments by Russian Jews at Dresden'stechnical college dwindled from 61 to 40, whereas at Leipzig's university, theysoared from 63 to 297. The move to universities gained further momentum fromthe ever-increasing number ofJews who left Russia after the 1905 Revolution inquest of a higher education. By 1913, nearly five hundred such studentsmatriculated at Berlin's university alone, and contingents of Russian Jewsnumbering in the hundreds could be found at several other universities. 28

26Press cuttings from Karlsruher Allgemeine Zeitung, 4th March 1905 and Frankfurter Zeitung, 19thOctober 1907 in GLA Karl s ruhe , 235/4051."Response to survey conducted by Baden's Minister of Education, 10th May 1907 in GLAKarl s ruhe , 235/4051.2 8Baden: Printed report of April 1914 entitled 'Anzahl der an den badischen HochschulenStudierenden ' , in GLA Karl s ruhe , 235/4051. Saxony: Dresden, Min. fur Volksbildung, Nr. 10084and 10085. See also Appendix, Table III to compare the relatively small number of Russian Jews attechnical Hochschulen as opposed to universities in 1912/1913. On the mounting influx of Russians


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Russian-Jewish Students in Germany 199The influx of these Russian Jews prompted a new round of student protests.Du ring the year 1907, students rallied in Je na , Leipzig, Berlin, and D arm stad t,specifically, urging the exclusion of Russian or Russian-Jewish students. When

the Verein Deutscher Studenten met in March, 2,000 students heard a ProfessorSam assa, a Baltic Ger m an , accuse Jew ish s tude nts from Russia of work ing for theGerman Social Democratic Party during the previous election. Samassaintroduced a resolution that denounced the "culturally inferior elements from theEast who are a dang er to the national ch aracter of our educa tional institutio ns"and berated "the Slavic and Jewish students who worked on behalf of the SPDvoting list". The convention passed the resolution and pressed Prussia's Ministerof the Interior to enlist supp ort from othe r state governm ents to keep ou t R ussianstudents. (During the course of this convention, not only Russian Jews weresingled out; speakers depicted all Jew s as enemies of Ge rma n cu lture .)2 9The growing public controversy encouraged parliamentarians to take up theAusldnderfrage. In February 1909, at the initiative of a Catholic Zentrum Partydeputy, the Reichstag debated whether foreign students endangered Germany'scomp etitive edge in indu strial pro du ction . A few weeks later, diets in Prussia an dSaxony concerned themselves with the problem of foreigners in universities.Parliamentary debates reached a climax in December 1909 when deputiesrepresenting the antisemitic faction and the Conservative Party introduced aresolution urging the Reichstag to protect " the nationa l and economic interests ofour Volk from the dangerous advances of foreigners at German institutions ofhigher learning". This was to be achieved by strictly curbing and expelling

unwanted foreigners. Government ministers, however, defended admissionsregulations as far more flexible and adequate tools for solving the problem. 30Behind the scenes, Tsarist officials also kept up their pressure for morerestrictive policies. Th ey d em an de d intensified surveillance of Ru ssian Je w s w ho"m ore or less are interested in revolutionary pro pa ga nd a". The y also mad e cleartheir dissatisfaction that so many Russians rejected by Tsarist institutions ofhigher learning were admitted by German educational establishments. It wasespecially disturbing to find large num bers of Ge rma n-traine d doctors return ingto/Russia and practising medicine without Tsarist certification.31

after the 1905 Revolution, see the mem oran dum subm itted by the Senate of Mu nich 's Hochschule toBavaria's M inister of the Interior dated 1st April 1905 in Bayerisches Ha uptsta atsarc hiv, Mu nich,MK 19630.^Jena.JudischeRundschau, 1st Dece mbe r 1905, p. 637. Da rm stad t: AZJ, 7th Ju ne 1907, p. 267. Leipzig:AZJ, 5th Ju ly 1907, Beilage, p. 2. Berlin: 8th M arc h 1907, pp . 110-111. Samassa: Judische Rundschau,15th Marc h 1907, pp . 116-117; Die Welt, 8th Ma rch 1907, pp . 1-2; Im deutschen Reich, April 1907, pp .238-239.^Reichstag debates: Stenographische Berichte uber die Verhandlungen des Reichstages, 12th Leg. II. Session1909/10, vol. 259, p. 1472; vol. 262, p. 3590; and Resolution No . 83 (3rd Dec emb er 1909); see alsoAZJ, 5th March 1909, p. 110. Debates in diets: Mitteilungen aus dem Verein zur Abwehr desAntisemitismus, 24th February 1909, pp. 57-60; Stenographische Berichte uber die Verhandlungen des Housesde r Abgeordneten (Prussia), 21 Leg., IV. Session, 1911, pp . 6873ff. See also the Kreuzzeitung, 13th Jun e1912 for a report on the previous day's debate in the Bavarian Chamber of Deputies (cutting inDresden, Min. fur Volksbildung, Nr. 15804).3 1The Tsa rist government subjected several Germa n states to this pressure. See Bra chm ann , op . cit.,for sample memoranda. For correspondence between Bavarian ministers regarding Russianrequests, see Bayerisches Haup tstaatsarc hiv, Mu nich, Geheimes S taatsarchiv, M A 60 154, let ter of5th May 1911 from Interior Minister Wehner and 17th March 1911 from the Foreign Ministry.


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200 Jack WertheimerIn direct response to these secret Tsarist demands and public agitation bystudents, Bavaria's Minister of Education imposed a quota on Russians, limitingtheir enrolment at Munich's university to two hundred students. In the future,

Russians admitted under the numerus clausus would have to demonstrateproficiency in the German language, and provide proof of graduation from aGymnasium and of prior study a t a Russian institution of higher learning. Officials,however, did not anticipate accepting new Russian students for years to comesince existing enrolment exceeded the quota considerably. Only after the numberof Russiari's at Munich's university declined below the quota would authoritieseven consider admitting new students from Russia. Not surprisingly, the numberof Russians at Saxon and Prussian universities mounted, causing further studentand official concern.32Before other states could react, a new round of protest dem onstrations eruptedat universities throughout Germany. The leaders of these rallies were medicalstudents. In Janu ary 1913, clinical students a t the medical school in Halle wenton strike to dramatise their resentment of foreign fellow-students who allegedlywere exempted from some examinations required of native students. The Hallestrike inspired medical students in other universities to organise sympathydemonstrations and issue demands for quotas to reduce the number of foreignersat universities.An examination of enrolment figures at medical schools makes plain thatRussian Jews were the objects of this agitation. During the period of studentdemonstrations, Russians constituted three-quarters of all foreigners at theseschools, while between eighty and ninety per cent of all medical students from theTsarist Empire were Jews.34 It is more difficult, however, to assess the validity ofstudent complaints: did Russian Jews interfere with the education of natives? A1911 mem orandum from Heidelberg's anatomical institute reports a shortage of3 2 The Bavarian numerus clausus was imposed by the Minister of Education von Wehner in an orderdate d 11th April 1911 to the rectorate of Mu nich University. See Bayerisches Hau ptstaatsarc hiv,Munich, MK 19630. See also Israelitisches Familienblatt (Frankfurt), 11th April 1913, p. 2. TheBavarians acted in April 1911, durin g a period of intensive pressure from the Tsarist governmen t.3 3 On the Halle strike: AZJ, 7th February 1913, Beilage, p. 1; Israelitisches Familienblatt (Ham burg), 16thand 30th January 1913, p. 2 and p. 5, respectively; Brachmann, op. cit., pp. 104105; On othermed ical school protests: Derjudische Student, 1913/1914, pp. 60-61 an d K.C. Blatter, 1st M arc h, 1913,

p p . 120ff. Demands by medical students typically included the following items: 1. Foreign studentsmus t presen t evidence of a Reifezeugnis comparable to the German Abitur; 2. Foreigners must presenta certificate of good conduct from authorities in their homeland; 3. Prior to taking their doctoralexam s, foreigners m ust pass a G erm an language test; 4. Th e nu mb er of foreigners must be l imitedby quo tas; 5. Foreigne rs m ust pa y dou ble fees; 6. T he first four rows in lecture halls must be reservedfor Ger ma n stud ents; 7. Ge rma n stude nts must have priori ty during registration. (See K.C. Blatter,M arc h, 1913, pp . 129-132.)During this period, studental protests also mounted at the few relatively unrestricted technicalcolleges. Tension s ran especially high at Da rm stad t 's Hochschule after a Russian Jew was stabbed todeath by German students during a brawl at a local cafe. Twenty-five student corporations inDa rm stad t peti t ioned for the imposit ion of quota s on Russian stu dents. See Israelitisches Familienblatt(H am bu rg) , 12th Decem ber 1912, p. 6 and 23rd Ja nu ar y 1913, p. 5; also Frankfurter Zeitung, 15thJanuary 1913 (cut t ing in GLA Karlsruhe, 235/7503).3 4Citing figures in the Statistische Korrespondenz, th e Frankfurter Zeitung (20th May 1913) claimed that1,486 foreigners enrolled in German medical schools in 1911/1912; of these 1,111 were Russians.Russian s acco unted for one out of every nine medical students in the Reich. See Table III on thepercentag es of Russians at m edical schools who were of the Jewish confession.


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Russian-Jewish Students in Germany 201corpses for dissection in medical schools. Perhaps facilities were strained due toover-crowding. But the observations of a contemporary authority sent fromAmerica to study German medical schools, cast some doubts on these charges.According to Abraham Flexner's 1911 study of clinical sections in medicalschools, "benche s thron ged in the early day s of the semester, usually have roomenough long before its close". During clinical demonstrations, Flexner"repeatedly heard anyw here from three to a dozen na me s called before a responsewas obtained". Evidently, over-crowding was more a problem on registrationlists than in lecture theatres and laboratories.35Even though some education ministers admitted that foreigners did notdeprive natives of places at universities, they instituted a variety of newrestrictions to satisfy protesting students. Prussia, to take the most importantstate first, imposed a numerus clausus. As of 24th Sep temb er 1913 only 900 Ru ssianstudents could enrol at Prussian universities: 280 in Berlin, 80 in Bonn, 100 inBreslau, 60 in Gottingen, 120 in Halle, 140 in Konigsberg, and 30 each inMarburg, Kiel, Miinster, and Greifswald. These quotas were not to affect thenearly 1,100 Russian students already enrolled.36

Bavaria followed suit by instituting a more comprehensive quota system. Nomore than 400 foreigners could study at the University of Munich and no moretha n 150 subjects of any one state could enrol in medical schools. Th is tran slate dinto a limit of80 foreigners each at the universities in W iirzb urg an d Erla ng en , nomore tha n half of whom could study m edicine. At the same time, prior e nrolm entat a Tsarist Hochschule was still required of incoming Russian students. 37Saxony imposed no qu ota b ut it required all Russian studen ts to have studiedat a university in their native cou ntry prio r to their transfer to a Saxon unive rsity.(Two years of prior study at a German university was deemed an unacceptablesubstitute.) Moreover, only graduates of a Russian Gymnasium, not a Real- orOber-Realschule were accepted. Even if adm itted, m edical students w ere given noassurance that they could participate in the clinical part of the programme.Russian women could not matriculate at all; at best, they might auditcourses-provided they had graduated from the best women's high schools. 38

35 See the letter from H eidelberg's Anatomical Insti tute dated 1st Nove mber 1911 in GLA Ka rlsru he,235/7503. Abraham Flexner, Medical Education in Europe, New York 1912, pp. 18, 20.^N ot e the admission of Prussia's M inister of Educa tion cited in AZJ, 10th Octob er 1913, Beilage, p. 1.(At the height of the debate over the Auslanderfrage at technical schools, Prussia's Minister of theInterior m ade a similar admission tha t Russian Jew s did not deprive native studen ts of places. SeePreussisches Geheimes Staatsarchiv B erlin, Dahlem , Rep 91 N r. 2253, Protocols of 20th Dece mber1905 cabinet meeting.) On the Prussian q uotas, see the order issued by the Educa tion M inister touniversity rectors dated 24th September 1913 in GLA Karlsruhe, 235/7503. This decree referssolely to quotas on "Russian students." On Prussian actions, see also Israelitisches Familienblatt(Hamburg), 10th October 1913, Beilage, p. 1.37 For the decree of Bava ria's Minister of Educ ation, see GLA Ka rlsruh e, 235/7503, me mo rand um tosenates of universities date d 6th Oc tobe r 1913. See also Israelitisches Familienblatt (Hamburg), 15thOctober 1913, p. 6 and B rachm ann , op. cit., pp . 115-116. This decree superseded the earl ier q uotaimposed in April 1911 solely on Russians (see above, note 32). The new Bavarian quotas did notsingle out Russians, but limited all foreigners. In practice, however, Russians were most affectedsince they constituted the largest contingent of foreign students.MSaxon policies are clearly stated in a letter from the Information Bureau of Leipzig's universitydated 16th April 1913 in Central Zionist Archives, Jeru salem A126/29, Leon M otzkin Pape rs,


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202 Jack WertheimerOfficials in Baden resisted pressures to impose a numerus clausus or admissionsrequirements aimed mainly at Russian Je ws . T he Minister of Educ ation opposedsuch measures on the grounds that they excluded worthy students, hurt the

interests of universities, and negated the "Baden tradition" of hospitality.However, he feared that quotas and restrictions in other states would bring aflood of students to Baden. He, therefore, ordered rigorous testing of students tomeasure their fluency in German, granted priority during registration to nativestudents, and raised fees for foreigners at medical and technical schools. 39The new regulations made an immediate impact. Since in most cases, quotaswere exceed ed even before their intro duc tion, the flow of Jew ish stude nts fromRussia virtually halted. By the summer of 1913, the number of Russiansm atricula ting a t Germ an institutions of higher learning plumm eted by nearly 20per cent com pared to the previous year. Historical events, however, intervened

before th e full we ight of the new re striction s could be felt. A year after m ost q uo taswere impo sed, war erupted and Ge rma n states expelled or interned enemy aliens.By late 1914, deb ates over the Ausldnderfrage had ceased since Russian Jews wereno longer enrolled at German institutions of higher learning.40The broad array of new admission policies imposed on the eve of the FirstWorld War stripped away all pretences that the Ausldnderfrage was about allforeign stu den ts. By continuing the unrestricted adm ission of W estern Europ eanand American students, German authorities made clear that the education of

Motzkin's Participation in Jewish Matters ... 1912-14. See also Brachmann, op. cit., pp. 115-116; DieWelt, 10th October 1913, p. 1395; AZJ, 15th October 1913, pp. 495-496.3 9GLA Karlsruhe, 235/4051, memorandum of Education Minister to senates in Heidelberg andFreiburg dated 6th October 1913.During this period, technical colleges in all German states further tightened restrictions onRus sians. For a good survey ofHochschule policies on the eve of the First W orld W ar, see K.C. Blatter,1st Marc h 1913, p. 126, and the memoranda from officials in Stuttgart (17th May 1912), Darmstadt(17th May 1912) and Karlsruhe (6th April 1912) in Dresden, Min. fur Volksbildung, Nr. 15804.'" 'Quotas exceeded: Die Welt, 10th Octobe r 1913, p. 395. Ove r-all decline: K.C. Blatter, July , 1914, pp .224225. O n de velopme nts in Prussia after the outbreak of war: see DZA M , Rep . 77 Tit . 46, Nr. 40,V o l . I . Das Stadium russischer Staatsangehb'riger an den Preussischen Hochschulen igio-iggz a n dB r a c h m a n n , op. cit., p . 118 . See a l so Stenographische Berichte iiber die Verhandlungen des Reichstages,session of 31st Oc tob er 1916, vol. 308, for a compre hensive repo rt by Dr. Lew ald of the R eichsam tdes Innern that traced the history of decrees issued as early as 30th August 1914 ousting enemyaliens from all German insti tutions of higher learning.Just before the outbreak of the First World War, the Ausldnderfrage controversy gave rise todebates beyond Germany's borders. The academic senate at the German university in Praguecalled for a numerus clausus on "non-German foreigners". Medical students in Basle agitated forstringent admissions tests for aliens. And their French colleagues deman ded the ousting of aliensfrom medical schools. It is unclear how these protests related to similar dema nds in Germany : Werethe F rench , Swiss, and Austrians reacting to the influx of foreigners wh o now avoided Germ any? Orwere these students merely inspired by the success of their Germ an co unterparts? In either event,Ge rma ny h ad exp orted the "pro blem of foreigners at universit ies". (Pragu e: Die Welt, 23rd October1913, p. 1468 and 21st November 1913, p. 1598. France: Die Welt, 18th April 1914, p. 499.Switzerland: Die Welt, 18th Ju ly 1914, p. 922 and 7th Novem ber 1913, p. 536.) O ne m ay speculate asto the possible connection between G erm an q uotas on Russian-Jewish stude nts and the imposit ionof antisemitic quotas at American universit ies a few years later.T h e Auslanderfrage controversy in Germ any a nd other E urope an states shaped the ideological andpolitical stances of Russian-Jewish students in Western Europe and inspired serious plans for thecreation of a Jewish university. As stated in note 10, these developments will be examined in asubsequent essay.


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Russian-Jewish Students in Germany 203citizens from competitor nations did not concern them. They focussed insteadalmost exclusively on stud ents from Ru ssia. Some states imposed qu ota s solely onRussians. Others placed a numerus clausus on all foreigners but in practice shapedrestrictions to curb only Jew ish stud ents from the Ts arist E m pire : they re strictedforeigners in faculties w here the latter p redo m inate d i.e. medicine; they rejectedgraduates of Russian Realschulenwhich affected Jews who faced quotas atTsarist Gymnasia; and mo st crucially, they req uired solely of Ru ssians e vidence ofprior study at an institution of higher learning in their hom eland , a dem and thatmost Russian Jews could not meet due to Tsarist quotas. The new regulations,thus, reduced the complex questions posed by the presence of foreigners atGerman universities and the particular needs of Russian-Jewish students to asimple ma tter of curbing unw anted Jews . As new restrictions were form ulated, anofficial in Berlin's police department clarified the issue dominating theAusldnderfrage:

"Academic life must be protected from the influx of Russians which is 90% Jewish andtherefore unwanted. The well-known arrogance of Russian-Jewish students is growing indirect proportion to their numbers. This deepens the antagonism between German andRussian students and will lead to new and more considerable conflict."Though not privy to such candid private correspondence, many contemporariesunderstood the intention of governm ent policy. "Practically, it m ea ns ," wrote theFrankfurter Zeitung, "th at Russian Jew s who are as good as barre d from universitystudy in their dear fatherland, now also cannot attend German universities.Because of this cruelty, we permit ourselves to speak of Russian barbarism atGerman Hochschulen."*1

I l lThe Frankfurter Zeitung*s editorial was not the only expression of dissent againstthe governm ent's ha ndling of the Ausldnderfrage: during public debates, a varietyof groups challenged discriminatory policies and rose to the defence ofRussian-Jewish stu de nts. Some employed ridicule to sha me G erm an officials intoceasing their imitation of Russia's discriminatory policies. Others appealed tonational pride, arguing that the presence of foreign students enhancedGermany's international prestige and attested to the cultural eminence of itsuniversities. And still others accused governments of illegal actions, citing theharassment of foreigners and antisemitic discrimination against Jews.

Within the political arena, Progressives (Liberals) and Social Democrats, theparties that most consistently fought against antisemitism and xenophobia, ledthe campaign against restrictionists. Socialist deputies rebuked governments forallowing Tsarist agents to operate in Germany and protested the harassment ofRussian-Jewish students. Early in the twentieth century, Karl Liebknechtcirculated a que stionnaire to Russian stud ents conce rning their experiences w ith41 For the com men ts of the Berlin police official, see DZ A M , Das Studium, p. 95, mem orand um of 14thFebruary 1913. A cutting from the Frankfurter Zeitung, 2nd October 1913, appears in GLAKarlsruhe, 235/7503.


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204 Jack Wertheimerthe German police; their responses provided ammunition for fightinggovernment spokesmen. Both Liberals and SPD deputies viewed the attacksupon foreign students as a product of reactionary and antisemitic demands. AsLiebknecht put it to the Prussian Chamber of Deputies: "the numenis clausus isreally directed against Russian students and is a reactionary development ...born of the antisemitic spirit and aimed at the politically unpopular foreigns tudent s . "4 2

At the univ ersities, rectors, senates and faculties generally resisted stude nt andgovernment demands for curbs on foreign students. To be sure, individualprofessors openly suppo rted restrictions. However, academ ic administrators andrepre senta tives of the professorate consistently minimised the problem s posed byforeigners a nd soug ht to avoid new adm issions policies. It is possible to specu lateas to their motives were they driven by concern for Russian students or for theprinciple of academic freedom?-but their opposition to new restrictions wasclearly expressed in correspondence with ministers of education. Individualprofessors also took a stand: professors of medicine in Heidelberg, Leipzig, andHalle wrote letters commending Russian students for their abilities andcontributions. Faculty members in the department of mechanical and electricalengineering at Ka rlsruhe's Hochschule fought against a numerus clausus, contendingthat Russians had "proven themselves among the most diligent" of students.According to some professors, native opposition to foreigners was motivated byjealousy since Russian stud ents tended to work harder and p ut in longer hours inlaboratories; if anything, the Russians served as positive models for their lazyGe rm an cou nterp arts. Professors also denou nced requirem ents for prior study inRussia as an importation to Germany of Tsarist antisemitism. And someuniversity officials submitted pleas requesting that bureaucrats exemptespecially deserving Russian students from restrictions and onerous fees. 43

In contrast, there was little student support for the Russian Jews. At thebeginning of the controversy, even the Kartell-Convent der Verbindungen deutscherStudentenjudischen Glaubens (K .C .), the fraternities of integration istJews , were tornbetween their loyalties to German co-students and fellow Jews. As patrioticstudents, they could hardly object when their fellows justified restrictionist4 2Liebknecht 's speech: quoted in AZJ, 8th May 1914, pp. 218-219. The Liberals' posit ion is bestsummarised in numerous editorials printed by the Mitteilungen aus dem Verein zur Abwehr desAntisemitimus; see, for exam ple, 14th Au gust 1907 p. 251; 16th Nov emb er 1907, pp . 354-355 ; 24thFeb ruary 1909, pp . 57-60 ; 13th Ju ly 1910, pp . 213-214. A copy of Liebknech t 's questionnaire is inBrandenburgisches Landeshauptarchiv Potsdam, vol. 12778.4 3Brachmann also concludes that rectors and senates at non-Prussian universit ies opposedrestrictions on Russian students (op. cit., p. 101). For some examples of opposition, see Dresden,M in. fur Vo lksbildung, Nr. 15804, pp . 143-144; and GLA Kar lsruhe , 235/7305, protests from thesenate of Karlsruhe's/ /oducAufc dated 14th M ay 1909, lOthNovem ber 1910 and 8th Februa ry 1913.See also letters written by individual professors in support of their Russian students: JewishNation al L ibrary and Archives, Jeru salem , v. 768, file of the Verband der ostjudischen Studentenvereine inWesteuropa, letters of 14th and 16th August, 1912 by Heidelberg

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