Democracy and the University: America and the Reconstruction of German Higher Education, 1945-1966

Abstract

This dissertation explores the intellectual and practical debates over the role of the university in a democratic society by examining the reconstruction and reorientation of German universities in the aftermath of the Second World War, encouraged and led largely by the United States. Drawing on archival materials from universities, foundations, and the US Government, as well as contemporary published sources in journals, conference proceedings, and other forums for discussing the goals of higher education, it traces the efforts made by policy-makers, educators, and philosophers, principally American and German, to develop a system of university education that would safeguard democracy in the so-called “free world,” including West Germany. I argue that a coherent and identifiable doctrine of the role of the university in a democratic society developed in this period. Politically engaged, with equitable and democratic governance, and responsive to civil society, this model of the university attempted not only to respond to the perceived political threats of Fascist authoritarianism and Communism, but also expressed a positive vision of higher education as a source of democratic renewal and a mechanism for producing democratic citizens and leaders. I contribute not only to the literature surrounding the development of higher education in Germany and the postwar process of democratic development there, but also to the general discussion of a model of higher education that dominated the latter half of the twentieth century.