Propaganda Effort Charged in New German Student Exchange

A “thinly veiled effort at propaganda” by the German Government in establishing the German University Service here, for exchange of students with the United States was charged by Acting President Dr. Nelson P. Mead of City College in a letter to the New York Times. Dr. Mead, one of 350 American college presidents to whom the agency recently sent letters announcing its plans for encouraging and extending exchange of students between Germany and this country, said the Institute of International Education had been the chief student exchange agency in the United States. He pointed out that no country except Germany had opened a separate office here for that purpose.

Commenting on the disclosure, Dr. Stephen Duggan, director of the Institute, said there was no need for a separate German office since German students and instructors generally were accorded “exactly the same treatment” as those of other countries. The German agency is in charge of Dr. George Rettig, who denied the agency was engaged in propaganda and asserted its work was “purely cultural land has nothing to do with politics.”