A committee of Rutgers University trustees today cleared Dr. Frederick J. Hauptmann, head of the German department of the New Jersey State College for Women, of anti-Semitism in the dismissal of Dr. Leinhard Bergel, German instructor at the college.
In a 40,000 word report ending a three-month investigation, J. Edward Ashmead, who headed the committee, stated that charges that Dr. Hauptman had been spreading Nazi propaganda on the campus of the women’s college, which is a subdivision of Rutgers, were completely unfounded.
But the committee’s report admitted that Dr. Hauptmann believes that many of Germany’s troubles were caused by “the influx into Germany of the Jews exiled from Poland after the war. In the rise of Hitler he saw the possibility of moulding the German people into a united nation.”
The report continued: “Prof. Hauptmann’s hope in this regard is so strong that he is disposed to overlook and, if possible, to find some justification for the general policies of Hitler.”
In spite of this, the committee decided that Dr. Hauptmann is “personally not in the slightest degree anti-Semitic.”
The report upheld the dismissal of Dr. Bergel as based on incompetence.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
