Reluctant to discuss their stay in Germany, a group of American college professors and instructors who visited that land this summer under the auspices of the Carl Schurz Vereinigung arrived Friday aboard the Hamburg-American liner New York.
Arriving with the professors and equally hesitant to talk of their stay in Germany were thirty-two American students, recipients of scholarships for summer courses for foreigners in Heidelberg University.
Professor Reginald Coggeshall, of Columbia University, and Dean Mary Lowell Coolidge, of Wellesley College, were missing when the boat docked. It was learned that Professor Coggeshall had stopped off at Cherbourg and will arrive here soon.
Pressed for a statement, Professor Homer Leroy Shantz, of the University of Arizona, manager of the expedition, declares that “we all had a fine time. It was a marvelous trip.” He refused to discuss the question of anti-Semitism on the ground that he had no “authority.”
Instructor R. I. Kimmel, of Princeton University, was inclined to be more talkative. He described Germany as a normal, peaceful country. To the query whether anti-Semitism was prevalent there, Kimmel said: “You find the same kind of anti-Semitism there that you find in this country.”
He refused to explain his statement. “I visited Jewish department stores in Berlin and found business going on as usual,” he added. “Present day Germany is concerned with the problem of unemployment.”
The American party arrived in Germany immediately after the Hitler “purge.” Contrary to all reports, Kimmel declared that people in Berlin were cheerful and happy. He admitted, however, that it was impossible to measure Hitler’s popularity among the German population because of the strict censorship.
Dr. John Frederick Louis Raschen, of the University of Pittsburgh, deplored charges of anti-Semitism in Hitlerland. “I bought in Jewish stores and visited the Jewish quarters of Berlin and found absolutely no signs of anti-Jewish feeling,” he said. “We expected disturbances there but we didn’t see any. It was a most agreeable surprise.”
Persistent questioning of the students was fruitless. They smilingly watched the skyline as the boat neared the dock and replied to all questions that the trip was very pleasant.
Representatives of both groups emphatically denied insinuations that the Nazi government subsidized the trip. “The Carl Schurz Vereinigung is backed by private organizations,” they asserted.
Included among the professors were Benjamin Fletcher Wright, Harvard University; Dr. Carl P. Schreiber, Yale University; Clarence W. Eastman, Amherst College; Stuart M. Stoke, Mt. Holyoke College, and Dorothy Schaffter, of Vassar College.
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.
