1933 – 1945: Hohenheim during the Nazi era

Nazi government installed new president and “Führer” of the Hohenheim Agricultural College.

The National Socialist “forced conformity” (Gleichschaltung) began in Hohenheim on 2 May 1933, at the latest, with the introduction of Percy Brigl as the first president under National Socialist rule. In the 1920s, the atmosphere in Hohenheim was already mostly conservative-nationalist. There were only a few Jewish students, and there were no student associations from the left or republican spectrum. Accordingly, the number of university members who are forced from the University in the 1930s was low.

The University is the last one in the district of Stuttgart at which the Nazi student union took root. However, at its founding, 16 members immediately joined. In light of the fact that there were only 117 students, that makes a quota of 14% - three times as many as the average of 4 percent at universities in the German Reich.

During the following period, the easiest way to advance toward a scientific career was to have your name recorded in the party books.

Hohenheim presidents and National Socialism

Around 250 people were deported to Hohenheim for forced labor from 1940 onwards.

They worked in agriculture, at the institutes, or even in the private households of the lecturers. In memory of the forced laborers and all people who suffered injustice at and through the then Hohenheim Agricultural College during the Nazi era, the President of the University of Hohenheim unveiled a commemorative sculpture in the Hohenheim Cemetery on 12 November 2018. Two more memorial stones mark the graves of Isabella Sikorska and Peter Ralintschenko, who died during forced labor in Hohenheim.

To the memorial points

The State Plant Breeding Institute and the dairy building were severely damaged and partially destroyed by bombs in 1944.

Even beyond that, the war changed the campus. For example, a military hospital was set up in the central building of Hohenheim Palace. Some of the graves of the soldiers who died there can still be found today in the Hohenheim Cemetery.

The college had to be closed for only a short time by order of the victorious powers. However, a true new beginning and an intensive confrontation with the Nazi era failed to materialize.

Teaching at Hohenheim could be resumed already in December 1945. When it was re-opened on 3 January 1946, the constitution from 1922 entered into force again.

However, a true new beginning and an intensive confrontation with the Nazi era failed to materialize.

The suppression finally culminated when Prof. Dr. Günther Franz, an agricultural historian who was an avowed Nazi and SS officer, was appointed as a Hohenheim professor in 1957. From 1963 to 1967 he even served as college president.