The 'Technische Hochschule' (Technical University) in Vienna during the Nazi Period

Die Technische Hochschule in Wien in der NS-Zeit

Abstract

Most official publications on the Vicnna Technical Univcrsity (TH) do not deal extensively with the period betwcen 1938 and 1945. Rare references to the war years usually emphasize the faculty members' determination to resist German attacks on universitarian autonomy. The Nazi's also tried to sever the traditional links between Austrian industry and higher technical education by removing industrial experts from the TH's examination boards. By such measures they arouscd suspicion even among the ranks of decidedly pro-German TH-professors, who after Hitler's defeat claimed to always have been sceptical about national socialist university politics. Yet this was clearly not the case. The annexation of Austria by Germany in March 1938 made hopes of the TH soar. Immediately following the "Anschluss" and the sub-sequent purge of Jewish professors and students, the Rector presented the German authorities an ambitious project of renewal and enlargement, both of the university building and the staff. Such plans were frustrated in the course of the following year. Resulting disappointment on the part of the TH-professors should not be misinterpreted as fundamental opposition against Nazism, however.