<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8"></head><body dir="auto"><p style="margin-top:0.0pt;margin-bottom:0.0pt;" dir="ltr"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant-emoji: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">The Nazis murdered all kinds of minorities, including gypsies, people with disabilities, political opponents and resistance fighters, but their main enemy has been the group of Jewish people. Nazism was based on two pillars: the first was nationalism ("make Germany great again") and the second was antisemitism.</span></p><p style="margin-top:0.0pt;margin-bottom:0.0pt;" dir="ltr"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant-emoji: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victims_of_Nazi_Germany</span></p><br dir="auto"><p style="margin-top:0.0pt;margin-bottom:0.0pt;" dir="ltr"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant-emoji: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Therefore I would say most academics who left Nazi Germany were Jewish, because a) they were the most persecuted group and because b) Jewish professors were not uncommon at universities during the time of the Weimar Republic between the two world wars. In Judaism people worship literally a book, therefore there were a large number of doctors, intellectuals and academics among the Jewish population.</span></p><p style="margin-top:0.0pt;margin-bottom:0.0pt;" dir="ltr"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant-emoji: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weimar_culture</span></p><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">Overall I don't believe there was a significant outflow of non-Jewish academics, scientists, writers, etc. b<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant-emoji: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">ut I don't have exact numbers to support this assumption. Some non-Jewish writers like Thomas Mann emigrated, while others stayed (and were criticized for it after the war). </span><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); white-space-collapse: preserve; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-weight: inherit;">Some Jewish professors like Victor Klemperer stayed and described their horrible experience in haunting words in their diaries. The books from Victor Klemperer have become bestsellers in Germany.</span></div><p style="margin-top:0.0pt;margin-bottom:0.0pt;" dir="ltr"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant-emoji: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_Klemperer</span></p><p style="margin-top:0.0pt;margin-bottom:0.0pt;" dir="ltr"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant-emoji: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br></span></p><p style="margin-top:0.0pt;margin-bottom:0.0pt;" dir="ltr"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant-emoji: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">-J.</span></p><p style="margin-top:0.0pt;margin-bottom:0.0pt;" dir="ltr"><br></p><div><br></div><div align="left" dir="auto" style="font-size:100%;color:#000000"><div>-------- Original message --------</div><div>From: Barry MacKichan <barry.mackichan@mackichan.com> </div><div>Date: 4/21/25 11:17 PM (GMT+01:00) </div><div>To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam@redfish.com> </div><div>Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Academic Freedom </div><div><br></div></div><div style="font-family: sans-serif;"><div style="white-space: normal;" class="markdown">
<p dir="auto">You’ve raised a point I’ve wondered about. I could ask ChatGPT4, but I trust you more. 😉<br>
Most of the emigrés I met in mathematics (and there were a lot when I was young) were Jewish. Was there a significant outflow of non-Jewish academics, scientists, writers, etc.? The exodus from the US is potentially greater since the number dependent on a paycheck exceeds the numbers of any one religion. I now live near several universities and I know graduate students moving to Canada; the faculty are watching their grants go and come back from court actions, but none of the younger ones seem to know where they will be in a few years.</p>
<p dir="auto">— Barry</p>
<p dir="auto">On 21 Apr 2025, at 14:22, Jochen Fromm wrote:</p>
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<p dir="auto">Good point. Hermann Weyl, John von Neumann, Albert Einstein, Erich Fromm and Hannah Arendt went to the US because they were Jewish. Enrico Fermi emmigrated to the US because his wife was Jewish. Just read his biography "Enrico Fermi: The Last Man Who Knew Everything" which says he stayed in Italy even under Mussolini until Mussolini started to implement Hitler's antisemitic laws. </p>
<p dir="auto">Maybe one could say academic freedom is one of the highest freedoms because it depends on freedom of speech <em>and</em> freedom of religion.</p>
<p dir="auto">-J.</p>
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