Office of the Historian

862.00 P.R./221

Extract From Political Report of the Ambassador in Germany (Dodd)7

undated

3. No More Doctors Degrees for Jews. The Reichs Minister for Education,8 in agreement with the Führer’s Deputy, has just issued a decree ordering that German Jews are no longer to be admitted to examinations for doctors degrees at German universities, a measure that is apparently an outgrowth of the present renewed anti-Jewish campaign and one which is likely to create a discrimination of some importance in view of the fact that the degree in Germany is regarded as the emblem of a secondary education. “Jews” in the sense of this order are those described as such by the executory ordinance to the Reichs Citizenship Law of September 1935, namely, persons with three, or more, Jewish grandparents; so-called “Jewish crossbreeds,” [Page 323] or persons with one, or two, Jewish grandparents, are not affected by the decree.9 Henceforth all German university students shall be required to submit complete data concerning their parentage, such as that contained in the “Ancestral Pass” described in a previous report from the Embassy (see despatch No. 3040 of September 16, 1936).10

Temporary exceptions are to be made in favor of Jewish students who have already submitted their doctors thesis or who, having completed the courses for the various doctorates, shall announce themselves for the final examination within three months following the issuance of the order. Furthermore, a rather curious privilege is granted Jewish candidates for doctors degrees in medicine or dentistry; inasmuch as no new Jewish doctors are being admitted to practice, the candidates will not be granted degrees as long as they remain in Germany but should they emigrate abroad and find permanent employment there, their degrees will be made retroactively valid.

A somewhat anomalous situation would seem to result from the fact that while a limited number of Jews are admitted to the universities under the numerus clausus, they will now be deprived of recognition for their academic work. Presumably the new measure will discourage still further the attendance of Jewish students.

The press states that the existing provisions as regards foreign students remain unaffected. From a competent source it has been learned that this means that as heretofore no restrictions are placed on the attendance of foreign Jewish students at German universities or upon their receiving degrees for their courses.

  1. Transmitted to the Department by the Ambassador in his despatch No. 3467, May 12; received May 21.↩
  2. B. Rust↩
  3. See Foreign Relations, 1935, vol. ii, pp. 406 ff.↩
  4. Not printed.↩