Off Campus: German Propaganda Professors in America, 1914–1917

Abstract

This chapter examines the mobilization of German professors in an attempt to rally their colleagues in the United States to the side of the Central Powers by utilizing connections and networks forged before the war. In so doing, the chapter poses a question which was especially pertinent to scholars in this period: when do political commitment, national identity and social interest become propaganda? This fundamental tension recurred in the public actions of many scholars throughout the war. This chapter also demonstrates the connectedness of the academic world which meant that, while the United States would not be a formal belligerent until 1917, it was a front in a cultural war from 1914.