Today in America, universities are generally places for free and open discussion and debate, with primarily one exception: if a person actively opposes anti-Semitism ( whether in Mein Kampf or the Koran) and fights for freedom of speech. Numerous individuals who hold these views — basic Enlightenment positions — have become pariahs on many college campuses. These universities, by the actions of their administrators, professors and students, have become 21st century bastions of Gleichschaltung.
Gleichschaltung, translated as Nazification, was applied to Freiburg University, Frankfurt University, Göttingen University and the other universities in 1930s Germany, as they marginalized, often brutalized, and then eliminated Jews and antifascists who opposed anti-Semitism and believed in free speech. Many German professors and students enthusiastically supported Gleichschaltung including the philosopher Martin Heidegger and lawyers Ernst Forsthoff and Otto Koellreuter.
Stanford has emerged as the latest American university to demonstrate its commitment to Gleichschaltung. Robert Spencer, New York Times best selling author, free speech advocate and fighter against all things anti-Semitic, was effectively prevented from having an audience last week at Stanford. Rather than an administration that encourages young students to listen to disparate views, study them and make independent judgments without peer pressure, the administration at Stanford essentially made it impossible for anyone who wanted to listen to Mr. Spencer to do so, by having a group of student puppets fill the room and then walk out. Then they locked the doors, so that the people who were waiting outside and wanted to listen to and evaluate Mr. Spencer’s views could not.
This is Stanford’s version of the heckler’s veto, as conceived by President Marc Tessier-Lavigne, Provost Persis Drell, Dean Snehal Naik and Dean Nanci Howe.
Considering the ferocity of Stanford’s opposition to Robert Spencer speaking about freedom of speech — a concept condemned by Gleichschaltung — one could speculate about whether President Tessier-Lavigne, Provost Drell, Dean Naik and Dean Howe have an intellectual allegiance to former Stanford President David Starr Jordan. According to Holocaust scholar Edwin Black:
Stanford President David Starr Jordan originated the notion of “race and blood”in his 1902 racial epistle “Blood of a Nation,” in which the university scholar declared that human qualities and conditions such as talent and poverty were passed through the blood.” (“Eugenics and the Nazis — the California Connection,” SF Gate, 11/9/03)
In May 2017, Mr. Spencer faced the more traditional heckler’s veto at another university that has embraced Gleichschaltung: the University at Buffalo. This was sanctioned by its President, Satish Tripathi.
As more university administrators and professors across America embrace Gleichschaltung, it is becoming a question of when, not if, those who oppose anti-Semitism and support free speech will face actual threats to their personal safety on college campuses. Gleichschaltung by definition has no regard for the safety of such individuals.
This issue of potential violence by those who view individuals who oppose anti-Semitism and support free speech such as Mr. Spencer as their enemy was observed by the Editorial Board of the Buffalo News in May 2017:
The ugliness being displayed on college campuses where protestors have been violent or threatened violence because of the conservative views of speakers would be disturbing in any context, but is especially so when it occurs on college campuses that should be havens for free speech. (5/5/17)
Clearly the administrators, professors and students across America’s universities who embrace Gleichschaltung are many; as demonstrated at Stanford by their violent words, these same individuals would not be uncomfortable with the brutality and violence associated with Gleichschaltung at those same German universities in the 1930s. Clearly that violent time is approaching here.
mortimer says
Thank you, Mr. Sherman for this important insight.
GLEICHSCHALTUNG ~ the process by which the Nazi regime successively established a system of total control and co-ordination of all aspects of society. The government’s desire for total control impelled it to function as the only influence on society. ~
Gleichschaltung refers to the legal measures taken by the government during the 20 months that followed 30 January 1933, when Adolf Hitler became Chancellor of Germany. It was a policy where the Nazi’s formed their own organisations with compulsory membership. A Nazi version of everything allowed them to control all aspects of German Life.
epistemology says
You’re right “Gleichschaltung” is one of those perverse words that still exist in the German language. The normal meaning is synchronization, nothing special. But your description is perfectly right, that’s what the Nazis did and the Germans accepted it, no rebellion, no cry.
It makes me shiver when I see things like that happen in the U.S., the paragon of democracy.
blitz2b says
“Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”
Sir Winston Churchill
Gleichschaltung for Islam…. The liberal left has truly gone barking mad ! !
Cynthia in California says
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Stated originally (I think) by Georges Santanana, d. 1952 (https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/George_Santayana)
True no matter who says it: the study of history has become so compromised that even this trenchant sentiment is in danger of being forgotten, an ultimate example of irony.
Charles says
It astonishes me how cozzy the leftist lunatics are with all these islamic terrorists and their promoters!
It’s as if the brain maggot/parasite called izlam has taken total control over their very souls! Kind of like Demonic possession!
TassieR says
As for me it doesn’t astonish me a bit: they’ve already had a vast experience of the nost “cozzy” make-love-not-war feelings for communists (even for those of the murderous Che level), for the LGBT perverts, for deserters – well, for anything vile and destructive – or, at least, utterly non-constructive…
MFritz says
Interesting how the word is used internationally!
In Germany its mostly used in regards to the press (coming under control of Goebbels), but also unions and clubs (who were either forbidden or merged together into Nazi-organisations) and “uniting” police force, military and secret service into one organisation (the Reichssicherheitshauptamt).
Using “Gleichschaltung” for US-universities sounds a bit strong. There’s no overarching power base or party behind it. More likely the same foolish ideologues from the left fringe who came in charge over the years. Who hired people like “themselves” and began replacing every differing voice with those falling into line.
I would call it a “take over”. Maybe even a “cold take over” since it happened slowly and over years. And only when Hillary lost and they figured out they could actively and openly wage “war” against all differing opinions did it become so obvious. And toxic.
Maybe “systemic rot” comes even more closely. Because double standards and outright ignoring inconvenient truths isn’t necessarily an indicator for political extremism. It can also indicate that people live in an ivory tower, away from reality, and are really not as smart as they believe.
Cynthia in California says
I would disagree that “there’s no overarching power base or party behind [Gleichschaltung].”
From my vantage point in the San Francisco Bay Area (dear Lord…), this power base began consolidating just as soon as the word “progressive” began to be bandied about in the press in the early ’90s. There may not be a formal title encompassing all progressives, but their tactics, statements, and political philosophy of monopolar expression have all come on since then.
After 11 September 2001, the “progressives” found ways to exempt Islam from the guilt of having attacked the West. This is the jihad we currently face: on two fronts–one from our erstwhile Americans and one, of course, from Islam.
Note that persons born in or just before the early ’90s are now the Millennials, many of whom have never been exposed to robust political discussions. They truly do not know what they’ve been deprived of.
Richard says
I think most of these complicit university administrators and professors are motivated not by ideology per se but rather by deep fear of their own students. They fear the campus kangaroo courts, denunciations, forced leaves of absence and eventual dismissals that students have recently been able to inflict on staff who stray in any way from the ultra-leftist ideology.
The irony here is that these very admins and profs and their predecessors are the ones who have been gaily implanting this ideology in youths for several generations now. As Ernst Roehm said just before he was executed by his fellow Nazis during the Night of the Long Knives, “All revolutions devour their own children”.
eduardo odraude says
Good points.
Tom Davis says
Recall that during the Gleichschaltung the theologian Karl Barth was forced out of his position at the University of Bonn in June 1935. When he later returned to Switzerland he was asked if he supported the Swiss Army, and he replied “Yes, especially along the northern border!”
There is no Switzerland today.
eduardo odraude says
“There is no Switzerland today.”
Huh?
eduardo odraude says
“Nazification” seems unsuited to describe what is happening in the universities now. I’d prefer “illiberalization,” or “totalitarianization” or something. But then the Stanford administration and the allied students have no right to complain about being charged with Nazification, because they themselves viciously slandered conservatives and centrists as fascists.
eduardo odraude says
I see that German-English dictionaries translate Gleichschaltung as “enforced conformity” or “synchronization” — so the word in that sense appears dead on accurate for what is happening on many campuses today.
eduardo odraude says
But this is not necessarily the same thing as “Nazification” — what is happening on campuses is just the incipience of the same enforcement of conformity found in all totalitarian societies. If you want to see a terrifying example, look at some of the (in a way gorgeous) mass performances that have been produced by the Chinese communist state. Thousands of performers all synchronized in a huge choreography where the individual disappears entirely, the collective everything. As if human beings were nothing more than a hive! Ugh!
John S. Obeda says
My dictionary translates the word: political co-ordination.
Lydia says
Gleichschaltung…. exactly!!!
It comes in many flavors, but this is precisely what is going on; “nazification” of society.
That is what I am warning about. It is all over the landscape and the infestation is spreading.
I hate (well, okay, I admit it, I love to do this) to wax ‘deep’ on things here, but this is like a thick fog that engulfs society. There is a spiritual background to it. If anyone lived through the nazi rise to power, you had to admit it was eerie in a demonic way how this ‘thing’ took over so suddenly, turning otherwise rational and civilized people into this sort of blood thirsty beast, ascribing to such horrific ideologies, leading to such atrocity. This does not just so happen overnight, out of the clear blue sky.
Well it is the exact same thing with this, it is like that fog rolling in over the land. It is going to swallow up the whole world. As with the nazi time, they came for the churches early. In our time, they already have done that. (The Great Apostasy of 2 Thessalonians 2; 1-12 and other verses, yes it is prophesied.) But it will sweep over the entire world. Most have already sold out to it without even realizing it. There are many parts to it, islam is but one arm of it. The globalists are the head of the octopus. It is all in end times Bible prophesy, which most don’t truly understand. This is necessary in order for the antichrist to gain global control. Many forces are at work in an ‘all roads lead to Rome’ sense towards this agenda. Many whose eyes are open to some of it see just the area they are in, but it is a network.
I never worry that people won’t understand any of this, because in no time they will see it anyway and then maybe, just maybe, they will think ‘ah, that’s what she was talking about!’ ‘Then I’d better avoid x, y, and z.’ It happens to me that way, it just arrives like a vision. I warn. At first there is silence. And then… it comes. Whatever the item was. It is just a matter of time. It will all come to pass. All I can tell people is…. read the Bible and turn to Jesus. If you do nothing else, do that.
( :
Lydia says
They will call us terrorists, while they do the terrorizing.
They will call us nazi’s, while they organize and run the holocaust against us.
They will call us dangerous extremists, while they threaten us.
They will call us bullies, while they bully us.
They will call us pharisees, while they crucify us.
They will call us bigots, while they discriminate against us for our beliefs.
They will call us haters, while they hate on us.
They will call us intolerant, while they don’t tolerate us.
They will call us oppressors, while they persecute us.
Loyal and unrelenting Christians are their number one target.
But anyone who resists is their enemy.
They will promote the fuzzy ‘love’, which loves all but us.
If you agree with them, then they will accept you.
If you do not agree with them, they will ostracize you for not conforming to them.
Under a banner of ‘love, unity, tolerance, inclusion, peace, brotherhood, human rights, and diversity’ they will execute us as ‘the problem’ and the execution is their ‘final solution’.
WorkingClassPost says
I think you’ll find that they use the word Love in it’s islamic sense:-
i.e. finding joy, and compassion, of being tolerant and forgiving and all the things that make life worth living that does not, and could never, include their ideology.
For them, Love is just a four letter word.
herbert davis says
correction: article should state with several exceptions as all religions seem protected from critique and criticism…try criticizing Judaism or Catholicism at a public college.