Jana Fietz. Nordische Studenten an der UniversitÖ¤t Greifswald in der Zeit 1815 bis 1933. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2004. 265 pp. EUR 36.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-3-515-08084-2.

Reviewed by Tracey J. Kinney (Department of History, Kwantlen Polytechnic University)
Published on H-German (December, 2005)

Nordic Students at the University of Greifswald

Jana Fietz's book is the fifth monograph in a series of histories, edited by Christoph Friedrich, related to the University of Greifswald. This volume was written as the author's doctoral dissertation, completed in 2001 at the Ernst Moritz Arndt University of Greifswald. Fietz indicates in the preface that she was motivated to produce this particular study by the current trend towards institutional histories of German universities. The vast majority of such studies, however, focus on the institution itself, while omitting the student body. Thus it was Fietz's intent to produce a history of the university, built around its student body, in particular its foreign students of Nordic origin.

The focus on Nordic students is a product of the distinctive history of the University of Greifswald (renamed the Ernst Moritz Arndt University in 1933). As Fietz notes in the introductory remarks, by virtue of its location, the university experienced both Prussian and Swedish administration. Founded in 1456, Greifswald was one of the first Prussian universities. However, in 1637 Pomerania was annexed to Sweden during the Thirty Years' War. The 1648 Westphalian settlement confirmed the transfer of Pomerania and, by extension, the University of Greifswald, to Sweden where it remained until 1815; following the Napoleonic Wars the Congress of Vienna re-integrated the territory into the Prussian state. Thus this study focuses on the cultural and historical connections between Greifswald and the Northern European states, using Nordic student migration to Greifswald as its organizing theme.

Several analytical questions guided Fietz's examination of the Nordic student body: when did Nordic students study at Greifswald, for how long, to which faculties did they belong, from which Nordic countries, and from which social classes (as judged by parental occupation). Subsidiary issues studied include: why certain faculties were disproportionately popular with Nordic students, and the impact, on the foreign student population, of the 1908 decision to admit women to Prussian universities. Fietz notes sixteen other studies on similar topics, but the vast majority focus on the pre-1800 era. Her study is thus a relatively unique look at foreign students from Nordic countries in the post-1815 era. This study concludes in 1933 due to the fact that the National Socialist era introduces an entirely new set of methodological issues with respect to foreign students.

The primary strengths of this work lie in its meticulous research and in the interesting historical overviews which precede the quantitative analysis in the fourth chapter. Fietz's research is painstakingly thorough. Every Nordic student admitted to Greifswald has been identified by name and by parental occupation, as well as by dates of admission and matriculation. Fully sixty-five pages of tables follow the written analysis, creating a comprehensive picture of the Nordic student body. In addition, Fietz has included tables from earlier studies of foreign students in German universities.

As one moves on to the quantitative analysis it is evident that, for the first one hundred years of the study, Greifswald's Nordic student population was very small. Thus it becomes difficult to draw any reliable conclusions about motive, social class, and educational experience. Fietz, for example, claims that one of the reasons attracting Nordic students to Greifswald was the intellectual ferment of the Vormärz era, specifically the development of new nationalist and liberal thought. Her tables do show a spike in Nordic student registrations during the Vormärz; however, an increase from four students (1820-1839) to eight (1843-1850) hardly seems to be a sufficient sample size upon which to base any solid conclusions. In fact, only sixty-two Nordic students in total were admitted to the University of Greifswald between 1815 and 1918, raising the possibility of statistical anomalies influencing any conclusions. A massive increase in Nordic students occurred during the Weimar era, such that three hundred Nordic students, fully half of the foreign student body of the University, attended between 1921 and 1932. Fietz concludes that the vast majority of these students (235) were drawn to Greifswald by its state of the art dentistry program, a program not available in either Norway or Sweden until the mid-1920s. Once new facilities opened in the Nordic countries, the foreign student population at Greifswald rapidly decreased.

Despite the statistical issues raised by the sample size upon which the quantitative analysis rests, Fietz's study includes a number of valuable elements, including an overview of the cultural and academic relationship between the Nordic and German states, as well as a synopsis of the historical evolution of Greifswald as it returned to Prussian control after 1815. Fietz notes that student life at Greifswald was quickly and thoroughly "Germanized" after 1815, yet a fascination with Nordic subjects remained. Ibsen studies, for example, were prominent at Greifswald. Fietz ties this information to the broader interest in Nordic culture and Nordic myths embodied in this era by German nationalists such as Herder and Arndt.

As well, Fietz examines the impact of the Humboldt reforms on student enrollment at German universities, including Greifswald, concluding that the renewed focus on the university as a center of education, research, and intellectual development proved to be a tremendous draw to both foreign and domestic students. The University of Berlin, as the institution pioneering the Humboldt reforms, saw its total enrolment increase from 5,000 to 16,000 students between 1815 and 1830. The interaction between rapidly expanding industries and German universities further enhanced the appeal of these institutions, both to students and faculty alike, as private laboratories and institutes proliferated in the universities.

Additional issues raised by the study include cultural and academic development after 1871, in particular the impact on the universities of the national Kulturpolitik; the problems and potential of university studies in the Weimar era; and, in the specific case of Greifswald, the development and role of the Nordeuropa-Institut, which evolved from facilitating academic exchanges in the 1850s to playing a major role in Weimar-era foreign policy.

This study thus raises a number of interesting questions that would be of interest to scholars studying German universities, students, and cultural politics in general. Fietz's data tables are comprehensive and her research is meticulous. The issues raised also lay the foundation for a comparative analysis across a number of northern universities in order to bolster the conclusions offered in the present work.

If there is additional discussion of this review, you may access it through the network, at: https://networks.h-net.org/h-german.

Citation: Tracey J. Kinney. Review of Fietz, Jana, Nordische Studenten an der UniversitÖ¤t Greifswald in der Zeit 1815 bis 1933. H-German, H-Net Reviews. December, 2005.
URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=11283

Copyright © 2005 by H-Net, all rights reserved. H-Net permits the redistribution and reprinting of this work for nonprofit, educational purposes, with full and accurate attribution to the author, web location, date of publication, originating list, and H-Net: Humanities & Social Sciences Online. For any other proposed use, contact the Reviews editorial staff at hbooks@mail.h-net.org.