Not Everyone Gets to be Adorno

Consider the lifespan of German-Jewish refugees who wandered out into the far stretches of the American university system to land in places they had never imagined before fleeing Vienna or Munich.  Most never managed to return after the war.  Not everyone gets to be Adorno.

Their biographies are often quite sparse. They are historical figures who have not managed the leap over the digital divide.  They lived too far back in the twentieth century to now be included in Google.  Yet there is something quite poignant in the short biographies that do appear online.  Take Leo Hertel’s life as described by the North Dakota State University library:

“Leo Hertel was born on April 7, 1902 in Schwerin on the Warthe, Germany. He obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Munich in 1928 and married Elsa Alletzhauser in 1932. Before coming to North Dakota State University (NDSU), Dr. Hertel worked as a professor at Dakota Wesleyan University from 1934-1936 and Franklin College from 1936-1952. He took two years off from teaching to work as a civilian employee of the United States Office of Strategic Services from 1944-1945. From 1952-1972, Hertel was the editor for the North Dakota Institute for Regional Studies publication program, as well as a professor at NDSU. In 1969, he was presented with the Doctor of Service Award from the Blue Key Fraternity. Leo Hertel died on April 10, 1979 in St. Paul, Minnesota.”

The names and dates strung together form the recognizable pattern of a German Jew fleeing Nazi anti-Semitism almost immediately after Hitler came to power.  What currents had him land in North Dakota?  What kept him there for the rest of his life?  What secret work did he perform during the war?  The curious local honors of Midwest American life seem to define his post-war life—so very quiet in comparison to the first 43 years. 

Hertel was by no means the exception.  Many German-Jewish academics remained where they had first found shelter and continued teaching for another thirty years.  Why return to a bombed out continent when you could own a house in the middle of the US?  But surely there are dozens of other explanations, and they would be well worth hearing.