None of the university’s administrators deigned to participate in the recent event, organized by the David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies.
University of Oklahoma professor Stephen H. Norwood described how then-Columbia president Nicholas Murray Butler welcomed Nazi Germany’s ambassador, Hans Luther, to the campus in December 1933, sought amicable relations with Nazi-controlled German universities in the mid-’30s, and punished some Columbia students and faculty members who criticized his position towards the Nazis.
“It’s sad and ironic,” commented a conference organizer, “that Columbia was willing to send its representatives to a celebration at a Nazi-controlled university in 1936, but was not willing to send a representative to a meeting of historians who were discussing Columbia’s relations with Nazi Germany.”