Even prior to World War I, the academic elite in Germany felt that the international reputation of German universities and their academic degrees were being threatened by the growing number of foreign students in Germany. As a result, after 1918 the eligibility standards for the admission of foreigners to university studies were raised to such a degree that, during the 1920s, the number of foreign students in Germany actually decreased despite the rapidly growing international demand. During this time the flow of international student migration was increasingly directed toward France and the United States.
In this paper I argue that the loss of international attractiveness of the German university was not simply a political result of World War I but that the German academic elite also contributed actively to this situation through restrictive admissions policies for foreign students. Universities in Germany were central to the social reproduction of the academic elite, and the devaluation of the German universities was believed to be the result primarily of the devaluation of "cultural capital" (Pierre Bourdieu) in the form of university certification. The principle of social exclusivity within the German university system also was present in acceptance policies for foreign students, the price being increased isolation on the market of international demand for academic training.
During the academic year 1835-6 foreign students in Germany were still a relatively small group, numbering around 475.1 Of the approximately 260 non-German students at Prussian universities, only six came from countries outside of Europe.2 This changed in the second half of the century, most significantly due to the influx of American students. The number of students rose dramatically in the two decades preceding World War I, mostly as a result of ethnic discrimination and political persecution in Eastern Europe. During the period of inflation especially after the war, these numbers rose once again. Pre-World War I figures show some 7,000 to 8,000 registered foreign students; after 1918, there were over 15,000.
This radical increase after the turn of the century presented a challenge for German universities in several respects. The international demand for university education, which was growing at an uncontrollable rate, had to be reconciled with the complex structure of the German educational system and its strict eligibility requirements for university-level studies. The university administration enacted a series of measures that - beyond even the political effects of World War I - were specifically responsible for Germany losing its place as the most important destination of international student migration. By setting high admissions standards, the administration hoped to avoid the devaluation of the quality of German university studies if underqualified foreign students were admitted. Apart from the German language requirement, these standards were based entirely on the unique structure of the German system of education. The problem of determining international equivalents to German requirements, combined with the duration and difficulty of the admission process in Germany, caused German universities to lose their appeal for international students. Bureaucratic restrictions made it impossible to establish an alternative admissions policy based on individual talent and ability.
I examine these developments in three parts here. The first part deals with the increase in the number of international students at German universities since the early nineteenth century. The second focuses on the increasingly restrictive standardization of eligibility requirements for foreign students wanting to study at German universities. Finally, the third deals with international alternatives to the German model.
It is possible to trace the number of foreigners enrolled at universities in Germany as far back as the 1830s, enabling the researcher to reconstruct these developments over a long period of time. An analysis of the absolute figures shows that the highest rates of growth - aside from those of the inflationary period - were achieved in the last decade of the nineteenth century. (See Figure 1.)
Figure 1: Foreign students attending
universities and technical
colleges in Germany.
The largest increase in the number of foreign students was registered by the technical colleges, which around 1900 accepted about half of all foreign students and one-third in 1914. Another 1,000 foreign students enrolled at other institutions of higher learning after the turn of the century.4 A total of 7,500 foreign students attended German universities immediately prior to 1914. During the inflationary period there was a short-term increase to 15,000; in 1925 the total dropped back to the level of the pre-World War I era, between 7,000 and 8,000. From this point on - and not beginning after 1933 - this downward slide continued. By the summer semester of 1932, only 6,500 foreign students came to to study in Germany. This decrease in the absolute figures seems minimal in relation to the percentage of foreign students among the total number of students in Germany. This percentage remained constant at between 4 percent and 6 percent in the period from 1830 to 1880. Between 1890 and 1914 it doubled to approximately 10 percent. Nearly the same level was reached again in 1925. Only seven years later, however, by the summer semester of 1932, the percentage had fallen back to the pre-1880 average of a mere 5 percent. (See Figure 2.)
Figure 2: Ratio of foreign students
to the overall total of students
attending German institutions
of higher learning.
These fluctuations can be explained primarily by the enormous expansion of the German university system after the late nineteenth century. In the two decades preceding 1914 the total number of students doubled from 40,000 in 1895-6 to around 80,000 in 1914. Between the mid-1920s and the early 1930s the total rose from 90,000 to about 130,000.5 Therefore, the decline in the percentage of foreign students from 10 percent before 1914 to 5 percent around 1930 was the result of the growth of the university system. On the one hand, this growth was the result of certain demographic changes; on the other, it reflected the availability of university-level education to a broader proportion of society. Around the turn of the century only 10 in 1,000 19- to 23-year-olds were students. By 1920 the proportion had risen to 16.5 in 1,000, and in 1931 - after a temporary decline - the number had risen to 21.3 in 1,000.6
If foreign students in the years preceding World War I are classified according to nationality, it becomes clear that the largest groups - aside from those coming from neighboring Austria-Hungary and Switzerland - were from the United States and Russia. (See Figure 3.)
Figure 3: Ratio of students from Russia and the
United States to the overall total
of foreign students attending universities
and technical colleges in Germany.
In 1835-6 only one percent of all foreign students enrolled at German universities were American (four students).7 By the mid-1890s the percentage of Americans among foreign students had risen to 20 percent (ca. 400 students). This figure fell to a mere 5 percent (ca. 200 students) by 1910.8 The fluctuation in the number of American students was primarily the result of external circumstances. Carl Diehl attributes the decrease after 1870 to the fact that "most of the pioneers of the American university had been educated by then" and that "by that year several graduate schools had begun to compete with the German universities."9 Financial conditions should not be underestimated as a factor in the renewed increase in the number of American students in the mid-1890s. In 1889 "it was estimated that a year of study in Germany was cheaper by a third than a year at Hopkins, Harvard, or Cornell, and this estimate included the cost of travel."10
Beginning in the mid-1890s the frequency of Russian students studying in Germany surpassed that of the Americans. In the decade between 1895-6 and 1905-6 the number of Russians rose from 466 to 1,140, an increase of 250 percent. By the summer semester of 1914 this number had again doubled, to 2,206.11 Russian students made up nearly half of all foreign students at German universities in the summer semester of 1914, or 4.2 percent of the total number of students. (The foreign student total amounted to 7.9 percent of all students.) Russian students were mostly concentrated in medical and technical subjects. Of the approximately 2,000 Russian students enrolled for the academic year of 1911-12, more than half were studying medicine at larger German universities. (Russians accounted for 90 percent to 97 percent of all foreign students at the medical faculties in Breslau, Halle, Königsberg, and Leipzig; 80 percent in Heidelberg; 67 percent in Munich; and around 60 percent in Berlin, Freiburg, and Straßburg.) At the beginning of the century approximately 2,000 foreign students were enrolled at technical universities. Of this total, over 900 were Russian (46 percent). In 1914, 600 of a total of 2,400 foreign students were Russian (24 percent). In addition, during the inflationary period following World War I, the largest group of newly registered students were from Eastern European countries. This total fell from 2,200 to 250 in following years.12 The reasons for this drop off can be found, on the one hand, "in the impoverishment of the entire East due to war and inflation;" on the other hand, it was the result "above all . . . [of] the increased possibilities to pursue a university education - which had previously been attainable in Germany - at one of the recently established universities of the newly independent fringe states."13
An examination of the development of the worldwide total of foreign students shows an increase from approximately 20,000 to 70,000 between 1903-4 and 1931. Although these figures seem rather modest in comparison to those of the post-World War II era, the decisive changes in the international distribution of foreign students occurred before 1933. Most important, universities in France and the United States became more desirable destinations for students, whereas Germany's popularity fell. (See Figure 4.)
Figure 4: Distribution of foreign
students according to
major importing nations.
At the beginning of the twentieth century (1903-4) well over half of the 20,000 students studying abroad were found in German-speaking countries. Ten years later, just before the outbreak of World War I, the distribution was similar, with one-fourth of the 30,000 international students in Germany and another fourth in Switzerland and Austria. By 1931, however, Germany had lost its position as the leading destination for international students. One-fourth of all international students now went to France to study, and 15 percent were being drawn to the United States. Primarily students from the "most important countries of origin" (i.e., the United States, China, and Russia) had been lost by German universities. The estimated 10,000 Chinese students studying abroad had passed over Germany "almost without a trace."14
Breaking down the total of international students according to region of origin demonstrates that the stream of European students - in contrast to the prewar period - was now directed toward France. At 2,500, the number of European students in the United States already was half that of European students studying in Germany.15 Of the 23,000 to 25,000 students from Slavic countries, some one-third went to study in France, compared to only one-sixth who studied in Germany.16
The most important destination for Asian students was the United States, due to the scholarship program set up in the context of reparations payments for the Boxer Rebellion. In 1931 approximately 4,300 - almost half of all Asian international students - studied in the United States, around 2,000 studied in France and England, respectively, and only 400 studied in Germany.17
Based on absolute figures alone, the most decisive increase in the number of international students in Germany appears to have occurred in the last decade of the nineteenth century. The levels reached after the turn of the century were maintained - with minor fluctuations - through the 1920s. The drastic reduction in the number of foreigners studying in Germany after 1925 (from 10 percent to 5 percent) was the result of the national expansion of the university system. If the number of foreign students in Germany is viewed in comparison to the global total of international students, German universities seem to have begun losing their importance by 1914. It is in this context that I will examine the criteria under which the eligibility of foreign students for university studies in Germany was determined.
In order to address this issue properly, the particularities of the German educational system must be identified. Since the early nineteenth century, the upper secondary schools (Gymnasien) were directly associated with the universities through the Reifeprüfung (or Abitur), which was both the graduation examination of the Gymnasium and the main eligibility requirement for enrollment at a German university. Therefore, preparation for university studies began with the lower classes of the Gymnasium. These basic structural elements of the German educational system - upper secondary schools that are simultaneously a college-preparatory stage of the state-regulated public school system, ending with a final examination (the Reifeprüfung) at the secondary level that also serves as the eligibility requirement for enrolling in a university - were unique to Germany and had no equivalents in the educational systems of the countries from which foreign applicants came. In light of this fact, it is not surprising that the question of the equivalence of foreign forms of certification to the German Abitur remained largely "undefined and veritably without rule" until 1918.18 In Prussia, for example, there were regulations for the evaluation and acceptance of credit for foreign studies "especially in the field of medicine." But the decision as to whether non-Prussians were eligible to earn a doctoral degree from a faculty of philosophy based on their foreign educational qualifications was - in Göttingen, for instance - "left to the faculty."19
Differences in the structure of schools among the individual German states first gave rise to the question of the legitimacy and significance of the Reifeprüfung as the prerequisite for university enrollment. The mutual recognition of the Reifezeugnisse (qualifying certificates) of the Gymnasium by the states of the (future) German Empire was first achieved in the years 1868 and 1874.20
In Prussia "foreigners" without a Reifezeugnis could "enroll and register at any faculty" as long as their school education was "for the most part" equivalent to that of the middle certification level of the German Gymnasium.21 However, the "regulations of the individual universities" could also be enforced.22 In Berlin and Göttingen "the American and English B.A. or M.A. degrees" were considered to be equivalent to the Reifeprüfung.23 In 1914 the eligibility of foreigners in Prussia no longer was oriented around a middle certification level but upgraded to the Reifezeugnis-level of the nine-year Gymnasium.24
According to discussions held within the framework of German university conferences, the arbitrary and politically motivated decisions regarding eligibility and acceptance were at first directed against the growing number of Russian applicants. This was later augmented by concern about the declining international reputation of German universities, particularly due to an influx of insufficiently qualified American applicants.
After the 1890s growing numbers of "Russians, mostly of Polish-Galician-Jewish origin" flowed into German universities. Restricted "for the most part to medical or technical studies in their own country by the Russian civil servant laws," they had been "forced to leave the country by the numerus clausus and the pogroms."25 Their presence led to demonstrations "against the preferential treatment of foreigners" as well as to "strikes and boycotts" by German students at the technical universities.26 In a discussion of "methods of preventing excessive enrollment of troublesome foreigners" at the university conference of 1906, the Prussian representative argued that the intended measure requiring from foreign students a voucher for their means of subsistence would not amount to sufficient criteria for enrollment. "Especially" Russians should be allowed to enroll only "when they have a recommendation from a reliable German source."27 Accordingly, by 1908 such regulations were in effect at the universities in Breslau, Halle, and Königsberg.28
The issue of a numerus clausus for Russian students was discussed at the university conference of September 1913. The Foreign Ministry pointed out that such a regulation would be in violation of Article 1 of the German-Russian Trade Agreement of 1904, which stipulated that citizens of each country would have equal status in the other. In order to avoid a violation, a numerus clausus of 900, "not to be exceeded by any nation" was created for all universities combined: "Because only Russia is in excess of the numerus clausus, the implementation of the rule will be restricted to Russian students and will take the following form: The individual universities will be instructed to allow no further enrollment as long as the numbers of Russian students are in excess of the quota of 900."29 Although discussions over the large numbers of Russian students were primarily politically motivated, in the case of American students, concern over the international reputation of German universities played a central role.
In his 1908 commemorative paper Das amerikanische Institut (The American Institute), Hugo Münsterberg, that institute's future director, referred to "advising all German universities with regard to the previous education, course of study, and the evaluation of transfer credits of American students" as one of the institute's most important goals.30
That German interests are involved is a result of the fact that American students have repeatedly come to Germany and, after a few semesters, completed a German doctoral degree without having the same previous education that would be required for a doctorate in America. In this manner, the German doctorate has been highly discredited in America, and the destructive effects of this misuse can already be seen there. At the same time, the best students continuously shy away from coming to Germany for their doctoral examinations because they have found that they are not given sufficient credit toward their degree for their previous work at American universities.
The result is "that the exceptionally high reputation previously enjoyed by German universities in America is steadily declining."31
In his confidential report of 1911, Das Studium der Amerikaner an deutschen Hochschulen (The Study of Americans at German Universities), Münsterberg strengthened his criticism of the Americans' "stereotypical treatment" by the German system: "The younger generation of scholars that is today slowly moving into the [American] faculties are already among those who have been discouraged from studying in Germany. Perhaps they studied entirely in their homeland, perhaps they spent a few years in Paris or in Oxford, but it has already become dogma for them that the German doctoral degree is worthless, that academia in Germany has been lamed by pettiness and pedantry, and that the great academic stimulation stems from England and France, and most of all, from America."32 The appendix to this report featured a list of 533 colleges and universities, of which only 25 institutes "offered courses after the bachelor's degree that could be applied toward a doctorate at a German university." By contrast, over 322 institutes "awarded a bachelor's degree that was estimated to be about two years below the German leaving exams (Abiturientenexamen)."33
Münsterberg's system of classifying American universities was preceded by similar attempts made by German universities and the Prussian university administration shortly after the turn of the century. In 1903 the Prussian administration offered its assistance to the university conference in "developing a consistent rule for determining . . . which foreign schools are to be accepted as offering the same qualifications as the German nine-year Gymnasium, in the cases of foreigners or Germans educated outside of Germany."34 In the spring of 1905, following the example of the Bureau de Renseignements Scientifiques at the Sorbonne,35 the Prussian Ministry of Culture established the Auskunftsstelle für Immatrikulationsangelegenheiten von Ausländern. This agency had been preceded in the fall of 1904 by the Amtliche Akademische Auskunftsstelle an der Universität Berlin, which "served as an 'information center' for both German and foreign students regarding academic institutions in Germany and abroad." The Ministry of Culture had set up the Auskunftsstelle für höheres Unterrichtswesen as early as 1899, which after 1900 was directed by Prof. Dr. Ewald Horn and was changed, in 1906, to the Auskunftsstelle für Lehrbücher des höheren Unterrichtswesens.36
At the beginning of the twentieth century the "completely inconsistent and unchecked admission of annually increasing numbers of foreign students to the universities and technical institutes in the German Empire" served as the "impetus" toward efforts to "develop consistent guidelines for the admission of foreigners and surveying the eligibility requirements for foreign students in all the German states."37
With an ordinance from April 25, 1918, even before the wave of foreign applicants during the inflationary period, the Prussian Ministry of Science, Art, and National Education nullified all previous eligibility requirements and centralized the authority to decide on all admissions applications.38 In 1922 this authority was transferred to the newly formed Zentralstelle für das Studium der Ausländer in Preußen.39 The director of the agency, Karl Remme, first published his study Das Studium der Ausländer und die Bewertung der aus-ländischen Zeugnisse (Foreign Students' Studies and the Evaluation of Foreign Certificates) in 1929; a revised version appeared in 1932. The "fruit of thirteen years of research,"40 this study included a list of nations from Abyssinia to the United States in alphabetical order, with information concerning "the structure of the educational systems of each country and the evaluation of their certificates." In-depth case studies were included for some of the fifty-four countries listed.
The original goal of the study had been to compile of a sort of "registry of foreign certificates," including an "evaluation of every foreign institute whose graduates came to German universities." This "proved to be impossible, especially as a result of the drastic school reforms that took place following the war in many foreign countries."41 In 1924 the Prussian Ministry of Science, Art, and National Education "distanced itself from delivery of a catalogue of acceptable foreign certificates . . . . This sort of register cannot be compiled at the present time. Particularly the countries of Eastern Europe, which send the greatest number of students to German universities, have no orderly school and university systems," making a general evaluation of transcripts seem impossible.42
Remme's study was attached to the 1929 circular for the decentralization of the decision on foreign enrollment applications "for confidential official use"43 and was adopted by the other states of the German Empire.44 In the evaluation of foreign educational institutions Remme used the German school system as a standard. In six points, he summarized their structural principles as the "minimum requirements for the acceptance of the certificate of foreign higher schooling":
Examination of the educational systems of other countries shows that only very few countries were able to live up to these high standards.
Austria, Luxembourg, Sweden, and Switzerland are the only countries whose higher schools are of a type to be considered equivalent to those in Germany. Even in these countries, however, a complete nine-year course of study like the German system is not to be found.45
The certificates of foreign applicants were divided into four hierarchical groups. For this purpose, all types of certification were considered, not only graduation certificates. Although in each case the institutions were evaluated individually, this evaluation ignored their unique characteristics, subordinating them to a universalized German pattern. This resulted in a hierarchy of institutions that were artificially integrated into the German system. Each institution's certification was then classified according to the German standards and assigned to one of four groups.
Group I included certificates "from humanistic school programs", which were considered equivalent to the German Reifeprüfung. Also assigned to this group were certificates that qualified the holder for university level studies "in the respective country, only after the fulfillment of further conditions" (preparatory courses, etc.), as well as - in exceptional cases - certificates that were at a "significantly lower level than German Reifezeugnisse." In such cases at least one year of study in the country of origin, prior to enrollment in Germany, was required.
Into Group II fell such certificates requiring further preparation, as in Group I, in cases where the applicant had not completed the preparatory coursework required for German universities. In such cases, the student was allowed to enroll for two years on a probationary basis; the work done in this time would generally not be applied toward a degree.
Students in Group III were allowed restricted enrollment (as "auditors"; "limited to the faculty of philosophy"). This group included applicants from foreign vocational schools or with a middle- (average) level certificate. No credit was given for previous coursework. Before students were allowed to enroll with regular student status in Germany they would have to pass an entrance examination. Students assigned to Group II also had the opportunity to take such an examination instead of going through the probationary period.
Students assigned to Group IV had certificates that were considered to be equivalent to the German middle-level certificates. They were allowed only restricted enrollment and were required to pass the German Reifeprüfung before they could enroll as regular students. As in the case of applicants from Groups II and III, a short cut by way of the entrance examination was possible only in exceptional cases.46
The form and duration of foreign study had already changed drastically by the time this system of evaluation came into effect. "Lengthy foreign study, as had often been the case with Russian and American students in the prewar period," was replaced by "brief studies, over a few semesters."47 This had the effect that the position of German universities on the international market deteriorated. Most countries - "France, England, Spain, the United States, and South American countries"48 - had university systems with a concrete curriculum and examinations for which there was no parallel in Germany. This meant that it was hardly possible to integrate studies in Germany into the education of foreign students "without significantly increasing the length of their studies." In these countries, "credit was not automatically awarded for German coursework and examinations, due to the extreme differences to their own requirements." Foreign students were often required to complete a first degree in their home country in order to be eligible to study at a German university, where it was possible that they would only be accepted on a "guest" or "audit basis."49 Especially in light of the relatively unstructured curriculum and the low number of required credits, the German system seemed hardly compatible internationally. By contrast, the organizational similarities of the systems in the other countries must have contributed to the development and stability of international student migration among them.
In spite of the growing international demand and the decreasing numbers of foreign students in Germany, the German university administrations responded with increasingly restrictive regulations for the eligibility of foreign applicants.
In his report Die Studenten im internationalen Kulturleben (Students in International Cultural Life) from 1927, Reinhold Schairer, a lawyer and head of the German Student Organization, interpreted patterns of student migration as the effect of the discrepancies in the development of university systems in different countries. He distinguished between four groups of countries. The first group consisted of "the major cultural countries with fully developed university facilities, such as Germany, England, France, and the United States." The second group included "smaller countries whose systems were developed to a similar degree, such as Belgium, Spain, and Switzerland." These countries seemed to be dependent on foreign study, due to deficits in certain areas of specialization in their own systems or in regard to the great diversity of the universities of the countries of the first group. The last two groups were composed of "areas whose systems of higher education had not yet been fully developed or were at the very beginning of their development, such as China, Korea, or Russia."50 Schairer estimated that the circa 40,000 international students worldwide in 1927 were distributed among these four groups as follows: 10 percent of international students were from countries with highly developed university systems (first group); 20 percent were from countries whose university systems were fairly developed but not sufficiently differentiated (second group); and 70 percent were from countries of the third and fourth groups. According to Schairer's calculations, there were potentially 28,000 foreign students from countries with relatively undeveloped university systems.51
Expectations that German universities could recruit a large segment of this group were made obsolete by the admissions policies of the universities and the Prussian university administration. In 1925 the Department of Philosophy at the University of Berlin distributed a commemorative text on the subject of the Immat-rikulationsprüfungen (Ergänzungsprüfungen) (supplementary entrance examinations), which had been introduced in the winter semester of 1922-3. With an emphasis on the higher standards set for foreign applicants after the war,52 it was noted that "all" foreigners who registered to take the entrance examinations would "previously have been accepted for full enrollment and doctoral examinations."53 After the centralization of the application and admissions process following the war, "half of the applicants had been rejected due to insufficient educational background." In order to qualify for the Ergänzungsprüfung students had to have an educational background that was equivalent or nearly equivalent in at least a few subjects to the German Reifeprüfung. A desire to study in Germany or even such certification as made an applicant eligible for university study in his or her own country was not enough. In contrast to the relatively open and unregulated eligibility and admissions practices of the prewar period, the examination served "not as a relief, but as an obstacle" to the admission process.54 The survey of the supplementary entrance examinations from the time between the 1922-3 winter semester and that of 1931-2, which was attached to the text, shows that under the new system over half of the foreign applicants were eliminated. Of almost 1,800 applicants, only 1,210 were admitted to take the examination. A mere 840 of these passed.55
With the consequence that "half of the applicants were rejected due to insufficient educational background," the introduction of the entrance examinations after the war led to "difficulties in diplomatic relations with representatives of the applicants' countries of origin."56 Whereas the faculty in Berlin wanted to avoid politicizing the question of whether the school education of other countries was the equivalent to the German Reifeprüfung at an international level, the problem of eligibility became the heated subject of domestic political discussions only a few years later.
In a November 1930 Grundsätzliche Stellungnahme zur Immatri-kulation von Ausländern mit minderer Vorbildung (General Statement on the Enrollment of Foreigners with Lesser Educational Backgrounds), the Prussian Ministry of Science, Art, and National Education took a stand against the "unconditional or insufficiently demanding admission" of foreigners in general, "or also of Germans from outside of Germany."57 The minister explained that it is "clear . . . that a talented foreigner . . . in spite of an educational background that is inferior to that gained at a higher German school, could often be successful at a German university." However, the same could also be said "for some talented pupils in the last year or two of the German Gymnasium." If the standards of the Abitur were to be compromised by the evaluation of the eligibility of foreigners, the universities would have to "defend themselves against claims that a nine-year Gymnasium education as preparation for university studies goes too far." The universities would only be able to argue "that the educational background gained in German higher schools" was still beneath "the level demanded by the universities," to which opponents would then have no more "conclusive argument" than that "Chinese, Turks, Argentinians, Egyptians, and Romanians, with inferior educational backgrounds, . . . are in any case more suited for university studies than the Germans." Therefore, "for the sake of order," the differences in educational background among foreign students and Germans had to be evened out. The ministry recommended the "entrance examination" as a method of "facilitating" (!) the "transition" into the German system.58
A comparison of these comments to a statement from "university circles," published in the Vossische Zeitung in 1901, illustrates the postwar injection of ideology into the initially pragmatic debate over the question of foreign student eligibility. The author of the 1901 statement pointed out that the type of educational background required for university studies had "completely different implications for foreigners than for Germans." In the case of German students - "aspiring to all leading positions" - the standards of the "Reife" should not be relaxed in any way. In the case of foreign students, however, these interests became obsolete. It was not necessary "to guarantee that they are getting full benefit of the lectures. The high admissions standards regarding educational background would only function as a protective measure" in order to reserve limited laboratory space for German students. However, in the liberal arts and the humanities, this argument could not be upheld: "I was not aware that foreign students could steal the words of the professor before they could reach the ears of the natives!" The author also considered the "issue of space" to be such a "petty detail that it cannot be discussed seriously."59
Schairer's arguments in 1930 were much more farsighted than those made by the ministry in that same year. According to Schairer, the "strict principles" for the admission of foreigners appeared to be "involuntary in practice . . . in favor of visitors to universities of other countries. A more liberal and above all simpler and faster processing of applications . . . without lowering the standards of final examination requirements is strongly recommended by many friends of German universities in this country and abroad."60 With respect to the "strict admission standards," Schairer pointed out that, on the one hand, particularly foreign applicants from countries with underdeveloped school systems failed to qualify under the high standards. On the other hand, it was precisely these applicants who were "likely to be called to positions of great responsibility in their own country some day - life does not always follow school records." The chance would be missed, "in these formative years of development" (it was the absence of fully developed school and university systems in these countries that made enrollment for study in Germany difficult if not impossible), to win "men and women who would later have a great influence on the fate of their country and the school systems there . . . for a thorough education at a German university."61
In light of the fact that other countries, motivated by reasons of foreign and cultural policy, had since the turn of the century begun to make their universities more open to foreign students, Schairer's considerations came too late.
France and England had already "recognized the great influence which American students in Germany [in the nineteenth century] had on the intellectual development of their own country." In England, "the previously unknown degree of Doctor of Philosophy was introduced at Oxford, Cambridge, and Londonā for the benefit of foreigners, especially Americans. The purpose of the Doctorat de l'Université in France is the same. The numbers of Americans in attendance at European universities delivered the numerical proof for the impact of these measures."62
As early as 1897, "purely academic doctoral and other university degrees" that were "primarily directed at foreign students" were introduced in France.63 Through differentiation between the new academic degrees and the normal official degrees, it was possible to offer foreign students academic qualifications that were internationally prestigious without resulting in a rivalry with French graduates.
With the usual inscription at the state universities a strictly regimented course of study was initiated, the successful completion of which was rewarded by an official state degree. This state degree was also "a license for the practice of medicine, law, or to teach at state higher schools." Aside from the fact that foreigners were required to have the same certificates (or officially accepted equivalents) as French students, they were "only seldom or not at all" able to fulfill the demands of these courses of study.64 The "new university degrees," which were decidedly different from the official state degrees, "carried with them no official license, only a title, as is customary in Germany."65 In this way, "the rights and interests of our own students remain intact," without losing the foreign "customers."66 In addition to the inscription, the French regulation from 1897 called for an "Immatrikulation, which would give students not intending to complete a [state] degree the eligibility to study."67 The requirements of these new university degrees were considered to be "not at all minimal, but of a nature that could easily be fulfilled by foreigners."68
After World War I, European countries began courting American students in particular. The Americans, however, mostly recruited Chinese students. At the beginning of the twentieth century the American government had returned $12 million worth of indemnity payments for the Boxer Rebellion to the Chinese government, under the condition that this money be used to finance 400 scholarships annually for selected Chinese students to study in the United States. Since that time, the scholarship recipients had brought "an even larger number of free students with them."69 In 1931 over 4,200 Asians were studying in the United States - almost half of all Asian students studying abroad.
An American report from the 1920s - a follow-up study in modern terminology - documented the success of this strategy. Statistics compiling data from 400 colleges for the academic year 1923-4 show 6,988 students, arranged according to subject of study and nationality. Of the 1,467 Chinese students in the United States, approximately one-third studied liberal arts and another third focused on either engineering or commerce.70 After returning to their own country, 282 of 882 total former students surveyed were working in educational professions; among these were 156 Philippinos and 57 Chinese. Of the 76 former students pursuing careers in business, 39 were Chinese.71
The Soviet Union also was active in recruiting foreign students. "The Russian strategy conformed to Western methods to such a degree that, according to American reports, Karachan, the Russian ambassador to China, recently collected the outstanding payments to Russia in the context of the Boxer reparations and donated the entire sum to Chinese students. This money was intended to enable them to travel to Moscow to study at the Sunyatsen University, newly established under the direction of Radek, at which 600 Chinese students were presently enrolled (in partial imitation of the American Boxer payment gesture)."72 Schairer further explained that "a large number of them . . . were recipients of scholarships from the governor of Canton." Their numbers were to be further increased because "a great number of the sons of the leaders of the Chinese liberation movement were presently studying in Moscow." Similar institutions could be found at other locations in the Soviet Union. In this context, a "strong propaganda" was developed "against Chinese students visiting American universities, and especially for the rejection of American scholarships, on the grounds that attendance at a Russian university was much more important and valuable."73
Aside from this emerging politicization of the recruitment of foreign students, the increasingly self-centered admissions policy for foreign students at German universities after the turn of the century made recruiting difficult among the growing numbers of foreign students. During the nineteenth century eligibility regulations had been relatively open and undefined, focused on foreign equivalents to German certificates and favoring an individual evaluation of the educational background of foreign applicants. After 1900 these were replaced by standards based on comparisons to the unique structural principles of the German system of higher schools. As a result, these structures were artificially "universalized." The German model, in which the function of German higher schools lay specifically in the preparation and qualification of pupils for university study, was used as the standard for evaluation of the educational systems of other countries.
According to a cross-referenced chart for the summer semester of 1931, in which 5,730 university students from 29 European countries (excluding the Soviet Union) were divided into 34 areas of study, only 7 of the 986 charted fields show more than 100 students from the same country studying in the same subject.74 In over 99 percent of the cases there are less than 50 - and often less than 20 - foreign students per nationality per subject. With the exception of the medical subjects, which were in high demand, the distribution is random. These results were echoed in the distribution of 1,537 students from 33 non-European countries.75 The admissions policy of German universities, with its strict adherence to the structure of the German school system, cannot be legitimized on the basis of this empirical distribution. It would have been more logical to place more emphasis on the aptitude of foreign students in a specific discipline as a criterion for admission and to pay less attention to the structural equivalency of the institutions from which applicants were coming. This type of individualized admissions policy, with more importance given to the evaluation of applications by academicians, would have increased the objectivity of the process. In light of the alternatives, it seems in fact "questionable . . . whether the decision as to where and to what extent material differences [in the educational background of foreign applicants as opposed to Germans] were to be taken into consideration or compensated for" was traditionally "to a large degree reserved for the administrative bureaucracy, whereas the authority of the universities in this matter was significantly restricted."76
The considerable growth in the number of foreign students at German universities during the prewar period was obviously not solely based on the good reputation of German universities. Especially Eastern European students came to Germany to escape political persecution and ethnic discrimination. Regardless of their scientific qualifications, they were soon subjected to discrimination as "troublesome foreigners." Following political discrimination, in the 1920s a bureaucratic systematization of admissions policies based on the standards of the German system was undertaken. In the international context, these unique standards were hardly compatible.
The origins of the subsequent marginalization of German universities on the international market of academic study can also be traced to the expansion of German universities in the Weimar Republic. In the course of the Weimar-era school and university reforms, the Germany university system was successively opened up to new social groups, including women. At the end of the 1920s the German academic elite complained of the "overfilling" of universities. The restrictive admissions policies for foreigners can be directly related to this issue. The governmental centralization of the admissions process provided an important indicator that, with regard to foreigners, politics were oriented on the interests of a German elite. Instead of entrusting the faculties and professors with the admissions of foreign students, these decisions were made at a central government level. Rather than focusing on individual scientific aptitude, the criteria for the evaluation of foreign certificates were oriented strictly on their equivalency to the structural organization of the German educational system, and therefore on the logic of social selection and exclusion.