Joint Declaration on Eduard Pestel from Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Universität Hannover and the German Technion Society

In recent years, Leibniz University Hannover has conducted a review of its predecessor institution, the Technische Hochschule Hannover, during the Nazi period. Peripherally to this work, documents from the Federal Archives in Berlin and the Hannover University Archives related to rectors at the Technische Hochschule Hannover after the Nazi period have been reviewed and compiled in a new publication: M. Jung, Verdrängte Vergangenheit: Nachkriegsrektoren der Technischen Hochschule Hannover in der NS-Zeit. (A repressed past: Post-war rectors from the Technische Hochschule Hannover during the Nazi period). Hannover History Papers 70 (2016)

Eduard Pestel (1914–1988) served as rector at the Technische Universität Hannover from 1969 to 1970 and the Lower Saxony minister for science and culture from 1977 to 1981. He spearheaded the 1982 reopening of the German Technion Society, founded by Albert Einstein in 1924 and banned during the Nazi period, which has since promoted academic cooperation between German and Israeli academics and scientists.

The investigations regarding the rectors have brought documents to light which prove that, from today’s perspective, Eduard Pestel behaved unacceptably during the Nazi period. As evidenced by his student and personnel files from the Technische Hochschule Hannover, where he studied civil engineering from 1935 to 1938, he had been a member of the Nazi students’ association and the Brownshirts since 1933 and also took on functions in these organisations. Towards the end of his studies, from 1938 to 1939, Eduard Pestel spent a year abroad at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) in New York state in the USA, at the end of which he received his Master’s degree. A letter from Pestel to the Technische Hochschule Hannover, which is attached to this declaration as an appendix, was found at the Hannover University Archives. Excerpts from the letter were forwarded by Rector Simons for circulation to the members of the Faculty of Civil Engineering. Thirteen members of the teaching staff signed the letter before it went back to Simons. The statements in the letter, and particularly in the document attached here, can only be viewed as anti-Semitic. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Universität Hannover and the German Technion Society emphatically reject these statements.

The conduct of Eduard Pestel that has come to light is confusing given his contributions after the Nazi period in Lower Saxony and beyond.  After completing his studies in the USA, Eduard Pestel worked at the German mission in Mexico and then in the economic department of the German embassy in Washington. Following a stay in Japan (1941–1947), Eduard Pestel undertook doctoral studies at the Technische Hochschule Hannover in 1947, and he completed his habilitation there in 1950. In 1953 he was appointed professor and subsequently headed the Institute of Mechanics at the Technische Hochschule Hannover. During this period he held important functions, including leadership roles in, for example, the NATO Science Committee, the Volkswagen Foundation, the German Research Foundation, the European Cultural Foundation, the Fraunhofer Society for Applied Research, and the Stifterverband for the German academic sector. Eduard Pestel became known to the broader public, including the international public, through the founding of the Club of Rome and the resulting publication of The Limits to Growth in 1972.

After taking up office as Lower Saxony’s minister of science and culture in 1977, Eduard Pestel ensured that funding for joint research projects involving researchers from Lower Saxony and Israel, which had previously been made available periodically from funds granted to the state by the Volkswagen Foundation, was expanded and made available on an ongoing basis. Until then only the Hebrew University of Jerusalem had participated in this Lower Saxony–funded cooperation. Due to his personal knowledge of the international renown of the engineers and natural scientists at the Technion - Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, Eduard Pestel arranged for Technion to be included in the state funding scheme. It is the oldest Israeli university, founded before World War One and opened in 1924 primarily due to the efforts of German Jews and with German-Jewish academics playing a leading role. He received an invitation to visit and travelled to Israel as minister in March 1981, where he announced in a speech to Technion Haifa’s leadership that he had decided to revive the German friends of Technion organisation that had existed in Berlin from 1924 to 1933 and had been led by Albert Einstein. This took place in 1982, after Pestel had left his post in the state cabinet.

The supporting organisation, named the Deutsche Technion-Gesellschaft (German Technion Society) and based in Hannover, was entered in the register of societies and Eduard Pestel was elected as its first chairperson, an office he held until his death in 1988 and which led him to take several trips to Israel. The founding members of the German Technion Society were 30 individuals whom Eduard Pestel was able to recruit as a result of his professional and personal connections. They included the heads of government in Lower Saxony, North Rhine-Westphalia and Bremen: Dr. Ernst Albrecht, Johannes Rau and Hans Koschnick. At Pestel’s invitation, the chairperson of the Association of Jewish Communities in Lower Saxony, Michael Fürst, has been a member of the board of the German Technion Society from its inception until today.

Regrettably, Eduard Pestel never publicly distanced himself from his sympathy for Nazi ideology during his time as a university student. However, his later, significant efforts in terms of academic relations with Israel – particularly with Technion in Haifa – can be interpreted as a conscious effort to distance himself from his earlier behaviour. The signatories endorse this assessment.

Hannover, 19 November 2016

Downloads

• Signed declaration (in German)
• Excerpt from a letter written by Eduard Pestel – 4 November 1938
• Michael Jung, "A repressed past :Post-war rectors from the Technische Hochschule Hannover during the Nazi period", Hannoversche Geschichtsblätter NF 70 (2016) (in German)

Contact information

Dr. Michael Jung
Institute of Didactics of Democracy
Leibniz University Hannover

Tel. +49 162 1346377
E-mail michaeljung@posteo.de