A variation on forced migration: Wilhelm Peters (Prussia via Britain to Turkey) and Muzafer Sherif (Turkey to the United States)

ABSTRACT

In 1933 the Turkish Republic formally offered university positions to 30 German-speaking academics who were dismissed with the coming to power of the National Socialist Government. That initial number went up to 56 with the inclusion of the technical assistants. By 1948 the estimated total had increased to 199. Given renewable five-year contracts with salaries substantially higher than their Turkish counterparts, the foreign émigrés were to implement the westernization program of higher education. The ten year-old secular Turkish Republic’s extensive social reforms had encompassed the adoption of the Latin alphabet, and equal rights for women, removing gender bias in hiring. Such a high concentration of émigré academics in one institution, “the highest anywhere in the world,” provides a unique opportunity to study a subject which has been neglected. In this article two cases in psychology will be examined: Wilhelm Peters (1880–1963), who came, via Britain, to Istanbul in 1936 from the University of Jena in Germany, and Muzafer Sherif (1906–1988) who went to the United States from Ankara University in 1945. The purpose of the comparative analysis is to identify the features that are specific to the German experience, and those that are shared and underlie translocation in science within the multifaceted complexity of the process of forced migration.

KEYWORDS:

• University reform
• cultural transfers
• émigré neuropathologists
• forced migration
• Wilhelm Peters (1880–1963)
• social psychology
• Muzafer Sherif (1906–1988)
• neuroscience
• Turkish Republic
• Frederick Golla
• Phillip Schwartz
• race psychology
• Maudsley
• German émigrés
• Cyril Burt
• Fluegel
• Carolyn Wood Sherif

Notes

¹ One of the key scholars who has extensively publicized the subject in numerous books and articles is Arnold Riesman.

² My own interest in the subject had long been gestating since my encounter, as a graduate student in Bloomington, Indiana, with Felix Michael Haurowitz (1896–1987), the distinguished biochemist and Fellow of the American Academy of Science, who had survived the war years at the University of Istanbul in Turkey and continued his close academic and personal ties with the country. In a more recent past, at a commemorative meeting held at Istanbul Medical School, I became aware of the extensive role of the “German-Physicians in Turkey (1933–48)” (see also Reisman, 2008). A further stimulus was the personal account of a descendent, a psychiatrist in Geneva, Switzerland, the initial starting point of the exiled émigrés who took up academic posts at the University of Istanbul on the official invitation of the Turkish Republic. The discovery of a letter by Albert Einstein, addressed to the Turkish Prime Minister in 1933, unfolded another layer (Reisman, 2006). Subsequently, an invited lectureship, sponsored by Public Partnership & Outreach, Office of the Provost, at Texas A&M University in 2014, provided an additional opportunity to present my findings and analysis within the context of Turkey’s Higher Education Reforms, involving specifically the biomedical and brain sciences. Two specific cases are presented here in this article.

³ The following discussion is based on the unpublished correspondence in the Bodleian Library Archives between Wilhelm Peters, the British Academic Assistance Council (ACC), and the British Home Office during a period from October 26, 1934 to October 3, 1936. Despite gaps, there is sufficient detail to gain a clear picture of Peters’ experience in Britain. This is not an exhaustive research on Peters or his stay in Britain, but highlights what is relevant to the overall theme of this special issue. (Henceforth, it will be cited as AAC-W. Peters, 1934–1936).

⁴ In fact, some of those who were able to remain seem to have shifted their careers accordingly to clinical areas (Carlebach, et al., 1991; U. H. Peters, 1996).

⁵ Frederick Golla had a distinguished record. He was elected president of the neurology and psychiatry section of the Royal Society of Medicine, president of the Electroencephalographic Society, and of the Society for the Study of Addiction. He was also a member of the Royal Medico-Psychological Association. In 1937, he was appointed professor of mental pathology at the University of London, as well as conducting important clinical studies (histological, chemical, and electro-physiological) at Maida Vale Hospital. Thus, Golla was influential having both academic status and financial security (see Jones, Rahman, & Woolven, 2007).

⁶ In the “General Articles and News Section” of May 30, 1936, the British Medical Journal has the following on the East London Child Guidance Clinic: “This clinic held a demonstration of work and methods of treatment with diagrams, and statistics at the Jews’ Free School on May 18th on its value to the child patients and to the community at large, (Lecture), with delinquent children, importance of understanding the relation of mind/body, and behavior and adaptation to their surroundings to enhance a new understanding of the child and mental problems by society” (Anonymous, 1936, p. 1123).

⁷ A statement in Peters’ correspondence that the ”Secretary of State does not raise any objection to Dr. W. Peters engaging in research work at UCL“ suggests an application for rather than an on-going work. See AAC File-W. Peters (1934 November 8).

⁸ AAC File:W. Peters (October 26, 1934–October 29, 1935).

⁹ For the Maudsleys’ involvement with eugenics and the related psychiatric treatments, see Mazumdar (2005).

¹⁰ AAC File:W. Peters (October 26, 1934–October 29, 1935).

¹¹ AAC File:W. Peters (September 23, 1936).

¹² Burt’s correspondence at University College archives may reveal whether or not he had any role in the selection of Peters’ employment. The opening of the London Child Guidance Clinic in Islington in 1927 was largely due to the influence of Burt’s 1925 publication, The Young Delinquent. He had carried out his child guidance work as Professor of Educational Psychology in 1924 at the London Day Training College, a teacher-training college, associated with the University of London (Aldrich, 2002). Peter was familiar with Burt’s work.

¹³ AAC File: W. Peters (September 23, 1936).

¹⁴ The number of psychologists and psychiatrists who came to Turkey was very small in comparison with medicine and other disciplines. Peters is the only psychologist listed (Widman, 1973) out of 120 émigré psychologists, with the majority (80) going to the USA (Ash & Soellner, 1996). There were, however, psychiatrists, such as Edith Weigert (1894–1982) in Ankara who subsequently flourished in the USA. See Holmes (2010).

¹⁵ Peters does not describe the actual obligations in his contract. In the first three years, he could conduct his lectures in a foreign language, then switch to Turkish and write a textbook on psychology. He was also required to educate schoolteachers, give additional public lectures and help develop cultural institutions in areas related to psychology and pedagogy. His salary was set, although not comparable to that of his colleagues in medicine and the sciences. Upon his complaint of its inadequacy, it was rectified based on his position as “Institute Director.” He was also provided with health insurance (W. Peters, 1949; Doelen, 2007; 2010). With the salary raise, he was able to bring his family: his wife, his daughter, and his son, Georg, who completed his medical degree at Istanbul Medical School under the tutelage of the German-speaking medical faculty in 1943, and worked in Turkey until 1947 (Batur, 2002).

¹⁶ Prior to Wilhelm Peters, Mustafa Şekip Tunç (1866–1958), educated at the J. J. Rousseau Institute in Switzerland, is regarded as the founder of psychology at Istanbul University. In 1919, he had published a translation of Hermann Ebbinghaus’ (1850–1909) “Psychologie.” His main interest was in Henri Bergson (1859–1941) and Sigmund Freud (1856–1939), not in experimental psychology (Toğrol, 1987). Peters (1944) subsequently appraised him, however, of introducing psychological terminology.

¹⁷ Courses in developmental and educational psychology, testing and measurement were already being offered at the Teacher Training Institute in Ankara in 1923 (W. Peters, 1952a).

¹⁸ In supporting psychology at institutions of teacher colleges psychologists viewed it as a chance to get professorships as well as teacher training (Geuter, 1992).

¹⁹ His former student, who went on to Stanford and Cambridge for her training in psychology, recalls that “Peters was quite advanced in years, but an extremely intelligent and knowledgeable scientist; somewhat broken down and embittered by the experiences of his life. From time to time he would open up, and relate rather negative anecdotes about various colleagues. In all these conversations, however, the single exception for whom he could not find adequate words of praise, was M. Turhan, who was away in England at the time, completing his second PhD. Only those who knew Peters would appreciate the significance of such praise coming from him” (Toğrol, 1987; author’s translation).

²⁰ None of the reasons were based on anti-Semitism or pertained to Peters’ being Jewish. The émigré academics were perceived as “foreign guests” and “exemplary Europeans” and were not categorized as Jews (Konuk, 2012, pp. 121–150). The rise of anti-Jewish developments in Turkey in the 1930s and 1940s have been attributed to nationalist and Turkification policies. They were distinguished from the European anti-Semitism (see Çağatay 2006).

²¹ To raise the desperately needed funds is put forth as one of the major reasons for the tax on minorities who constituted the wealthy middle class. The indiscriminate application across the board without consideration of the level of income led to the injustice with tragic consequences (Shaw, 2002).

²² The experiences were complex. The memoirs relate both positive and negative reminisces and the gap between their expectations and the reality of with what they had to deal. The majority left after the war for the United States. Some stayed on and were buried in Istanbul, or given Turkish citizenship, and some would have liked to stay on but left for various reasons for the United States, including university education for their children (see Konuk, 2012; Widmann, 1973).

²³ This is also validated by the confidential report of the American Ambassador, J. van Antwerp McMurray (July 14, 1936): “It is understood that strong advocates and protectors of the professors exist in high circles in Ankara, and that any complaints which are made against them fall on deaf ears in the Capital” (see Riesman, 2006, p. 264).

²⁴ In 1944 Peters’ work on race psychology, which was wriitten in 1932, was published in Turkish as the State of Race Psychology Today. In the Foreword, the importance of Peters’ book, and the translator’s objectives in publishing it are described in similar terms to those of Sherif (see Fig. 16). Responding to the public criticism of his Irk Psikolojisi [Race Psychology, 1943] by Mustafa Sekip Tunc (1886–1956), former chair of psychology at the University of Istanbul, Sherif stated: “Racial superiority is a foreign import. If it had not appeared in my country, ‘Race Psychology’ would not even have occurred to me. I am a social psychologist, as you know. . . If I have [with my book] succeeded in at least revealing the disgusting and evil true face of the advocacy of racial superiority, I would have served the intellectual life of my country. An advanced nation’s views on human rights and values cannot be built on a falsehood” (author’s translation).

²⁵ Sherif was served with a warrant of arrest in deportation proceedings, charged with illegal extention of stay (FBI files, April 11, 1951). Released on conditional parole, his deportation was suspended (May 13, 1952) because of “serious economic detriment,” and his 7 years of residence in the United States. See Batur S: Muzafer Sherif in FBI Files. In Goezkan AD, Keith DS (2015, chap. 4).

²⁶ His publications exceed 24 books and 60 articles. Much of his work, as a research professor of psychology at the University of Oklahoma, and later a distinguished professor of sociology at Pennsylvania State University, was jointly conducted with his wife, Carolyn (Koslin & Sills, 1979). In addition to his numerous honors between 1966–1978 for Distinguished Scientific Contribution in Psychology, he was the first ever to receive the Cooley-Mead Award for “substantial and lasting contributions to social psychology, particularly from a sociological perspective” (Harvey, 1989, p. 1329).