German-/Austrian-origin professors of German in British universities during the First World War: the lessons of four case studies

The treatment received during the First World War by four German-/Austrian-origin Professors of German at four different higher-education institutions in England and Wales is considered, looking at how their fates were determined both by factors within their institutions and also externally by the relevant apparatuses of the local and national state. These are Julius Freund at Sheffield, Albert Wilhelm Schüddekopf at Leeds, Robert Charles Priebsch at University College London, and Carl Hermann Ethé at University College of Wales Aberystwyth. The rather different fates of each are explained using a number of criteria, including their history of naturalization, their support among their academic colleagues, the strength of local feeling concerning their continued employment by their institution, the role of their institution’s governing body, and whether or not the local municipality had significant control over their institution’s finances. It is concluded that, for each case, a different and aleatory individual factor largely determined his fate, thus vitiating any general explanatory principle that might have been derived from a comparative analysis of the respective situations.