Word: sannwald
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...expunging of the name of Adolf Sannwald from the plaque in Memorial Church is a strikingly ill-considered action. If the plaque is to be a nationalist memorial and so honor only those who happened to fight on our side in the war, it should still not dishonor those on the other. To attempt now to remove the name from the plaque, besides being absurdly expensive and detrimental to the appearance of the plaque, would not merely cease to honor Adolf Sannwald, but would actively dishonor him. A very minor error has been committed. Why spend money merely to make...
...question, Adolf Sannwald, attended the Divinity School in 1924 and 1925. Taken into the Nazi army as a chaplain in January 1942. Sannwald was killed June 3, 1943 on the Russian front. His name has been included in all University casualty lists since 1946, when Harvard learned of his death...
Apparently there was never any discussion of the inclusion of Sannwald's name, although this action was in contradiction to the University's policy in the World War I memorial plaque...
...that was the University's purpose, why did the Corporation approve the inclusion of the name of Adolf Sannwald, a chaplain killed in the service of the German Army? Whatever were Sannwald's motives for fighting in the Nazi cause, it is obvious that he was not defending in any way the principles of freedom that have so nourished Harvard. As long ago as 1934, President Conant rebuked a high Nazi official, Ernst F.S. Hanfstaengl '09, by refusing his offer of a gift because it was "so closely associated with the leadership of a political party which has inflicted damage...
...philosophy it is used. Not only is this a dubious rationale, but it brings the question of motives into the issue. There can be no answer to this question, for who can tell whether a soldier fought and died because he was patriotic, or because he was drafted? Chaplain Sannwald may have been motivated by religious principles which demanded that he minister to all those in need, rather than by love of country. It is sentimentality to construct a memorial plaque on the mere assumption that all those whose names are listed died out of patriotism...