Word: sannwald
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Included in the discussion during the fall was the presence of the name of Adolph Sannwald on the south wall of Memorial Church. The plaque bears the inscription "enemy casualty...
...Sannwald was a visiting fellow at the Divinity School from 1924 to 1925, before being killed on the Russian front clad in the uniform of Hitler's SS troops...
...argument is that Harvard should memorialize Confederate soldiers because a Nazi soldier has been honored in Memorial Church. On the surface, this is the old but surely false "two wrongs make a right" argument. But closer inspection shows that the German whose name appears on the Church wall, Adolf Sannwald, was drafted against his will into the Nazi forces. He was a minister who opposed the Nazis and helped to shelter Jews. He tried to serve as a chaplain but was forced to carry out non-combatant jobs such as janitor and clerk...
...Sannwald was a special case--Harvard has not honored Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, a graduate student who planned the World War II attack on Pearl Harbor. It is reasonable to assume that Yamamoto will never be memorialized here, no matter how much time passes. And it is important to note that those who wish to honor the Confederate war dead do not claim that these men were special cases--that their actions are somehow justified by extenuating circumstances. Their proposed memorial would imply the opposite conclusion--that there was nothing wrong with fighting for the Confederacy...