Word: sannwald
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After his short but successful stint at Harvard, Sannwald returned to Germany to be a pastor and professor. In 1931, he published a book on the philosophy of German idealism that made its way back to Harvard, but by 1936, the University had lost touch with...
...years later, in a letter written by friend and colleague Martin C.R. Grabau ’23, the University received word that Sannwald, having been drafted into the German army in 1942, had been killed on the Russian front. There is no definitive explanation of the circumstances of his death. Just what role he had in the Nazi army remains a mystery to this...
...Alumni Bulletin of December 1951 states that Sannwald was drafted as a “common soldier.” But Saltonstall Professor of History Charles S. Maier, a World War II historian, suggests that a 34-year-old with five children would not have been drafted as a common soldier, but most likely as a pastor...
Chaplain to Harvard College and Assistant Minister in The Memorial Church Mark D. W. Edington offers his own theory. He calls Sannwald “a conscientious objector [who was] sent as a medic in the eastern front…where he perished. That was the whole idea of sending him there, I imagine.” The letter from Grabau also claims that Sannwald may have been an objector and that drafting him was a convenient way of getting...
This casts Sannwald as a martyr, a dissenter who deserves to be commemorated. Early letters indeed indicate that he was flatly opposed to the Nazi regime. But there is no conclusive evidence that this was why he died...